TomTom Ease

[mvl]

The Home server (the HOME app is a thin client to the HOME server) keeps a table of what map/app is the latest for each device.

It appears their app table was outdated and finally got fixed. And it seems their latest map guarantee table is still bad for your model. Dhn, you may want let your Tomtom contacts know.

Mdavis, to check your map, you can follow these directions. I suspect you have map 840. I recommend calling Tomtom phone support as they can manually add map 845 to your account (they'll ask you to fax/email a copy of your receipt to prove 30 days)

Once you're on 845, then you can use the subscription process within HOME and it shouldn't charge the $11.

 

[dhn]

I'm not sure I understand. I already have the map, right? My screen says version 8.545. Is that the app, and not the map?

8.545 would be the application. The map is a 3 digit number. As mvl says, after doing the steps he said, it'll probably show 840.

That's why we said to call support. This Home misinformation happens all the time, not just with your map and model.

 

[mdavis]

Yes, it shipped with the 840 map

Yes, indeed, you're right. I have 840 and I guess I need 845 to get started. The problem is getting up the nerve to go through the telephone gauntlet again. I guess they use early adopters as beta testers without saying so, eh (as they say in Canada)?

 

[mdavis]

TomTom Bricked my unit

Now they want to return it because when they tried to load the map for me, it failed, and I am showing something like 200-300 megs on the disk. The rest of the disk does not appear visible, assuming it (electronically) exists. They formatted and reformatted, checked disk, etc., and were unable to repair the damage they caused. I really don't know any extreme measures for vaporizing a disk to get its space back, but the missing space is exactly, more or less, the size of the map that was supposed to load. They are sending me an RMA which sdoesn't help too much for my planned trip, and unless I can clear out this HD and get it started again, I really have no choice. I don't think their problems are limited to HOME.

 

[mvl]

One question to help in attempting to recover:

hold the power button down forever, until a black debug screen shows up. What does it say after bootloader?

Also, from the windows command prompt, try "format z: /x /fs:fat32" (where z is your tomtom drive). If that doesn't work try "format z: /x /fs:fat" (where z is your tomtom drive)

Make sure HOME is closed both times. Does either process give you all your space back? If not, does it give any errors?

 

[mdavis]

They are shipping me a new one overnight, they cl,ainm

I tried formatting in various ways, and used a disk recovery utility as well and nothing could shake the remaining space loose. I packed it up already so I can't do the debugging route. That would have been interesting but the HD really seems bricked--all of my various PC utilities can't shake anything loose. So I guess I will just trust that a new one will quickly be on its way. This is very discouraging and is not the sort of thing that makes TomTom fans. Clearly this machine was not yet ready for prime time. Or any time.

Thanks for the advice, though.

 

[mdavis]

Do you think the new EASE will have updated maps?

I guess I should find out soon, but I wonder whether they will have the right map installed in what they ship me. I really dread going through all that again with a brand new unit.

IN any event. Does anybody have any idea whether there might be a way of having it give walking rather than driving instructions? The unit is small enough to fit comfortably in a popclket and it would be nice to use it occasionally for walking instructions. Any ideas? They told me it was basically the same as the TomTom ONE.

 

[mvl]

The Tomtom flash controllers "shrink" the drive when the identify bad sectors, rather than label them as bad. There's a chance your device hardware was a dud. If so, you'll have no issues with the new one.

Or, certain Tomtom software apps were known to have bad USB drivers and created corrupted files on every map install. The ones I'm aware of are 8.082 and 8.411-8.414. If your new Tomtom gives you the same issues, then we may have to add app 8.545 to the list.

My guess is that you'll get the old map version back on your RMA, and you'll need to upgrade it again - but it shouldn't give you problems.

 

[mdavis]

Oy

Okay, thanks. I'll let you know. I thought I'd have it today because they promised me overnight but when I got the email it said 2 day economy, which means next week. I hope so.

 

[mdavis]

The continuing saga

I was trying to think of a nice title for that, something like David (me) versus Goliath (TomTom) but it is clear that the ordinary consumer doesn't stand a slingshot's chance in the desert with TomTom. This is not HOME, this is TomTom and it really sucks. Last time we dropped in on this problem, TomTom had assured overnight shipping but then came through with only 2d day economy. After several days passed, TomTom even had the chutzpah to send an email saying the matter was closed. I then answered saying it couldn't be closed because they had promised me a new unit and all I had was an email with no tracking number nor even any shipping info for all my money, time, and hard work. So today I received a new email saying they were shipping over night. Huh? Double huh? How could they ship if they already shipped last week? Now I have an email saying it is going over night, but just like the last one, it doesn't really say it is shipped or even shipping. It says, get this, "processed for shiping." What happened top the one last week that was processed for shipping? Were they lying? I'm afraid so. Are they lying now? I haven't a clue. I was always angry at Palm for beoing so incompetent, and thought if consumers got angry maybe Palm would shape up. Instead they have gone bankrupt, and we can hear their last gasps in the freantic promotion for their Palm Pre. I'm afraid TomTom will probably go the same route. I can't say I'll miss them. But I sure do miss my hundred bucks or so, plus all the sweat.

 

[mvl]

Yikes, I'll bet that since you have such a rare model, Tomtom doesn't have any more of them in its warehouse. I'd recommend calling back when you get a chance and demand a tracking number. That's ugly, I honestly haven't seen Tomtom screw up this big before in its RMA process.

 

[mdavis]

Lies, lies and...

yeah, well that should be statistics, but you could say TomTom, too. They explained that they didn't send the unit out when they said they would because it was "unavailable." They had to "order" it. So you are close! But today Fedex delivered me a package--it was the red cover. Not the unit, just the red cover. Shipped out when? Last week, on the day they had promised me the unit via 2d day economy. This was the 2d day economy shipment they shipped out. They didn't decide not to do it because it was unavailable, they simply shipped me the wrong thing--the red cover. As if I needed or cared about the color. But according to Fedex another package will arrive tomorrow--that should be the unit. Is there anything more that could go wrong? I shudder.....

 

[mdavis]

Well, here we are (again???)

Well, this site deserves to have a final status report. Due to some extraordinary help by several of you, I was finally able to get all of this up and running--and more. After TomTom finally did ship me a new unit, I was able to do all that was necessary including subscribe to map updates. It required several calls to TomTom and extraordinarily high levels of frustration, but it got done. The more is this: I was able to load up the modifications posted elsewhere that allowed me to get all the TomTom features, including walking routes, notify POI, add to POI, and just about everything you would want. It helped me to get to a high school reunion and back, as well as to a gas station on route. Very nice. What's more I also loaded up the StatNavOn and Off software elsewhere posted, and that works as well, which means you can use this for real walking around the city, etc (except for battery problems which still have to be resolved). But if anyone wants to try those two hacks, they work perfectly. I'm quite happy now, although somewhat mentally fatigued. Whew! But thanks everyone.

 

[dhn]

1. Mefore doing ANYTHING, make an Explorer, not Home, backup of your unit's contents.

2. Use Explorer to look at the contents of the USA_Canada map folder on the unit. One file has an extension of .pna. Open it with notepad. It should show an 845 if the map is the latest. This map version can also be confirmed by tapping the version number of the application on the unit and see what map and version is showing on the next screen.

3. If it isn't, connect the unit to Home (does it run, ok?) And go to Tools-->Latest Map guarantee. See what it says.

 

[dhn]

I've sent you a pm, mdavis.