PLUS traffic is broken

[mvl]

If you could sniff the BT, you'd be able to get the authentication information and reverse engineer the protocols. Unfortunately, that would probably be considered unauthorized use and be subject to a federal rap.

If I remember the prior post, the authentication info is your account's email address & password, nothing special, and no way to hack it unless you know a paying PLUS customer's info.

In home, Operate my GO simulates bluetooth with real data. I suspect you can run a packet sniffer on HOME and see what server the emulator tries to connect to.

Also, just checked the TT vs the Online Router Planner. Once again, the TT has an incident but no delay info. The route planner has all the info. Does it use the same information that is available to PLUS?

It's still broken for me today. I get the normal amount of incident alerts (which Tomtom always counts as a 1 minute penalty), but no flow info whatsoever. The only flow info I got was that earlier sideroad item once.

Normally (at least a month ago when I was paying close attention to stuff), routes.tomtom.com used to match LIVE traffic on the 740, and did not match PLUS.

Who knows what's going wrong now. If it means they are implementing an imminent HD traffic upgrade then I'll happily keep waiting while it's fixed. Like Gator, I wish they had a system status/outage page.

 

[dervari]

Hmmm...interesting. My firewall at home is a Juniper Netscreen which has packet monitoring ability. May have to check it out this weekend since there's no race on.

 

[mvl]

I gave Tomtom support a call.

They say it's a known outage related to the new maps. I think they are confusing this issue with the PLUS issue, since I tried downgrading to my map 830 backup and it didn't help.

They said they expect to have it resolved in a couple weeks. That seems way too long to have an outage with no workaround.

We'll see. The map people just finished shrinking map 835 for the one/xl, so hopefully fixing this is next on their todo list.

 

[tt_ttf]

Couple of weeks!!!!

They really don't understand service do they

This is a subscription service, a major part of their ongoing revenue stream - you don't have outages that long and expect to keep customers.

Wait til they start pulling this on iPhone users and see the increase in bad PR they get!!!

 

[dervari]

Well, I'm on a one year comp'ed sub so i can't really bitch about it. LOL However, I'd definintely see about getting an extention if I were paying.

 

[Germerican]

Plus Traffic still doesn't seem to be working. This morning, for the second time in a week, I got stuck in a several mile back-up on I-290 near Chicago and Plus Traffic showed the route to be clear of any delays. What the heck...???

Why am I paying for a service that hasn't been working for a week? I'm getting really irritated. I am contacting TomTom now.

 

[mvl]

I'd be fuming to if I were in your shoes. We'll see how long this takes. It's a $5/month service, so I guess the most your can sue/complain about is $1.25 so far.

In my case, my entire phone service is cut off (Motorola.com ported my number immediately to AT&T last week, but my new AT&T phones/sim cards are still being shipped UPS ground). So I'm not worrying about PLUS right now.

 

[Germerican]

All I want is for the time that the service hasn't been working, to be added on at the end of my subscription. Sorry to hear about you being without phones. I hope they'll arrive soon.

 

[InfojunkE]

I am curious if TomTom said anything if you made contact with them? I sent them an email over the weekend but I haven't heard anything from them quite yet.

 

[Germerican]

All I did was send an e-mail. I'm at work and don't have time to wait on the phone with them. I received a confirmation e-mail that said:

Thank you for contacting TomTom Customer Support. We have been experiencing an unusually high number of incidents which has been affecting response times. Your question has been received and you will receive a response from our support team as soon as possible.

This probably means I'll have to give 'em a call tonight. I wonder why the might be experiencing an unusually high number of incidents...

 

[InfojunkE]

Please let us know if you hear a response before I do. I love TomTom but they don't seem to test their products before releasing them, and they don't seem to realize that people probably want the services they pay for.

Thanks!

 

[dhn]

It is MUCH better to call, not email CS for assistance. The number is 866-486-6866. I have never found the wait time more than a minute or 2.

 

[mvl]

For those calling in, I was able to speak to a rep immediately by waiting on the first menu and pressing 3 for LIVE services.

Now I'm not sure if I got the right answer from this department (saying it's an issue with the new map, when a map downgrade didn't help me). But it gets you on the phone quicker.

