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Explorist Bug/enhancement List Firmware-5.2.03


D0T-C0M

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I'll admit that I didn't read through all of the historical information on the problem with the E500, but could it be that there is an issue with the particular SD card, Great Redmondo?

 

The next day I reset the unit by turning it on with 'Menu' pressed. I removed the SD card and then kept an eye on it during the course of a working day (drive to work - 50 miles/1 hr, walking about the work place and then drive home).

 

It seemed to behave very well. The acid test is when I go out caching this weekend.

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I'll admit that I didn't read through all of the historical information on the problem with the E500, but could it be that there is an issue with the particular SD card, Great Redmondo?

 

The next day I reset the unit by turning it on with 'Menu' pressed. I removed the SD card and then kept an eye on it during the course of a working day (drive to work - 50 miles/1 hr, walking about the work place and then drive home).

 

It seemed to behave very well. The acid test is when I go out caching this weekend.

There seem to be number of units having trouble at low temperatures:

 

Mine stayed inside the car for a night at 0°C: Next morning the flash was corrupt ("Press Enter to configure NAND"-forever) , I had to format the flash and reload the base map.

 

I did a test and let it stay the next night in the car again. Same procedure, same result.... This is nothing with the SD-card, its a units problem.

 

I know of 4 units in a german forum which have similar problems, odd functions during low temperature.

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Perhaps out probs were cold realated today too, although at upper 30's F if really was not that bad out - been out in way worse. Have not had any probs with the Explorist before upgrading.

 

Upgraded a few days ago and probs seem to have been induced. We've noticed accuracy probs, the Explorists ALWAYS got us to GZ quicker than my old Meridian. The last couple days since the update I've actually got to a few first carrying the Meridian. AT one cache today the Explorist never read below 130ft away while standing at GZ while the Meridian said 15 feet.

 

Since the upgrade we've had the Explorist lock up once, it has NEVER happened before.

 

Since the upgrade the Explorist had jumped into a bizarre landscape mode twice, NEVER had that happen before either.

 

I should note that I also added a .5gb SD card since the upgrade although it has nothing on it yet.

 

Progress I guess?

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I'll admit that I didn't read through all of the historical information on the problem with the E500, but could it be that there is an issue with the particular SD card, Great Redmondo?

 

Out trialing e500 without SD card Fri and yesterday. All seems well but weather very mild. Will continue today with no SD card.

 

Might do some fridge/freezer trials during the week.

 

Next steps (next weekend) - introduce the SD card with NO detailed map - differentiate between issues being caused by SD card or detailed mapping. :laughing:

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maybe the author of GSAK will have to put some restrictions or pop up a warning to prevent this type of problem from happening in the explorist GPS

I screwed something up. I decided to do something different and use %code for the geocache ID when I exported from GSAK to my geocaching POI file. No caches appeared on my map screen. I could goto the caches and mark them found, sort of. The caches, once marked as found, would no longer appear in the list of geocache POIs. However, they weren't in the list of found caches either. They just disappeared. I got home and saw that there was a .fnd file, but the file's contents didn't look right based on other .fnd files I have opened.

 

Since I didn't have this problem before, I suspected %code was the cause. So I export a new .gs file with %smart as the name. I'm still not having geocaches show up on the map, and the names don't look like they used to. Before, when I used the %smart, vowels would be omitted from the cache names. Now the caches listed in my geocaching POI list on the receiver have all characters, including vowels, but truncated at the 8th character. That makes sense, since only 8 characters are allowed for a POI name. What settings in GSAK have you guys found that will produce .gs files that will show up on my eX400's map? This is likely a GSAK problem, but obviously my eXplorist isn't working right. I bring this up here, because another cacher earlier in the thread had a problem with POIs.

 

Yes, I did make sure the file was active and that geocaches are checked off to be shown on the map. A regular POI file's points DO appear on the map.

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I'll admit that I didn't read through all of the historical information on the problem with the E500, but could it be that there is an issue with the particular SD card, Great Redmondo?

