No Maps found - XL 30 series

[Bren106]

After several months of being nagged to connect my device to a computer every time I started it up I finally motivated myself to do it. During the course of the update procedure I selected the option to back up first. During that operation TomTom Home froze and eventually gave the error message not responding, leaving me with no option but to force the program to close. My device now gives the message no maps found.
I was able to subsequently do a manual copy of all the files and folders on the device, but I am taking the view that this will have only copied any that had already been affected by whatever caused the initial problem

Reading other posts on the forum suggests the possible course of action of deleting everything from the device and doing a full FAT32 format, would this be my next logical step?

 

[Bren106]

Further to the above I have done the reset procedure past the drum roll and into the bios screen with no effect.

 

[Arno]

Before you delete anything better wait until canderson gets to this thread. If the map was deleted it may not be happy times.

In the meantime, connect to PC, not Home, and have a look at the drive letter for your device and see it the is a folder called map.

 

[Bren106]

I have a maps folder, contains a single file named Western_Europe_1GB.tlv which is 2KB in size, which I had already suspected was likely to be a large part of the problem. No rush to do anything rashly, no major travelling that needs navigation in the near future.

 

[Arno]

That is good new, indeed, that the map did not get wiped out.

 

[canderson]

@Arno - no, not good.
All that he's seeing is the *.tlv (inventory) file in the folder called "maps". What he needs is the "Western_Europe" map folder itself.

@bren
As noted, your map isn't in the "maps" folder. That's just a folder that contains records of what maps should be on the unit.
It's critical that we locate at least some copy of your map. Have you ever performed a backup of your unit before (using either Home or manually) and/or have you ever purchased an updated map for your unit?

 

[Arno]

- no, not good.
All that he's seeing is the *.tlv (inventory) file in the folder called "maps". What he needs is the "Western_Europe" map folder itself.

Oops. As i keep saying, I shouldn't post after 9 PM.
Never noticed the 'tlv' and read the KB as GB.

 

[Bren106]

As said earlier this problem came up whilst undertaking the backup through the TomTom Home program. The manual backup I then carried out does contain a Western Europe map folder. It's not on the pc I am using to make this post at the moment so cannot give you the exact details of what files the folder contains. If you need a file list I can post this later when I have that other pc on, let me know what info is required from the manual backup.

This is the first back up of the unit that has been done, and I have not purchased any further maps since it was bought.

 

[canderson]

When you are able to sit in front of the PC you were using, let's go through a few things to see what might still be resident. If your Western_Europe folder is still properly populated, we will be able to move a copy of that back to the unit and that should resolve the immediate problem.

 

[Bren106]

Here are the folders /files I have manually copied from the device after the TT home failed backup. The folders, the files and the files that are inside the Western Europe Map folder.

 

[canderson]

It certainly looks as though all of your map files are still there in the Western_Europe_1GB folder, so not clear why your unit was complaining about lack of a map after the 'update'. Good moving doing the manual backup, though as you can imagine, we recommend doing those BEFORE any major updates!

So before we start, and to be clear -- the current state of your XL is that it still contains all of the content you're showing in your manual backup?
Just for grins, let's see what Home may have actually stored as well, even though there was a failure. Take a look at folder on your PC called TomTom\HOME\Backup\GO\Backup01
Does your map folder also appear there by any chance?

In any case, we're eventually going to be formatting, loading new firmware, and then moving a copy of the map back to your device.

 

[Bren106]

The only folder I have in the TomTom\HOME folder is a sub folder labelled Devices. This contains four files as listed

PA.jar 163KB
PN.ddf 1KB
RB.jar 149KB
RM.ddf 1KB

I therefore take it that whatever problem came up during the HOME backup happened at an early stage of the process. As for doing the manual backup before the TT software, well you wouldn't usually expect that a company that's very existence is owed to computer technology would put out such dire software for it's customers. How silly of me (Bren thinks back to Windows Vista and shudders)

 

[canderson]

Would have been interesting to have seen the specifics of the Home error during backup. But that's history. Let's try to go forward and see what we can make of things.

Start by performing the FAT32 full (not 'Quick') format of your unit. You'll need to connect it, so when Home appears, just close it out for now. We'll get back to it later.
Once the format is complete, disconnect your XL with a proper Windows logical USB disconnect and reconnect again. This time, when Home appears, it's going to suggest some firmware to you since it won't find any on the unit.

