Greece, TomTom & Windows Vista ... could it get any worse?

[robin]

Helping a friend sort out a TomTom XXL. Bought with Western Europe maps, downloaded (kosher) USA maps for holibags. Came home to try to put back Western Europe maps. "Invalid TLV/XML File" error. What an absolute pile of sh*t. Anyway, it transpires that if you bypass all their stupid "value added software" and just unpack and copy the map files to the TomTom by hand (like it was a memory stick) then it ought to work. Am mid trying that now, but then Vista fcuk me over (his laptop runs Vista). Why would it take 1 hour to copy 2GByte? Probably the TomTom's fault. But why would vista decide that after 30 minutes of copying clearly I've died and no longer care and so it should now go to sleep instead of continuing to copy. FFS Microsoft, how stupid can you get????

The sooner this rubbish is put out to pasture the better.

Meanwhile, the only hope TomTom have is to have better software and systems than the average map-on-a-fone. So to make it this hard is suicidal IMHO. For anyone that cares, looking at the error message it looks like they decided to implement this pile of utter gash in Mozilla's XUL (i.e. it's a pile of javascript controlling some widgets). Top choice. Particularly nice to give the user the error messages in the form of a javascript stack trace; that will help. If I still had any stocks I would be selling them.

Meanwhile Greece appears to have pulled the wool over Europe's eyes ... the 50% debt haircut, if they get away with it, would be the most spectacular heist of all time and is unlikely to ever be bettered IMHO. Hopefully Greece will be on the Western Europe maps when they are recovered to the TomTom, even if they (or perhaps Germany) aren't in the Euro by that point

Rant off.

Robin

[David]

Went through similar pain with mine - can't remember the details of how I got there in the end, but it did involve downloading an app that cleared the system memory of some unwanted (or corrupt?) files. Good luck

[robin]

Just sorted it by copying on manually

All you do is unpack Whatever_Map_Blah.zip to a folder called exactly Whatever_Map_Blah and then drag that whole folder (including the folder itself, i.e. drag the folder, not the files) and drop onto the TomTom icon in "Computer".

Then wait (a long time).

Then "safely remove" the TomTom and it will boot up with the new map on it.

It's hard to see what the so called installation program could be doing that is more complex than that ...

Cheers,
Robin

[Sanjøy]

Could have been millenium.

Just bought tom Tom actually, refuse to work with it's own software on my machine. Crud software no likey win 7 64bit even in comparability modes. Joy.

[campbell]

Crikey Robin I can't remember the last time I heard a rant from you. That Tom Tom musta hurt you bad, son!

[Kelvin]

I had exactly the same experience with my TomTom and solved it the same way although I had to wipe the thing first. I remember wondering the same thing about the installation program and what it was doing to install the maps. Any future TT woes were solved when it got pinched from my car when it was in for service never to be replaced.

The great Greece greedy grab will matter not when the Euro eventually collapses and the Germans decide that they can no longer fund the rest of Europe and go it alone or maybe with the Dutch. I'm stocking up on beans n bullets.

[Corranga]

I alwatys remove the card from my satnav and use a card reader, for some reason it's faster than going via my device. That said, I have a Win CE satnav running the old TomTom 7, not an actual TomTom.. When I updated my not so kosher maps, I had to run a little app that effectively took the serial of my device (or something) and marked the mpas (or a config file) as such. I presume it's a similar issue you are having here by copying them directly..

Meanwhile, the only hope TomTom have is to have better software and systems than the average map-on-a-fone.

Worth noting here, in case anyone reads thing and thinks 'Oh, I can just use my phone' that virtually all free phone navigation applications require a data connection, which costs a horrendous amount of money when abroad. I think a phone with a pay for nav app with offline maps would be a nice solution, but then there is the hassle of mounting it in the car etc..

Android wise, I can 't actually find a decent offline maps app for free. I have one with lots of maps, but no search facility, which with a HUGE map, is rather useless! I assume it will use GPS, but I can't always get my phone to connect to GPS..

Chris

[Blaque]

Android wise, I can 't actually find a decent offline maps app for free.

Chris

Not free, but I use NDrive. A lot better than TomTom. 19.99 Euro for UK. 39.99 Euro for Western Europe.


Blaque

[robin]

Not endorsing any particular nav app, just saying that TomTom (and Garmin) must be facing a shrinking market with built-in sat navs eating into their business on one side and smartphones eating it from the other. There is nothing special about a TomTom piece of hardware, so a well designed smartphone should be able to do everything the TomTom can do.

A good satnav built in to a smartphone is surely going to be a valuable market differentiator in the tedious smartphone wars.

Cheers,
Robin

[Sanjøy]

TomTom are moving out of the hardware game and going Software as a service. Got a call about running their DC & virtualisation piece in Amsterspank last year.

[robin]

They are so good at s/w. Should be a winning formula. Run. Hide. Get a new telephone number.

[tut]

Quite happy to see TomTom go belly up now. They were market leaders and had a good product, I have two, namely because the first one packed in, but they are greedy barsteward and their pricing plan for upgrades to the maps was a con.

Doubt if they can adapt to the changing times.

tut