TMC traffic cable showing random delays that don't exist

[Stevie_B]

Hi Brian and Canderson - thanks for contributing.

The tip about backing up backups is useful for the future.

Agree it does sound strange on both counts. I ruled out transmitter for me also - I travel quite a bit so will be flipping transmitters as I move.

Brian - good that your parents car hasnt been updated. Mine has an SD card you can flip out and put into a PC, so when I got the automated email to update, I just did it a few weeks later. If it aint broke....

Canderson - "arcane" is right! I'm going to phone Renault and TomTom tomorrow. Its my friday lunch hour task. Will see how I get on.

 

[Stevie_B]

Found this...

http://discussions.tomtom.com/t5/LI...-delays-are-reported-on-the-Radio/td-p/649942

Looks like the thread started after the late October update.

 

[Brian_H]

I've mentioned in the other thread and will suggest the same here - Everyone who has this issue please log a call with TT tech support with as much detail as possible. They are really the only ones who have much chance to actually get the problem fixed as they have more data to access than we do - and hopefully they will fix it if everyone tells them about it.

 

[canderson]

Here's what I just posted on TomTom's own forum site:


Reading all of the commentary here and elsewhere, a couple of things have caught my attention.

First, I have heard no reports elsewhere from Europe or NAM that would indicate that this problem is occurring anywhere outside the of the UK. Further, the problem is being reported across a very diverse swath of the country. It's not isolated to one area or another.

Second, units by other manufacturers using the same RDS-TMC services are not exhibiting these problems. That eliminates any TMC table errors from Inrix as the cause. If that were the issue, everyone would be seeing it. However, the number of samples (people to whom we have spoken with Garmin units, for example) is low. It is possible that we've just not yet encountered those that may exist.

Third, an abnormal percentage of users reporting this problem here and elsewhere are Carminat users. I don't know what to make of this. Some number of them say they began to experience this problem immediately after an update of firmware last fall. Is it possible that either bad TMC location tables are included in this build, or that the firmware is using bad pointers into that table and placing real problems in the wrong places? Or perhaps the firmware is misparsing the TMC data entirely?

Fourth, there are also users of standalone devices whose units have been offered no new firmware in a very long time, and hence, their units should be immune to any bad tables or firmware that might have been sent to Carminat users. In apposition to that fact, one wonders how it could be a TomTom issue of any kind, and points directly back to the data that Inrix is transmitting. Surely Inrix had not upended the TMC location tables without anyone knowing!

Fifth, there appear to be a large population of TomTom RDS-TMC users who have experienced no unusual issues with that service in the UK at all.



In the aggregate, that set of facts makes no sense at all to me. I can't even begin to suggest how and what to report to TomTom apart from the various strange experiences that many of you are having. I'm pretty good at taking a handful of seeming disparate sets of symptoms and events and putting together a common theme, but you guys have me baffled.

 

[Alex.F]

I'm using a free Inrix phone app. (US) & often view it at the same time as live traffic on my TT when I drive. The traffic & ETA is generally very close to that of my TT.
You may want to try this in UK, it will provide another data point.

 

[canderson]

This one? >>> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=inrix.android.ui

Good idea. Might make a side-by-side comparison while driving really interesting. HOWEVER, this is their XD traffic, which is very different from the RDS-TMC content that they provide. XD provides (like Live, but not at quite as fine a level) for much finer detail across a great many more roads than the limitations of TMC allow. Since I suspect we're chasing a TMC problem of some sort, I wouldn't expect there to be any direct correspondence between the data from the two systems.

 

[Brian_H]

Interestingly its reported two incidents today which appear to be correct - 50 minute delay on the m25 (which had been shown on the gantry signs) and 23 minutes on the m1 (again on the gantry signs). Since they only tend to put the more severe incidents on the gantry signs and seeing some of the traffic for the m25 incident maybe its been fixed. Or maybe just lucky on this occasion. The app looks useful though thanks.

 

[Brian_H]

Well I've checked my parents Carminat unit which it turns out is at least 2 years out of date as it wasn't even running the right app (its now not running anything as it didn't take the update for the app correctly and is now not usable as it seems to complain about the version number of the memory card - awaiting a response from TT on that). But they also have the same issue. The only thought i now have is if any change is seen if manual tuning is used instead? particularly as it seems to jump on mine between correct info and the incorrect info (its changed in the space of a few minutes on mine between a few minutes and couple of hour delays showing).

 

[canderson]

@Brian
If you will be driving in an area that has adequate coverage from just one site, it would interesting to force it to one site for a while with manual tuning, then switch to another, all to see whether the bogus data appears to be coming from a particular site. Still, I'd have expected to hear more about this since the reports we do get are from such far flung locations in the UK.

 

[Brian_H]

just waiting for a power socket adaptor to turn up so i can use it alongside. Will updated when i've got further info.