Map Updating. What a Nightmare!

[Andy_P]

I suspect your replies were flagged as needing moderation was because they were becoming close to "trolling"

I'm about to download SEVERAL TomTom maps for various devices. Yes I will expect it to take some time, but that's the nature of the task.
You still seem unable to grasp the fact that It;'s a big download because it's a big map, is that so hard to understand?

And that hundreds or thousands of people in the UK can happily download files of that size and do so all the time even on fairly slow connections.

Just because YOU can't (because of your particular issues) how can you blame TomTom? (or Garmin or any other company for that matter?)

And you now seem to have changed your complaint from the fact you have to download the files to the fact they are that size at all. Yes.. 5 whole CDs
Wow...
Never heard of DVDs?

 

[canderson]

I also wonder why you have quoted "3" Broadband access?
What's that got to do with anything?

As a moderator, I am able to determine your IP address and the owner of that address from here. That's where it tracks back to. Who IS your ISP? I'm not seeing time metered service in your area - only volume metered.

 

[Zelopes]

Hi Canderson, Andy!

I'm back in Portugal and I happened upon this thread, which seems to be dealing with a problem similar to the one I had mentioned while discussing the issue of the Safety Camera updates, if you recall.

Well, I gave up on the Safety Camera issue, because this feature is not available in Portugal and I think I can resign myself to not have it during the time I spend in the US.

Now, about the issue raised here by Kenneth, I had mentioned it already and, if I recall correctly, someone suggested that no one in these discussions would be able to provide any solution and what I should do was to contact TT technical support directly.

And that's exactly what I have done, as soon as I got back from the States. As I mentioned before, this issue translates to me as a unusually long time to INSTALL any tiny MapShare or satellite position updates, just a few dozen kbs in size. The download finishes almost instantly and then the installation starts. It runs fine for the first few seconds until reaching 40% completion and 12 seconds left on the clock. Then it stops there and takes about 40 to 45 minutes before the green bar gets to the end, the percentage reads 100% complete and the clock shows 0 seconds left...

This is my complaint and I brought to the attention of TT, which in a fashion similar to the Safety Camera issue, seems to go beating around the bushes and never answer clearly and straightforwardly to my simple questions.

And what frustrates me most is that when I asked if this was an issue that was exclusive to me or if any other TT users had complained about the same or similar issue. And they answered NO, they had no knowledge of any complaints of this kind!!!!...

I would have to be terribly hard pressed to believe they are speaking the truth... But fine! This may the way business goes nowadays. It just shocks me that TomTom condones such a short-sighted approach to be followed within their Customer Service. They seem to have grossly unprepared people replying to customer questions. But this may be just my impression...

Anyways, on a previous message from a different CS representative, I had been told that "MapShare updates may take up to 3 hours, due to a service problem"... Then, when I asked for clarification about what that meant, and if there were any steps being taken by TomTom to address whatever problem that was, the reply came (apparently) from a different representative who followed the "beat around the bushes" approach to just avoid answering my simple questions.

I suggested that the issue MAY BE related to the MyDrive Application, which has had an update a couple of months ago (and my issues seem to have started at that time) and I also had a funny issue while installing the last free Map Update for North America, just a couple of days ago; as for the first issue, they simply ignored it; as for the second one, the answer was also a non-explanation, but I do not want to extend this message too much, so I'll stop here.

In summary, at this stage of the game, as a long time customer of TomTom's, I can't help but feeling increasingly disenchanted with the company and its customer service and this only means I will probably never buy another GPS from them. Doesn't mean I will be free from the same or similar headaches, but hey! one has to try first, before one can find out...

And finally, I understand that you are not TomTom's people and I also understand you may not have a solution for these. But your insights, as far as I'm concerned, are always enlightening and helpful in some way.

Thanks for your patience.

 

[canderson]

You certainly aren't alone in seeing Mapshare updates take a great deal of time to install on Nav3 units. It seems, though we have no way of proving it, that unlike the old Nav2 units where 'patches' remained separate from the primary map files and were 'integrated' on the fly, there may be some attempt to actually integrate Mapshare data into existing map data files for Nav3. With larger maps (like full NAM or full Europe), this can take quite a long time.

Time to integrate seems to depend upon the Mapshare in question, and size doesn't seem to be the governing factor.

 

[Zelopes]

Hi canderson!...

Thanks for your comments, which I find quite interesting, because they seem to reinforce my suspicion that both issues (the unusually long time to update very small MapShare bits of information AND the funny behavior that I witnessed during the last NAM update just a couple days ago) MAY BE due to issues concerning the last version of the MyDrive application.

Reason 1 for my suspicion: I still use the same computers, the same OS, the same AV and the same IP and yet, I never experienced either of those two issues before about the time I applied the last app update.

And reason 2: The free NAM update a couple of days ago was downloaded in between 50 and 60 minutes and went without a glitch; then comes the installation... The percentage would show as 0%...1%...2%... and then cycle back to 0%...1%...2%... never going after the 2% mark and always cycling back to 0%; at the same time, the graphic bar would turn green at precisely the same pace, turning green to about one millimeter, two millimeters, three millimeters... and back to grey, then one millimeter... and so on. All the while the clock started the countdown of the time left a little erratically and then stabilized at 43 minutes and from here on down, second by second, completely oblivious of whatever was happening with the progression bar and the percentage count, which kept their cycling mode, so to speak... Then, with a few minutes left in the countdown, the clock suddenly jumped to 0 seconds left, the bar became fully green to its end and the percentage showed 100%. There was also a message saying that my gadget was up to date or something to that effect...

Isn't this something?

Of course, I was as startled as suspicious and could hardly believe, after all that nonsense, that my system had been successfully updated. So I went and checked and, lo and behold, "Map: USA-Canada-and-Mexico v925.5450, Release date: 2/14"...

Bottom line: I keep suspecting that the culprit resides with the application. I may be wrong. But whatever the cause for these anomalies, TomTom has no excuse for not having their CS agents clearly aware of whatever it is causinfg these issues so that they could provide customers with sensible answers, even if there is still no solution in sight. And not to speak of the "creative answers" (or plain lies) when they are stating that they have no knowledge of any similar situations with other customers... Don't they try Google, at least once in a while? And wouldn't they feel at least a little embarrassed? I hope so. But I may be wrong...

Thanks and have a good weekend.