 

Out trialing e500 without SD card Fri and yesterday. All seems well but weather very mild. Will continue today with no SD card.

 

Might do some fridge/freezer trials during the week.

 

Next steps (next weekend) - introduce the SD card with NO detailed map - differentiate between issues being caused by SD card or detailed mapping. :P

We should open up a new thread, as the freezer problem is very unlikely to be a firmware problem.

But just to update, I tried out two things

I cooled down my ex600 yesterday to -2°C w/o SD card. The unit ran during cooling down. It ran w/o problem.

 

Then I switched it off and on again and woop! the flash got corrupted again.

So I can assume for the cold temperature problem:

- Its not a SD-card issue

- Its a startup issue

 

I know of several other units over here having similar behavíour. But as well there are units which do not have this problem. So it look like some production or component variance.

Edited by DocW
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I have observed a strange happening on my Explorist 600 (with latest software upgrade). In a worst-case scenario, it will sometimes take off on a "trip" by itself. Seems to occur when it is down to a lock on only two satelites. Last night as it was sitting by the window, it took off on a journey at 400 mph, in a westward direction over the Pacific ocean. I had to shut it down and re-start to get it back to reality. This has happened twice now while at different locations.

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I noticed over the weekend a feature lacking when using backtrack mode, I noticed this before but it has become more apparant that it be added. I was out 4 wheeling and wanted to backtrack but not have to follow my whole track. I would have liked to have the abilty to resume backtracking from the closest backtrack point. This would seem to be not too hard too implement.

Edited by D0T-C0M
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1000 geocache points, and 1000 active waypoints would be nice, all with hints/comments. Garmins do it. also, it would be nice to tell the difference between a micro cache and a regular sizwed cache. Maybe they could add a M (micros) S (small) R (regular) L Large to the traditional cache icon.

I've used it extensively for geo - and I concur with this post,, and I would be 100% happy,,,

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My eXplorist 600 also had the compass and the weather messed up after firmware update as described in previous post in this thread.

I applied DOT-COMs code 22 fix, a-ok now, (Thanks DOT-COM) I was just about ready to box it up and send it back.

I do have one other problem when I reset my trip odometer it zeros out but after I power down and up again the original numbers that I zeroed out are back again. I was wondering if any body else was having this problem? I can get rid of it but I have to clear all memory, that can't be right.

 

Ken

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I do have one other problem when I reset my trip odometer it zeros out but after I power down and up again the original numbers that I zeroed out are back again. I was wondering if any body else was having this problem? I can get rid of it but I have to clear all memory, that can't be right.
I noticed that will happen if you do not have a sat fix. I was able to duplicate your problem. It stayed zeroed out once I got a fix.
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I do have one other problem when I reset my trip odometer it zeros out but after I power down and up again the original numbers that I zeroed out are back again. I was wondering if any body else was having this problem? I can get rid of it but I have to clear all memory, that can't be right.
I noticed that will happen if you do not have a sat fix. I was able to duplicate your problem. It stayed zeroed out once I got a fix.

Your right, it does zero out and stay if you have a fix.

Thanks

Ken

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have observed a strange happening on my Explorist 600 (with latest software upgrade). In a worst-case scenario, it will sometimes take off on a "trip" by itself. Seems to occur when it is down to a lock on only two satelites. Last night as it was sitting by the window, it took off on a journey at 400 mph, in a westward direction over the Pacific ocean. I had to shut it down and re-start to get it back to reality. This has happened twice now while at different locations.

 

This has happened to me twice since recieving new e500 with firmware uploaded. I have to say I was indoors on both occasions and am reasonably satisfied that it is not an issue when satellite coverage is good.

 

So far my e500 has behaved quite well. I have had a further week running the explorist every day. Fitted SD card over the weekend - as soon as I did so, the e500 would not switch on. After some perseverance, it did switch on and then worked OK over the weekend (I was not putting POIs, geocache locs in it at this point nor was I using a detailed map region). No questionable behaviour observed.

 

Today I have enabled the detailed map and once again the e500 has behaved well.

