Home › Microsoft Streets and Trips › GPS causes Streets & Trips 2009 map to go intermittently blank for up to 4 minutes
I have been using Streets & Trips 2009 in my laptop since last summer. Just finished a trip from Winnipeg to Bucerias Mexico and S&T worked flawlessly for 80% of the trip.
On the second last day, while passing through the city of Saltillo, Mexico, the map screen would occasional go grey for a few seconds. As we traveled, this grey out began happening more often, eventually getting to where it would go grey for 3 to four minutes, the map would pop up for about a second, not long enough for the little car to come up an show me my location.
The speed always shows correctly and the latitude and longitude keep updating as they should, but the map just shows a blank map. If I uncheck the Start GPS block, the map comes back, but without the little circle that shows your position. then I noticed that the GPS Trail feature was working normally and the end of the blue line still showed my position at the time I clicked the GPS off.
I drove the last 200 km down here just using the map, Clicking the Start GPS on occasionally to get a short blue trail to see if I was still on course.
It appears that the GPS receiver is WORKING, it just cannot update the location symbol. I tried all the map options, terrain, road, night, same result. Unfortunately I did not bring the Streets & Trips discs so I cannot reinstall the program down here.
Any ideas,
Al
On the second last day, while passing through the city of Saltillo, Mexico, the map screen would occasional go grey for a few seconds. As we traveled, this grey out began happening more often, eventually getting to where it would go grey for 3 to four minutes, the map would pop up for about a second, not long enough for the little car to come up an show me my location.
The speed always shows correctly and the latitude and longitude keep updating as they should, but the map just shows a blank map. If I uncheck the Start GPS block, the map comes back, but without the little circle that shows your position. then I noticed that the GPS Trail feature was working normally and the end of the blue line still showed my position at the time I clicked the GPS off.
I drove the last 200 km down here just using the map, Clicking the Start GPS on occasionally to get a short blue trail to see if I was still on course.
It appears that the GPS receiver is WORKING, it just cannot update the location symbol. I tried all the map options, terrain, road, night, same result. Unfortunately I did not bring the Streets & Trips discs so I cannot reinstall the program down here.
Any ideas,
Al
Al, could you test this while driving with the GPS Trail feature disabled? This feature used to cause these kinds of issues in past versions, and I think it has been corrected already, but perhaps there still may be some issues related to this feature on very long trips.
Because of the loss of some of the S & T features during the grey-out, this does sound like a S & T problem. However, grey-outs can also be indicators of pending screen failures. A screen failure is most likely attributable to the screen backlight inverter; think ballist for a florescent bulb.
Should you have this hardware problem, the repiar is not as complicated, or expensive, as your computer guru would have you think. Generally, the repair shops want to change out the entire screen assemble at a cost of hundreds of dollars. But, you probably only need a $20 part and enough skills to read some instructions and turn a small screwdriver. If you would be comfortable changing out a light fixture, you have enough skills to change out an inverter. Instructions and parts for your laptop are generally available on-line.
Are you having grey-outs at other times?
Should you have this hardware problem, the repiar is not as complicated, or expensive, as your computer guru would have you think. Generally, the repair shops want to change out the entire screen assemble at a cost of hundreds of dollars. But, you probably only need a $20 part and enough skills to read some instructions and turn a small screwdriver. If you would be comfortable changing out a light fixture, you have enough skills to change out an inverter. Instructions and parts for your laptop are generally available on-line.
Are you having grey-outs at other times?
The problem is only with the map pane. The GPS pane and all the tool bars stay normal. the map just disapears leaving a white gray map. Funny thing is, the lakes stay on the screen. The map flashes on breifly for about a second then goes off again.
I tried clicking off all the options one at a time, GPS trail, rotate map etc. but nothing brings it up except to disable the Start GPS button. Everything works except it can not show the position
Al
I tried clicking off all the options one at a time, GPS trail, rotate map etc. but nothing brings it up except to disable the Start GPS button. Everything works except it can not show the position
Al
I finaly solved the problem today. As I am here in Bucerias for a month or so, I decided I needed to try opening a new S&T map for local traveling. Everything worked perfect, without the previous problem. My trip down was all on one map, all 4705 kilometers of it, and I guess it just overloaded the program. The GPS Trail option was selected and the farther I went, the more it took to save the trail information. in future, on long trips I will do it in two parts.
Al
Al
Quote:
... in future, on long trips I will do it in two parts.