Accept whatever firmware is offered by Home and get it installed on your unit.
Perform the proper USB disconnect using Home (I use the little down arrow in the lower right of the Home screen), physically disconnect your unit and connect it again.
IF Home then offers yet more firmware updates, install them until it ceases to offer any firmware updates.

At this time, you can minimize (not close) Home to get it out of your way, and go to your PC backup copy of the Western_Europe 1GB map. Copy that entire folder over in to the root of your XL.
Bring Home back to the fore and again, do a proper USB disconnect with Home.
Disconnect your XL from your PC and shut it off. Restart and tell us how you're doing.

 

[Bren106]

OK that's plenty to be going on with for now, it will likely be tomorrow before I get back to you about the result, the current time here in U.K being 22.30hrs.

 

[Bren106]

Right I have now a fully formatted device. I could have reformatted Google's entire mainframes in the time it takes to do this 1 Gig volume.

However before I go any further with the instructions you gave about re-installing the firmware I have an issue with the System Reserved partition being allocated a drive letter every time I start the TT Home program. Once I terminate the program the partition then reverts to unlettered. . I have read a thread on the official TT forums saying that it is a long standing problem that has not yet been resolved. I'm sure you know more about it than I do from just reading the thread on there.
I am loath to go any further at present, I'm wondering if this has any relationship to the backup failures so will hold back until I know if you have a successful workaround.
Any solutions offered on the official forums don't seem to be viable but I do notice that all the problems seem to be on WIn7 or later, I might try a completely clean install of the TT Home software on an XP machine that I have for specific software that isn't compatible with the other pc's I run.

 

[canderson]

I believe that what you're seeing is a Home issue. Thought they had dealt with that eons ago. What version of Home are you using?? Last one I downloaded was 2.9.8.3722.

At any rate, it shouldn't impact what you're getting ready to do at all. Go ahead and hook up that formatted unit and see whether or not Home cooperates and asks to install a Navcore (firmware) for your device. If not, get back to me and I'll see if I can come up with a direct link. For that, I'd need the first two characters of your unit's serial number. The last released version for the XL 30 series was 8.083. That's also the version you want Home to get you to if it will.

 

[Bren106]

Effortlessly carried out the firmware re-installation to the device and reconnected. All that is being offered to me now is a collection of voices (I never use sound so don't want them) and a couple of files for navigating to postcodes in U.K and NL, both of which I can presumably come back and get at a later stage.
With the copying speed to the unit being so slow I am going to continue adding the actual map tomorrow, having stayed up to watch Rachel Maddow (yes she's got fans over here in U.K) until silly o clock.

However I am being offered a European map, which is - see screenshot of the info screen.

 

[canderson]

And here I thought you might be up watching the President's Cup. US up 7-1/2 to 6-1/2 going into the afternoon matches.

That's a pretty old map they are offering you. Was yours more recent? That would decide whether you take their v850 map or your own.

 

[Bren106]

The map version I have in the TomTom-CFG \Releases file is 835.2420 so it would appear that my map is even older and, as far as I remember, not split into Northern and Western zones as is the later map version. The vast majority of my device's usage was in what would be the northern zone of this later map anyway. I don't do any work in any of the extremities of the map area anyway, it's predominantly U.K, France, Belgium, NL, Germany, Austria & Italy.

I didn't even know what game they play for that cup, so had to google it. Golf, to me it's just a nice walk in the country spoilt.

Just out of interest the auto play, system reserved problem does not occur on a Win XP pc. I didn't think it would do with the partition table structure being different.

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Update.

After carrying out the steps you gave me (which were excellently detailed) I have an all singing, all dancing TomTom. I choose the latest map version offered to me by TT HOME. Once completed and functioning the first thing I did was to take a complete copy/paste back up to my pc.

I really can't express my thanks enough for the assistance I have had from you, I'm tremendously appreciative of it

 

[canderson]

Since theirs is more recent, go ahead and see what map is actually offered and if Home will install it if it covers the area you need. However -- BEFORE you do that, create one more backup of your unit in its 'pre-map' condition IF the firmware was completed to 8.083.

One of the reasons that I don't see that old Home problem is because I still update everything here on XP.