 

I now intend to use the SD card as much as possible over the next week or so and see if the e500 will mis-behave.

 

It hasn't behaved this well since I bought it - Note the weather has not been very cold and I havn't done the fridge/freezer tests yet. :unsure:

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Here's another one for the bug list (hope this is the right place for this kind)

 

The built-in map of the eXplorist 600, and probably all models, has an incorrectly labelled highway in Gloucester, Ontario, Canada.

 

It labels is as "HW-17", when in fact it is "HW-174".  It used to be 17 a couple of years ago and was changed.

 

Scott

Shouldn't you report this to

NavTeq Feedback Center ?

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Hi DOT-COM. Here's a new 2.03 flaw!

 

Today my wife and me went Geocaching, using Magellan routing to get at the Geocache start. For the second time since the firmware update we experienced the same problem with the routing. (In the previous release it was ok!)

In the village were we live, Navteq forgot to plot 1 steet in their maps. This causes the Magellan to calculate a route, we never go. We always take 'the missing street' and NOT go right, following the green Magellan track. We're getting back on the Magellan track about 3 streets later. The moment we left the Magellan track, the routing comes to a kind of 'standstil', which can only be released by initiating a re-route.

This is a new bug, the previous firmware didn't freeze in this situation.

 

DOT-COM, could you please add this to the buglist? Thanks.

 

Bye, Rudolf (team Barjon).

 

P.S. for DOT-COM only.

I still use Win98se because of a non-existing XP hardware driver for my excellent flatbed scanner.

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P.S. for DOT-COM only.

I still use Win98se because of a non-existing XP hardware driver for my excellent flatbed scanner.

So you would rather use your old scanner as apposed to having an OS that is fully supported by microsoft. Win98 is vunerable to the remote metafile exploit and countless others and microsoft doesnt plan to provide future fixes. I know this sux as microsoft is more or less forcing people to upgrade to XP but the fact of the matter is Win98 right now is unsecure. People can argue that XP isn't secure either but at least the door isn't AS wide open as Win98's doors are. For you to decide

 

PS You do know that you can get a printer, scanner, fax, card reader, and copier all-in-one for about $89 and I've seen them as low as $49 (Can)

Edited by D0T-C0M
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I finally updated and really like the improvments but now have had flaky lockups and performance that I NEVER had before.

 

Also I still have 98 and ME on a couple computers. I have far far less probs with adware. spyware, virus stuff on them than I do on an XP box.

 

I do love XP though as most of my customers problems lately are all related to these problems on their XP boxes FAR more than their old 98 machines. Keeps me busy so thanks XP.

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P.S. for DOT-COM only.

I still use Win98se because of a non-existing XP hardware driver for my excellent flatbed scanner.

So you would rather use your old scanner as apposed to having an OS that is fully supported by microsoft. Win98 is vunerable to the remote metafile exploit and countless others and microsoft doesnt plan to provide future fixes. I know this sux as microsoft is more or less forcing people to upgrade to XP but the fact of the matter is Win98 right now is unsecure. People can argue that XP isn't secure either but at least the door isn't AS wide open as Win98's doors are. For you to decide

 

PS You do know that you can get a printer, scanner, fax, card reader, and copier all-in-one for about $89 and I've seen them as low as $49 (Can)

Hi, DOT-COM,

This 'must' be news for you, as well as it is good news for me! Finally I succeeded in finding a XP driver for my excellent old SCSI scanner. So...

I migrated to Windows XP Pro, with all bells and whistles! Hurray!

Please don't forget to publish my latest bug on the list.

Best regards, Rudolf

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I have noticed one major problem since I updated my eX600. The battery drain seems to be greater. The backlight has three positions... bright, not so bright and less bright. There doesn't seem to be an OFF. I can't remember if that is the way it was before the update. At any rate, I am concerned because I can start out with a full charge when I go off into the woods and when I check the battery at 3 hours into the hike, it is less than 50%. I never used to check the battery level before, but started doing it when the battery actually died while we were out caching. That's when I started looking at the light. I have the default for the light to turn off after 30 seconds, so it isn't like I have it on all the time.

