It’s sending me around in circles

[Rasher]

I found the XT infuriating when I started to use it having used several Garmin units since 2005. It does have a few quirks compared to those units but once understood you can avoid them. The biggy for me was turning imported routes to saved routes. An easy way to do that is in the link as well.

Just got an XT and what a pice of shit!!!!

I see a lot of these issues, tested routes from my house to nursery drop off and train station, start point at end of drive and 1st waypoint about 300m up the road - start going and "turn around" - WTF!

Tried skipping the next waypoint, but it wants to skip the one in front, even if you do skip that point ahead so it should jump to the next one you still get "turn around", tried starting from the 2nd waypoint 300m up the road and "Turn around", tried starting at "closest entry point" and, yep "turn around!

Took it on my trip to Eifel last week and every fucking time I set off - "Turn around".

One afternoon after lunch in Bastogne I tried to start the route from the 1st waypoint (not start point) about 1.5 miles out of town on road to Foy and "turn around", asked to skip waypoint and it asked if I wanted to skip the one ahead, OK then - "Turn around", stopped and reset it, tried again and "turn around"

I then waited until about 100M from this waypoint, restarted the route and selected "closest entry" and it was OK, for rest of day.

I found I had to set off following the track (I had set to display the track for any routes we were running) once a little way along the route and close to a waypoint I could start navigation using "closest entry point", seems the only way to not have a constant "turn around" message.

The whole time my old 345 was performing perfectly OK, 2 other guys had XT's, one had never really used routes and basically gave up and followed bike in front, my other mate had said the XT is utterly shit and he just uses an App on phone - I assumed he was a fuckwit incapable of using a nav until I got my XT!

Screen is nice, ability to send routes from phone to device is great, the BT connection to phone and headset is light years ahead of my 345, but the primary function of directing you accurately is totally screwed, how this got past the beta testers is beyond me.

BTW all my routes were showing as "saved" routes, I have sent them drect from phone (via MRA) and exported to GPX and copied to device via PC.

Nothing seems to work, apart from getting along the route and then starting it.

I also turned off the auto recalculate option, but that failed, and even once the trip was working (due to starting part way through) if you went off the orignal route wihtout recalc - for example we had some roadworks in a toen and a small diversion, when you get back on the original path (back on purple line) it did not detect you were on route and had given up providing directions, the arrival time froze etc...

... Completely useless, if you deviate for any reason you have to stop the navigation, go back to trip planner and restart the trip with "closest entry point" and hope the closest point is in front or....

....Yes "TURN AROUND" although you might be able to "skip waypoint" and get back on track, I just followed the track a bit and tried again when the "closest entry point" would be in front of me.

By far the worst Nav device I have ever come across, appaling waste of money - and I will never buy a Garmin device every again, and will push for full refund on this pile of crap. It is totally useless.

Another mate was strugling with a Tom Tom, the only guy not experiencing such ball ache was the guy running MRA, well almost, he had an NT1100 with Car Play and the car play would regularly fuck up so he had no Nav, nothing to do with MRA, just the "latest and greatest" bike electronics - progress eh?

 

[Wapping]

Leaving aside the theatricals, though I can understand your frustration.

It is perhaps odd, that the only time I have had a problem with my XT, running routes created in MyRoute, was with the one route which came to me from a third party but it was created in MyRoute by him. What though is shown on my screen with the laser beams, is different to the problem(s) you encountered, so it might well not be immediately relevant.

Whilst the XT definitely does operate differently to other Garmin devices, I do wonder if there is some simple (or complicated) misfit somewhere? I say this only as:

a. You say that a fellow with a TomTom also had problems with the route. Though that might be user error or some other factor.

b. There are lots of reports of XT’s running perfectly well. There again, these might be doing nothing more than running ‘Take me from A to B, avoiding motorways’ as opposed to bespoke routes.

Rasher, have you tried raising your problem on the MyRoute forum?

 

[Rasher]

Sounds as though the "Avoid U Turns" option in avoidances may be worth a try.

Then it just sends you around in circles all day long.

Tried various settings to no avail, we had 3 XT's doing the same thing on our trip, whilst my 345, an MRA user and a Tom Tom user with the exact same routes had no problems.

