Tomtom 730 innacurate map location

[storm180]

Not sure what happened but today I plugged my Tomtom into its home base and upload a single address into it from Google Maps using the send button. Then I had two updates the gpsfix and the Map share updates.

I go out to my car and go to my favorites and route my route. Now I have full bars on the gps signal. I start to drive up my street and it shows me two streets over. I stopped for 5 minutes and still no correction. I continue to drive, it corrects for like 2 minutes and shows what road I am on then all of a sudden I am on the 1 street over and it starts giving me wierd directions because it thinks I am on a road that I am not on. Here is the kicker I get on the highway and it shows me on the other side of the 4 lane highway on a road that follows the highway. For 18 miles same thing. I get to my destination and I do pin reset. It appears it is working fine again for like 10 miles and then I am off the road again, then corrects itself about 1.5 miles away from my house. So I am driving to my house, which my home location was entered by gps coords of me standing in my driveway. Now the coords are over 350 ft off instead of right on the money.

Now I drive this route everyday. It has been fine since I got the unit except for today and the only updates I did was the gpsfix, add an address, mapshare update before I left. I had a full gps signal at all times.

I am not sure what the heck is happening so I confirmed my location of where my orginal coords were at home and the tomtom is now showing 350 off. I get out my colorado and go to those coords and its in my driveway not in my neighbors yard where the tomtom is showing.

Any advice?

 

[storm180]

So I called Tomtom support and they told me to delete my application and then update my device. I did and took the car out for a short spin and things seem to be on the right track. Going out later tonight for a longer drive, and will find out if its fixed or not.

Not sure how that file could have gotten corrupted. Has this happened to anyone else?

 

[equlizer]

I was just about to post this myself then i saw your post. I was like WTF! I even went and bought another one to see maybe if it was the satelites or something.

so what did you do exactly to fix the problem?

 

[dhn]

I was just about to post this myself then i saw your post. I was like WTF! I even went and bought another one to see maybe if it was the satelites or something.

so what did you do exactly to fix the problem?

I believe Storm mentioned (or implied) in his post that he removed the application from the unit and had Home download and re-install it.

I think ...

 

[storm180]

I was just about to post this myself then i saw your post. I was like WTF! I even went and bought another one to see maybe if it was the satelites or something.

so what did you do exactly to fix the problem?

Did it happen today? Tomtom support had me remove the "application" program from my tomtom and then update my tomtom and download a new file onto the tomtom. They had me follow these instructions.

http://www.tomtom.com/support/index.php?FID=9091&Lid=4

I went out again tonight and had a longer ride and routed myself to where I needed to go about 10 miles away and everything seemed on track and on the road. Route did not do anything wierd. I will be keeping any eye on this to see if it does it again and what are the circumstances.

Equlizer did you do anything I did when it happened to you? Download gpsfix file or add a route from google? Honestly the only thing I can think that might have screwed things up would be the gpsfix file.

 

[storm180]

So I am having similiar issues, tomtom support is useless in my opinion. Today I did a factory reset. Since my original issue I posted the problem has been less but it is still there, every time I start my car in the morning and get onto my street. The gps shows me being 2 street over, I sit in my car for like 5 minutes and nothing changes. I start driving and within like a mile or 2 it shows me on the right road.

I don't know what to do with this product but it is really annoying me, anyone else having similiar issues, maybe an issue with the x30 line? I will test it today after the factory reset and see if things improve and if not they are going to have me send my 15 day old product in for repairs. Woohoo.

 

[dhn]

When did you last download a GPSQuickfix? You may want to try that.

Also, I don't know that this'll help but ....

Tap your screen on the satellite bars. Your next screen should be another view of the satellite bars with a 'calibrate' button. Tap that and select the 3rd of the 3 options on how the info should be displayed. Some report that doing that improves the accuracy.

 

[storm180]

My tomtom is normally docked and update every morning before I leave. So I always have the latest gpsfix. I will try that calibrate thing and see if things improve. Thanks for the advice

 

[Blister72]

"configure" is handy...

I myself prefer the degrees, minutes, seconds display on lat/lon. It helps in using Google Earth, and other GPS users that give lat/lon for some outdoor locations for hiking, biking, and fishing.

I usually end up pretty close to my "destination", but sometimes it can be off by about 100+ feet. Close enough for me most of the time, except for dark, foggy mornings near a lake ramp. I haven't driven in one yet.