 

But, it may only be a coinkadink and the battery is coming to end of life, even though I've only had the unit since 5/10/05. I checked with a tech support person at Magellan and he told me that the battery is good for 400 charges. I wonder if I am exceeding that by having it charge in the vehicle mount while on the road. Any thoughts on the subject?

 

Brewer

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Thanks for the feedback,

 

First there was never any off backlight setting. Second you can get cheap battery replacements on ebay for like $7 . I dont have the part number off hand but maybe someone else can reply.

 

LMAO but what exactly is a coinkadink

Edited by D0T-C0M
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Second you can get cheap battery replacements on ebay for like $7 . I dont have the part number off hand but maybe someone else can reply.

The replacement battery info is in this topic. You are looking for a Motorola t720 extended life 1100mAh cell phone battery. From that topic, the battery model number is SNN5595B, which provides 11hrs of usage. Sounds like SNN5595A will work too but the user who tried it only got 8hrs of usage.

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I have a new 600, upgraded to 2.03 firmware.

 

Add me to the list of people with calibration problems.

 

When powered on, the thermometer would read 72 degrees.

This would creep up slowly until it stopped about 84 degrees after 10 minutes.

 

This was in my house; room temperature was about 72.

 

I would hit calibrate, set it to 72, and within about 5 seconds it would jump back to 84.

 

Using the secret menu 22 (thanks!) reset calibration seems to have fixed it.

No more temperature drift.

 

I am not convinced to compass is really pointing North now after calibrating it;

I need to find a good reference. It looks about 10 degrees off to me.

 

I wish I could say for sure my calibration issue was related to the upgrade.

Unfortunately, I did not use it long enough out of the box to check.

 

If you have a 600, be sure to check for problems like this after the upgrade.

 

Robert

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Ah, but do you call them every day and talk with Scott or one of his co-horts? Have you told them that at the exact point of turn around time that they promised you expect a full and complete refund if the repaired unit isn't on it's way back to you? Did you talk with the service manager...twice? It took them EXACTLY 12 days and that is because they overnighted my unit to me.

 

Doc

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here is a firmware download at Magellan's site for the 600 (it's still says 500), did it come back up or is this something else?
......
the firmware was pulled because the new firmware erased the factory compass settings for some users

 

I was just going to ask "So, should we reinstall the newer code.... just in case there were other things updated?", but I checked the site and the 600 is not listed. :mad:

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here is a firmware download at Magellan's site for the 600 (it's still says 500), did it come back up or is this something else?
......
the firmware was pulled because the new firmware erased the factory compass settings for some users

 

I was just going to ask "So, should we reinstall the newer code.... just in case there were other things updated?", but I checked the site and the 600 is not listed. :huh:

 

They took the link off for the software update for the Explorist 600, but the page is still there.

http://www.magellangps.com/en/support/prod...plorist_600.asp

 

When you download it, it's the explorist 500 firmware update. Which seems to work fine with the 600, I used that file to update my 600 recently, because my unit was on 1.67 which was really buggy. But this update seemed to work fine.

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I see the firmware for the e600 is no longer on the list for download. It could possibly be a contributing factor. I should have an answer why it was removed soon

 

WHile your asking, find out why they do not post the old versions of firmware along with the new 'improved' version.

 

It's terrible that they do not post ALL versions of firmware for all units - just in case. Those that have upgraded are stuck with it as is with no way to put back the prevoius version if they wanted too. I know that the improvements have outshined reported problems though.

 

I waited a couple weeks to upgrade my 500 when the updates were posted to try to make sure there were no critical problems. You brave souls that upgraded the first day without the safety net of being able to 'go back' where indeed guinea pigs. Thanks for taking the chance I guess.

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I was just going to ask "So, should we reinstall the newer code.... just in case there were other things updated?", but I checked the site and the 600 is not listed. :P

I don't think so.

I just did a binary compare of the file I downloaded dec 23 2005 and a fresh downloaded file: they are binary equal.