Today tried simple route to take kid to school,

started from 1/4 mile down the road from start point at my house as popped to shop, started it going and immediately before it hit the start of the route I got "turn around", thios persisted until I hit the 2nd waypoint of the route and then it told me I was off route and asked if I wanted to re-calc - although I was on the fucking purple line of the route.

Anyway, I let it recalc and it then picked up and worked.

On the return route it did not ask to turn around, but instead put a loop in telling me to turn left, then righ, then left again doing a loop around a tiny residential street just to join back onto the main road I was already on.

Its a bloody joke, it cannot do the simplest of route calculations without fucking it all up, to the point you cannot trust it at all.

I have been using Garmins for @15 years, car ones, bike ones, done many Euro Tours with Wife running two Garmins and never seen anything like this shit on any occasion.

It is utterly bizzare, and as it seems I am not alone something is going on with the XT models, and as ever Garmin could not give a fuck once your money is in their pocket.

========

I am starting you a fresh thread as your posts are getting mixed in with a load of others.

Richard

 

[Rasher]

Quick update, it tried to do a map update and failed, then said it had no maps, but a 2nd attempt at the update and a route it had failed on earlier that day worked OK.

Early days, and I cannot see how a map update would fix what appears to be routing issues, unless the update contains more than just the map, who knows with Garmin, they never admit to any issues, could demonstrateably prove a bug with my 345 and Bluetooth connections and their support guys did not want to hear about it, got the feeling they knew exactly what I was on about, knew they would never fix it, and did not want to admit to either.

 

[wilbjr21]

Then it just sends you around in circles all day long.

Tried various settings to no avail, we had 3 XT's doing the same thing on our trip, whilst my 345, an MRA user and a Tom Tom user with the exact same routes had no problems.

Today tried simple route to take kid to school,

started from 1/4 mile down the road from start point at my house as popped to shop, started it going and immediately before it hit the start of the route I got "turn around", thios persisted until I hit the 2nd waypoint of the route and then it told me I was off route and asked if I wanted to re-calc - although I was on the fucking purple line of the route.

Anyway, I let it recalc and it then picked up and worked.

On the return route it did not ask to turn around, but instead put a loop in telling me to turn left, then righ, then left again doing a loop around a tiny residential street just to join back onto the main road I was already on.

Its a bloody joke, it cannot do the simplest of route calculations without fucking it all up, to the point you cannot trust it at all.

I have been using Garmins for @15 years, car ones, bike ones, done many Euro Tours with Wife running two Garmins and never seen anything like this shit on any occasion.

It is utterly bizzare, and as it seems I am not alone something is going on with the XT models, and as ever Garmin could not give a fuck once your money is in their pocket.

========

I am starting you a fresh thread as your posts are getting mixed in with a load of others.

Richard

Did you not choose "Closest Entry Point" when you weren't at the start of the route ?

That would explain taking you to the beginning.

 

[Rasher]

No,

I have also just uploaded GPX files from computer, so removed MRA from equation.

Yesterday it did a map update and then a route I have used a lot worked, may have been coincidence, going to run routes everywhere I go for next week or two, lots ot try;

* Recalc Off / On
* GPX 1.0 Vs 1.1 Vs 1.2
* Disable U-Turns
* Choose Start point Vs "Closest Entry Point" Vs next Waypoint
* Copy GPX via computer Vs Send using MRA / Garmin Drive

TBH it should not matter much as to how they are orignally created / sent as all the device gets is a GPX file, literally a list of coordinates and names.

Start adding the combinations up and there are about 100 possibilites to test, and I feel like I am going to have to become the Beta tester for Garmin, as well as having spent the last decade beta testing BMW and KTM Motorcyles, I would not mind if I got paid, or even got the things for free!

I will also run both my old Nav and MRA alongside at the same time to see how they all compare, on holiday it looked as if the 345 was OK most,if not all of the time, and MRA on mates bike looked very solid, only once on the whole trip did it want to go a very different way to the track it was supposed to be navigating....

...I supect duff "Live" traffic or road closure information was to blame as I can see no reason why MRA would ever deviate from the track it was navigating, and we could see from the Garmins (345 and XT) it was definately not following the track it was supposed to navigate...