 

[gatorguy]

MVL, I'm with you on guessing that TT customer service is confusing Plus traffic outages with the x40 live traffic/map update issue.

 

[Germerican]

Well, since I was stuck in traffic on my way home from work I thought I might as well make use of the time and give TT customer support a call. The result was disappointing. It took me 20 minutes to get through to a customer service rep who tried to blame the issue on the fact that I was connecting through a non-supported device (BlackBerry 8320). Telling him about the fact that I still get the green light and mentioning this discussion and the forum did not help. The only advise I got was to do a hard reset. When I questioned whether there might be a problem with their server or if they might be doing maintenance, he denied either. He did say they would refund me the fee I had paid for Plus Traffic. He did not at all care that there are other people out there (with supported devices) who are experiencing the same problem. I'm disappointed that TomTom is just trying to blame it on my phone.

 

[InfojunkE]

That sounds like the kind of customer service I often expect from them. Mine seems to be getting better but not back to normal yet, I'm now getting accident reports, and lane closures, but still nothing as far as flow data goes, maybe they'll fix that tomorrow? Anyways, in the mean time I was going to call them but didn't realize they aren't open late, so I'll call them tomorrow and let everyone know what if anything I found out. I won't let them blame it on my blackberry, even though it's not technically supported I'll make sure I give them a model that is.

 

[mvl]

I posted here - Tomtom actually replies sometimes in their own forum - we'll see.

 

[Germerican]

Is anyone still experiencing problems? I'm still not getting any flow data and to be quite honest I'm not sure what to tell TomTom. As I mentioned, they denied that they are working on it or that they are having problems on their end. They are taking the easy way out and blaming it on my phone. I tried to connect through a co-workers iPhone and get the same result. Some accidents and lane closures are displayed but no flow data. This is frustrating...

 

[InfojunkE]

Well I just got off a 45 minute phone call with TomTom's tech support, first they tried telling me that "Traffic doesn't show the delays it should only show the incidents and allow you to route yourself around them". However I had to point out the fact that if it's not supposed to show the delays why do they have that illustrated in the owners manual? He then went back to "Check with a supervisor" and after a few minutes came back and said he spoke with a different person and it "seems like it's a compatibility issue between the receiver & the map" and he provided me with 2 options, and I asked to take both because I know I'm not the only person that this is affecting. So the end result was he told me to downgrade to the previous map, and that he would escalate the ticket and they should be able to get it fixed with the next application roll out/update. But he said that might not be until around the end of October!?!? That seems pretty ridiculous to wait that long for a fix, when I know I'm not the only person who's affected by this. I hope more people start complaining so that they realize that it's not an isolated incident. And I really hope they get this fixed soon. I'll let you know what I get as a result of the escalation because they are supposed to contact me within 2-3 days and let me know what's going on. Stay Tuned!

 

[Germerican]

Well I just got off a 45 minute phone call with TomTom's tech support, first they tried telling me that "Traffic doesn't show the delays it should only show the incidents and allow you to route yourself around them". However I had to point out the fact that if it's not supposed to show the delays why do they have that illustrated in the owners manual? He then went back to "Check with a supervisor" and after a few minutes came back and said he spoke with a different person and it "seems like it's a compatibility issue between the receiver & the map" and he provided me with 2 options, and I asked to take both because I know I'm not the only person that this is affecting. So the end result was he told me to downgrade to the previous map, and that he would escalate the ticket and they should be able to get it fixed with the next application roll out/update. But he said that might not be until around the end of October!?!? That seems pretty ridiculous to wait that long for a fix, when I know I'm not the only person who's affected by this. I hope more people start complaining so that they realize that it's not an isolated incident. And I really hope they get this fixed soon. I'll let you know what I get as a result of the escalation because they are supposed to contact me within 2-3 days and let me know what's going on. Stay Tuned!

Interesting, the thing for me is that this started before I installed the latest map. And why would they be telling you that Traffic is not supposed to show the delay? That's ridiculous. A fix in two months from now? That's just unacceptable. Why did it work a week ago and now it isn't?