 

Regards, Ruud.

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I experienced a new tweak:

 

Its about the Geocache-function:

I have more than one geocache-file on my ex600 to cover different areas:

 

I noticed that changing the geocache-file in active setup leads to a loss of the number of found geocaches.

 

To check this, just transfer two .gs-files to the eX, activate one of it and mark more than 4 or fhem as found.

now switch to the other .gs-file activate it, and switch back to the first one.

now list your geocaches and select "show found", I just see only 4 found geocaches.

 

If you analyze the .fnd-file (there is a tool Found2Log (German user interface) available now), you see that in the file the number is still correct

Edited by DocW
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I have had many 'cold' related problems and my Ex500 is now in a state where when you switch it on, the screen says:

 

‘Press ENTER to configure NAND Press ESC to cancel’

 

– whichever button you press, the Ex500 switches off.

 

On 14 Jan 'DocW' said:

Mine stayed inside the car for a night at 0°C: Next morning the flash was corrupt ("Press Enter to configure NAND"-forever) , I had to format the flash and reload the base map.

 

 

The quote above suggests that I can correct this, can someone please tell me how ?

 

Thanks in advance

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I have had many 'cold' related problems and my Ex500 is now in a state where when you switch it on, the screen says:

 

‘Press ENTER to configure NAND Press ESC to cancel’

 

– whichever button you press, the Ex500 switches off.

 

On 14 Jan 'DocW' said:

Mine stayed inside the car for a night at 0°C: Next morning the flash was corrupt ("Press Enter to configure NAND"-forever) , I had to format the flash and reload the base map.

 

 

The quote above suggests that I can correct this, can someone please tell me how ?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Yes, sure:

 

First step: Reformat the flash (assuming that the unit is back to normal temperatures):

- swittch the unit on

- press NAV + PWR button (goes into hdden menu)

- select menu 95

- select format, press enter

 

Then the unit is ready for work again, but it does not have a basemap. To reload the basemap,

connect it to the USB-cable and then swithc it on, so that it startsup in the file-transfer mode.

 

Just copy the basemap (it must be named basemap.mgi) into the "background-map"-folder on the explorist.

 

The basemap can be found here (but it seems to be down actually), give me a PN

 

Hope that works for you!

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Yes, sure:

 

First step: Reformat the flash (assuming that the unit is back to normal temperatures):

- swittch the unit on

- press NAV + PWR button (goes into hdden menu)

- select menu 95

- select format, press enter

 

Then the unit is ready for work again, but it does not have a basemap. To reload the basemap,

connect it to the USB-cable and then swithc it on, so that it startsup in the file-transfer mode.

 

Just copy the basemap (it must be named basemap.mgi) into the "background-map"-folder on the explorist.

 

The basemap can be found here (but it seems to be down actually), give me a PN

 

Hope that works for you!

 

When I switch on, my screen says:

 

Press ENTER

to configure NAND

Press ESC

to cancel

 

Pressing either ENTER or ESC switches the unit off.

 

I have tried 'NAV + PWR' in either order (both pressed together though) and this does nothing. Do you have any ideas ?

 

Also, I might be being a little thick but what is a 'PN' ?

 

Thanks for your help.

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You have to press the buttons from the power-off state to bring up the secret menu.

 

This information is taken from the Underground Exporist site, where you can learn more about secret menu options:

 

If while unit is "power off", press and hold NAV key then press PWR key, or if uint is already on, press MENU key then press right-left-right-left arrows, then on center of screen the service function windows with text "00" will appears. With help of arrows you can to change "00" to number of any other service function, then press ENTER.

 

As for "PN," I think it stands for "Personal Nessage." :D

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As for "PN," I think it stands for "Personal Nessage." :D

 

Mumpfle-fumbldl, thx! Soo many keys, sooo thick fingers :D

 

and I was a bit unprecise in the description (thanks Embra for correcting me), was using my own german translation from that page, and translated it backt to english, a bit too lazy. Sorry for that.

 

Glad that everythings up again!

Edited by DocW
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