...Another challenge, Live traffic and road closure info, often not that great, we saw road closures were quite accurate on Tom Tom, but not as good on XT, but all of this can cause different bikermates to get sent different ways, and we had some roadworks causing closures nobodies device detected, in a large group turning all this shit off and just dealing with any diversions or closures as you reach them would be better - especially as the data is so out of date there is a good chance the closure has ended anyway.

 

[JohnnyBoxer]

Did you not choose "Closest Entry Point" when you weren't at the start of the route ?

That would explain taking you to the beginning.

I tried that and it wanted to take me back to the exact route start
Fucking useless thing
Still it looks pretty on the handlebars and tells me when I need to fill up and when there are imaginary roadworks ahead and how long the fucking delay is, precisely zero minutes
Most useless piece of shite ever invented for navigating a pre determined route

 

[wilbjr21]

I tried that and it wanted to take me back to the exact route start
Fucking useless thing
Still it looks pretty on the handlebars and tells me when I need to fill up and when there are imaginary roadworks ahead and how long the fucking delay is, precisely zero minutes
Most useless piece of shite ever invented for navigating a pre determined route

It's you John

Your much heralded 2610 told me sixty miles to the next turn up a dirt road; puncture, wife knocking bike off centre stand with rear wheel out, vultures circling and only wild animals for the next three hours ......

Then ..... "now execute a U turn" was the sixty mile direction !!!

I wasn't using Garmin maps - not available for where I was. OSM and this was ten years ago. Things have moved on.

How I laughed - not !!!

If you put in a predetermined route and have it set up correctly there are no problems - you do look at the route on it before you leave don't you ..... to see if that's where you want to go ?

Oh ..... you don't !!!!

 

[er-minio]

tried that and it wanted to take me back to the exact route start

“Closest entry point” in Garminese means closest WAYPOINT.
It won’t route you to the closest shaping point. If your route only has start and end waypoints… it won’t work well.

Regarding OP’s issue: it seems similar to some problems I faced recently when traveling, when it would get shaping/waypoints slightly off the road and it would create a mess. I use Basecamp.
Haven’t investigated that yet as I haven’t used the bike much lately.

For the last couple of years I’ve been using tracks on the road too, instead of routes, more and more.

Also, have a look here: https://www.ukgser.com/community/threads/ruts-repeated-u-turns-cause-and-cure-s.362642/

 

[Wapping]

I tried that and it wanted to take me back to the exact route start
Fucking useless thing
Still it looks pretty on the handlebars and tells me when I need to fill up and when there are imaginary roadworks ahead and how long the fucking delay is, precisely zero minutes
Most useless piece of shite ever invented for navigating a pre determined route

At the risk of hijacking Rasher’s thread with your childish rant, JB,…..

You have got used to using your other Garmin devices. Put simply, new devices (like the XT and others) operate differently and, often in unexpected ways. You are new to the device; I don‘t think you have used it that often, Like me, you have to get to know how to use it. I would be just the same, picking up a Montana or a TomTom, neither of which I have ever touched. I was just the same when the Navigator 5 (or was it 4) came out, as it operated very differently in some regards, to earlier Garmin devices. I haven’t used my XT fir the last three months, I don’t doubt that I’ll have forgotten bits about it.

In your posts, you have given us no clear idea as to:

a. The routes you created.

b, What options you chose when you turned the device on.

c. Your preference settings.

d. Where you were in relation to the route, when you activated it.

e. More besides.

If the XT (or any other device) just doesn’t work for you, just sell it. You bought it cheap, so you might even make a few quid on it *. Or, start to learn how it works and / or give some people some help, so they can try to help you.

Richard



* Do be sure to tell prospective customers that the device is junk, as bods here hate it when sellers are not entirely honest. Or leave it a month or so, so people forget.

 

[Rasher]

“Closest entry point” in Garminese means closest WAYPOINT.
It won’t route you to the closest shaping point. If your route only has start and end waypoints… it won’t work well.

Yes, I always mix shaping and via points, often when diverted for some reason you end up stopping looking at map on device and trying to figure out how to get back on "track" and with Via points you can see them on the screen, where the bike is located and say "start from this point", or delete all the points you have already passed (and any unrechable due to diversion) and then get going again, with shape points you end up with just a start and end point...