I just put 8.010 back on my XL-S tonight, and we'll see how it acts tomorrow on the way to work. I prefer the POI look and compass of 7.167, but I'll give this another try.

Now trying to figure out how to get the, "Do you need to arrive at a certain time?" feature back...Where the heck did it go?

 

[theapex]

Same thing here. Just started happening today. Up until now, everything has been fine, but now I'm experiencing the exact same issues.

My Go920 is constantly showing me one street over. On highways, it's showing me driving alone a service road along the side of the highway.

What the heck is going on? As I said, it's been perfect up until now. Funny thing is, I purchased it from FutureShop exactly 30 days ago. I'm going to run some more tests and try to figure this one out. If it's no good, I may have to return it and tell them something is fishy with it.

To Storm180: Has this JUST started happening with yours? As in, has it been functioning perfectly up to just now when you did your last update (gpsfix etc. .)?

 

[dhn]

This is often a symptom of faulty data in a quickgpsfix download. Wait for the next one and see if the problem goes away.

 

[theapex]

Yeah, that's what I was guessing but assumed that it couldn't be the case, because it's a pretty big screw up - yea? I mean, how often does the quickgpsfix come out with such an error?

Anyway, the funny thing is, I took it out for a trip a couple of hours ago and it worked perfectly fine, believe it or not. I don't recall doing an update (Although, I'm not positive about that) ..

Then just now, I get home (After a perfectly accurate run) and I set it on the table in front of me turned on (I have a strong sat connection here by the way) and I noticed it showing my current location moving 5 - 25km/h up, down, and around my street.

Bear in mind, the unit is currently stationary on the table and yet the screen shows movement.

Again though, it was working perfectly just now before I returned home. Strange.

I'm going to do some more testing .. but again, if it keeps doing this, I may have to run back to FutureShop seeing as (as ironic as it sounds) today is exactly 30 days since I purchased it and I'd have to either replace it or return it.

PS: I've been having many troubles with it as a whole though (Unit turning itself on, random weird sounds, etc ..). I think it's mostly due to the new 8.010 firmware. Any ideas when a new version will be released?

 

[gerryc]

Hello. You are not alone. This happened to my 930 this morning. It is not a satelite/cloudy day issue because I have another gps Tomtom One, and the 'One' is displaying my correct location in the Map. Whereas the 930 has the Map shifted by one street block.

I observed full-bars in the gps signal icon.

Doing pin reset did not solve the problem.

When I connected tomtom to the tomtomhome, there was no gpsfix avail.
only mapshare. Which is strange. Normally there is always gpsfix ready for download.

Anyway, As I was fiddling with home and tomtom, looks like map has aligned itself again. I think I manually reloaded one of the gpsfix file. 'In My Computer' to the tomtom. using the Tomtom Home.

update: I went out and the 930 was not detecting gps signal..
I could not wait, so I went back into the house, did a 'Restore' in the 'Backup and Restore'
section of tomtomhome. Ouch! it wiped out all my saved information.
First thing it did after the Restore was to download gpsfix file.

One trip to the School and 930 is working ok again.

 

[dhn]

Gerry,

In future, copying the file MapSettings.cfg from the map folder of a saved backup to the map folder on the unit will restore many user settings like favourites, recent destinations, etc.

Also, backups/restores are best done using Explorer, not TTHome.

 

[theapex]

I also did a backup and restore. Looks okay so far .. crossing my fingers though since it seems to be an on and off issue.

 

[gerryc]

If it is a gpsfix issue, what will happen to older gps units who can't download gps fixes. Does it mean they will end up being obsoleted?

Or can a gps unit receive a gpsfixes without connecting to the internet?

just wondering.

 

[dhn]

If it is a gpsfix issue, what will happen to older gps units who can't download gps fixes. Does it mean they will end up being obsoleted?

Or can a gps unit receive a gpsfixes without connecting to the internet?

just wondering.

The real question is whether the gps can receive satellite signals WITHOUT gpsfix files and the answer is YES.

Older gps units will still work ....

 

[gerryc]

hi, thanks for the info. Anyways the subject got me interested and I did a search. found this explanation on gpsfix. http://www.gpsinformation.org/dale/gpsfix.htm

 

[Bama Rambler]

I downloaded a quickfix a few days ago and it showed me being a few hundred feet off. It was a problem with the file. I downloaded a new one last night and it's showing the correct position this morning.

If you delete the quickfix files completely the unit will still work, it just takes about 2 to 5 mins to download the ephemris data from the satellites before it can get a fix.