...Same with navigating a track, so although in theory accurate to the route you devised on your computer they lose a lot of data, such as any planned lunch stops or sight-seeing.

Up until buying an XT running a trip / route with the track displayed on screen has worked very well on the old generation of Garmin (340 / 345 / 390 / 395)

I have a mate who insists he has done may "trips" with his XT and not seen this, yet I saw 3 XT's exhibiting the same problems just 2 weeks ago, with routes that ran fine on my 345 and MRA.

Something else I noted is with my 345 if I miss a shape point it will skip to next waypoint ignoring any other shaping points prior to that next waypoint, on the XT it looks as if you miss a shape point and get back on the original route it will go to the next shape point, for example shape point up a side road, not sure if you go way of course if it behaves the same.

 

[Berin]

“Closest entry point” in Garminese means closest WAYPOINT.
It won’t route you to the closest shaping point. If your route only has start and end waypoints… it won’t work well.

Regarding OP’s issue: it seems similar to some problems I faced recently when traveling, when it would get shaping/waypoints slightly off the road and it would create a mess. I use Basecamp.
Haven’t investigated that yet as I haven’t used the bike much lately.

For the last couple of years I’ve been using tracks on the road too, instead of routes, more and more.

Also, have a look here: https://www.ukgser.com/community/threads/ruts-repeated-u-turns-cause-and-cure-s.362642/

This is true. But the XT has a good facility for editing and shaping routes and adding waypoints, which works well. MRA imports seem to only bring in start and end waypoints, so closest entry doesn’t work well, so creating a few on the device helps.

I’ve been using the XT in Spain all week using MRA routes mostly. On a couple of occasions we couldn’t do the route we wanted (the road to Covadonga lakes which is now closed for example) it worked fine with no u turns and no recalculation. I added new waypoints in and then just picked the route up again, or just placed waypoints and aimed for them.

Plus following a track which is imported from MRA with gpx 1.2 you can always get back to the original.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Onahi]

There should be a minimal age or IQ to use modern electronic equipment.
Some people

 

[Rasher]

Mine did a "map update" just over a week ago and has seemed better, it has not asked me to turn around on routes from my door since, but it still does some crazy shit, so been trying to get sme good data / evidence.

What I can see is generally if you miss a Shape point it will re-route to next shape point (mostly - will post more later) and if you miss a Via point it will skip to next Via point (so lets say you have a via just up a side road and miss it, then lets say 10 shape points to take you down some lovely roads instead of 100 miles of motorway with the next Via 100 miles away - it will take you down the motorway ignoring all of those ten shape points.

What I had wondered is if a slightly off waypoint caused me much of my grief, but no, the behavior on missing points is generally good - although what is really odd is sometimes after missing a point or two it would ask if you wanted to skip a waypoint, now I assumed it meant the one behind that had been missed, but noticed it sometimes offers to skip one ahead of you even when you are on the correct path heading towards it - taking into account the above this could really ruin your trip!!!

The weirdest repeatable thing I have found is my run back from the train station, I do this twice a week, and I have the start point on the road just outside the car park, I set it to use the route, it draws a route through the car park to the start point, I join the road and then need to go right at next roundabout - which it tells me to do, I then have a mile of dead straight road to the next waypoint, about half way up this road it wants to do a U-Turn, if I turn off U-Turns it jst tried to get me to turn into a housing estate and loop back on myself. if I ignore it and carry on to the next waypoint it seems to re-calc and be OK, but has then later on same journey asked to skip a point up ahead.

Next week I plan to runt he same route on my 345 and take pictures showing the 345 works with the exact same route and the issues the Garmin has...

...Not sure what to do with them as there is no such thing as "Garmin Support" other than the ability to send them a message they never reply to, but may give me enought to demand refund and threaten court action as it is "not fir for purpose"

I certainly cannot trust it, I would have to have a second nav before going on any trip, in which case why not just use the one that works?

 

[Wapping]

I think you create your routes in MyRoute? Which version do you export the routes to your XT in?

Have you tried just turning auto-recalculation off or setting it to prompted and selecting ‘no’ when asked.

 

[Rasher]

I have been exporting in GPX 1.2 direct from MRA with the Garmin drive (open in MRA / Slect Edit / Select Save-as from Page menu / Select Export / Select Open / Select Garmin Drive) and also copied from PC to XT directly (file copy)

With recalc off it is useless as you lose any directions as soon as you miss a point, so if on a day out you had a small diversion once around the diversion you would not have any navigation unless you restart the trip and select the next Via point up the road, in the example below if I missed point 2 as shown (lets say the road was blocked and my route was the diversion) then from here on I have no navigation, even if you rejoin the orginal route it gives no further directions or prompts (or at least it did not when I was on my tour and I tried recalc off)


I thought maybe it is fussy about missed waypoints, but this seems to work OK and consistently, case in point:

If I miss a Via it will route to next Via ignoring all shapes..



This is repeatable and reliable, tried on different routes and if you miss a Via (Red Route taken) and then skip the missed Via (2) it goes directly to 5 when recalculating ignoring the shape points 3 and 4.

If point 2 is a shape it behaves differently and jumps to next shaping point.



This also seems consistent, miss a shape and it goes to next shape, this may rely on you rejoining on the original route, I think if you go way out of the way other stuff happens, but i have not figured it out in every scenario, but a simple miss of a shape point like this it reclaculated before I even got back to the black line (about half way down the red bit) which is only a few hundred metres, very fast "re-think"

Now it looks as if missing a via will always skip directly to next via, miss a shape and it will always skip to next shape - probably in a simple miss where it is just up a side turn or like the example above when you quickly get back on original route, but it is not that simple....

This time I missed point 3, a shape point, so previous logic would suggest it would then turn me left before point 4, then turn me around again, but it did not...



Having skipped point 3 it then recalculated to Via point 5, so the miss a shpe go to next shape does not always hold true, but if you look I hit original route at the point at which it would need to turn to get back to point 4, maybe this is why? It actually makes more sense, but I am not sure of the Garmin logic here.

The key point is if you have lots of shape points and miss a via it could seriosuly mess up your trip, if point 3 and 4 were Grimsel and Furka pass and the direct route was the tunnel under the mountain, and you missed point 2 (If a Via) well that would be a bad day!

Now for something a bit odd...



So here I miss Shape 5 and it re-calcs to 6, but I turn off and head for 7, at first it is asking to turn around (fair enough) then it re-routes again to Via 7, all good, then half way between 7 & 8 it asks if I want to skip a Via point, now you would probably assume you have missed one behind somewhere, but nope - it is actually asking me if I want to skip point 8 ahead, when A: it is ahead, and B: I am on track to hit it anyway!

I think this behaviour may have in part been a lot of the aggro I had on my tour this year, we had a number of road closures and had to route around them, and I think we would get offered a skip waypoint option and assume it meant one we missed during diversion, and instead we skipped one up ahead and blew all of our nice twisty "shapes" as it tried to find the fastest way to the next stop.

Now here I have a really weird one, when leaving the train station I start the Nav running, the car is about 200m from the start point and not on a map (X marskt he spot) but the Garmin draws a dotted line to where the road starts (still before start point) then routes me out of car park, turns me left onto road, and starts working fine...



Having worked fine getting me out of the car park, over 2 roundabouts it then tells me to turn around, with U-Turns disabled it ttries to send me into the next housing estate to do a loop and come back the other way.

It has done this on 3 consecutive occasions now, really need to see what 345 does with this exact same route, after that I will change it to GPX 1.1 as at the moment it is the best repeatable example of total XT failure I have, I will also convert the track to a trip and see how that works.

The problem is the XT cannot be relied upon for a trip in foreign lands (or even a day out) the whole point of the device is to take me on a trip I planned on my PC, not to randomly tell me to turn around every few miles or randomly prompt to skip waypoints - especially when you have no idea where they are as your in an unfamiliar area.

Next week I am running the 345 alongside to prove 100% it is a fault with the XT, and then the long battle with Garmin, I am guessing I will have to write to them (as you cannot phone or email them) rejecting the device as not fit for purpose and demanding a refund.

A shame as the connecitivty to phone / headset is light years ahead of my 345, and the ability to send routes from phone to Nav is really handy, but of it cannot do the one primary function people buy a nav for then it is useless.

 

[Wapping]

Rasher, try this please:

If (you) have the saved trip on the XT. For the repeated u-turns problem, this seems to stop it being a PITA,

1) Send the calculated route to the XT

2) Open it up in the Trip Planner

3) Select Go!

4) Select the next via / way point, then Start

5) Then go back into Trip Planner

6) Select Saved trips

7) Select My Active Route and Save it. Unfortunately the original name is lost, but c'est la vie

9) Then select the trip you just saved in the Saved Trips area

Then…..

Try this:

Curing the XT U-turn weirdness for imported routes

So, I remeber recently on here when discussing this annoying U-turn behaviour alot of us are experiencing where it seems to want us to constantly around to satisfy some sort of twisted logic the XT has, someone commented (possibly Wapping) that there is a known "fix" that it only affects...

www.ukgser.com

 

[Rasher]

I really don't think it is the same as my issues as my trips when sent to the XT from the phone, or imprted from the XT disk always show up as "Saved" trips.

I also do not mind it trying to send me to the next waypoint, in fact that is exactly what I want, so the behaviour this "fixes" is precisely the behaviour I am trying to eliminate - and I have already proved above my device does indeed go to the next waypoint if I deviate from my route, the issues I face are (oddly) whent I am actually 100% on the route it told me to take!

Also do Garmin think users should have to "hack" their system, find the route as a .trip file when it will have a random name enirely different to the name of the trip you sent to the XT - so the only way will be to clear out all of your saved trips, then to copy out the one remaining trip, convert it on a third party website, and then copy it back!!!

FFS, that's a lot of work, and what about on tour, doing that every night in the Hotel for the next days ride.

It's bonkers!

 

[Wapping]

Don’t do it then

 

[Rasher]

Well, its an option thanks, however it has seemed to improve over time, and yesterday I loaded slightly revised routes for my commute and it behaved, one bit at the start of a route (section not changed) where it always said "turn around" every time it was OK.

I also noticed when you go to the route and then hit start it calculated the route (I thought it did this on import) and I am not wondering if that was changed in an update?

If an update changed something here I am wondering if routes imported ages ago did not do a calc on 1st use and had issues and ones imported later now worked OK.

On my 345 it does not calculate the route when you start (running them side-by-side at moment in car) but defo calcs on import - as it takes bloody ages you cannot miss it, the commute route on XT imports almost instantly, but I thought it also calculated at import.

Now I was thinking of a full factory reset, checking the bahaviour before any updates, then after, but first I wanted to also import a route from PC and via the Garmin Drive and see if they both do a calc as you start them.

I plugged into the PC and Garmin Express informed me I needed an update - odd as on the device under updates it tells me it is fully up to date,


I took a snap of the device saying up to date and express saying update needed, anyway I asked it to do the update wondering if it would fails and say not needed, but it proceeded to do an update....



Before the aggro of wiping everything I will run it with the latest updates and see what happens, and also how the imported via Drive Vs Copied from PC routes behave, only had the school run this morning, and I stuck a load of SHape points in that I would miss and it consistently recalculated back to the correct route, and never once asked me to turn around or skip any waypoints.




This was good, red is me bypassing shapes, green is the recalc, long before I got back to route after turning off before number 2 it calculated and wanted to go to 3, as I missed 3 it interestingly immediately calculated to 5 and not bothered with 4 (this is my point about not ALWAYS skiiping to next shape) when I missed turn for 5 it calculated to 6...

Then classic Garmin thing, decided it was faster to do a U-turn and go to W7 via 2 left turns and maybe 600M than do one right turn and arrive within about 200M, however this is not the original issue per se - but something that on occasions may lead you to believe you have the issue.

I may then do a reset and test from out of the box software if it still plays up, and if nothing else I would love to know what went wrong and when it went wrong, and this is why I really hate Garmin as they really do not give a F***, no support, no accountability, you buy their products and then hope they work, no meaningful instructions supplied or online, they cannot even tell you what I have sussed out regarding skipping of Via and Shape points...

...Contrast with MRA where you submit a support ticket and withi a few hours you get a response from someone that knows the product and gives a S*** about ensuring your issue is resolved, if there are known bugs they tell their customers, if they are working on improvements they tell their cistomers, Garmin is a black hole on all things customer service.

At the end of this I should know two things:

* How these units behave and calculate stuff
* That I will never buy another Garmin product!