Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Super Walmart discussion thread

In my poi source/input file to the POI Loader, I always have an identically named .bmp and .mp3 file that matches the .csv file with the long/lat coords and comments. I've always used a 1 mile proximity distance to trigger the audible alerts for this file. I've only noticed recently that it's stopped triggering, and that's when I checked coordinates for the exact POI locations, and they seem to have moved to the center of the actual buildings. I recall having a problem a while back with a location in Ancaster, Ontario, where the poi long/lat was at the front door of the building, and after I moved it to the nearest active roadway, the proximity alerts fired every time. I think I mentioned it to the maintainer, but can't recall the reply or conversation. I'll keep fiddling with it to see if it's something I'm doing wrong, but I haven't done anything to that file in my nuvi, except grab the recent updates off of here, and update my copy of it.
If it's been changed and it no longer functions the way it used to, I'll probably just drop it. If I need to find a Walmart/Sam's I can use the Navteq base map.
Too bad, it was a really useful file, and it's clearly very popular.

It is hard to please everyone. Some want store numbers and others do not. Some want gas up front and others want Parking. Some want .gpx and some want .csv

I put the location near the store because a lot of stores can not be seen from the street due to trees, hills, or behind other stores.

I try my best to please everyone.

DB,
Don't worry about pleasing me. You can't please everyone all the time, that we know. And I'm very sorry, it wasn't intended as a criticism, just a question/comment to try to figure out if I had done something at my end to cause the alerts to cease functioning the way they used to. I should have worded it differently, perhaps. My bad.

It's still a very useful file, but my old clunker of an 855 seems to prefer the poi locations on the nearest active roadway to be able to see them from a distance. When the coordinates were on the nearest main roadway, my 855 told me there was a store nearby somewhere, behind the hills, trees, or other buildings, I guess, so I could start looking around for it.
In any case, I'll have to figure out (maybe tourguide? i'm not familiar with it) how to either make it work again, or figure out some other way to alert me to the Walmart/Sam's store locations when I'm nearby.

Thanks for the reply, and know that we all appreciate the file, and can only imagine the amount of work that goes into it's maintenance.

Your POI files are very valuable to many here and we appreciate all the effort expended.

I can also understand why you've chosen the building location for POI locations. Unlike highway rest areas where there's a single access point that can be placed along the roadway to guarantee normal alerts, big box stores like Wal-Mart with immense parking lots may have access points from several different streets and if you designated just one to be the POI point, you'd needlessly be directing some folks to a single entry point even if others were a better choice.

And for folks who do want alerts for POI files like this, it still can be done using TourGuides.

So keep up the good work in whatever way you prefer.

For roadtrek190p:

This link (scroll down to my reply "Here's what I do for School Zone alerts"):

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/37386

describes a how-to for creating TourGuides. TourGuides can be tough the first time you try one because there are many things that must be done exactly right and if a single step is skipped, it won't work. But you eventually will be rewarded with alerts for "off-road" POI locations. From reading your posts, it appears that you're quite familiar with POI Loader, alerts, adding audio and icons, etc. so you should have no problem with TourGuides. Just remember to include the word in the filenames (POI, icon, audio) and to capitalize the T and G in TourGuide.

I echo CraigW's comments. I very much appreciate this file because, wherever I go, I may need something that I am pretty sure the nearest Walmart will have.

To follow up a bit on what CraigW has said, we might engage you in a discussion about how much of/what kind of an alert you would like to have.

You know, I'm sure, that having an alert every time you get close to an ATM machine might get on your nerves. McDonalds would be a little less so but could still get annoying.

A specific Walmart alert, on the other hand, might be something that you could live with because it would not be going off every few minutes.

TourGuide added (in the same place for each) to the file names you have right now will easily work. Loading the folder that contains the three files with POI Loader in manual mode and setting an alert distance of, say, 5000 feet, would give you the audible alert.

What you might also think of is making the .mp3 file (in your case) be something that played a few seconds of a favorite ringtone - rather than "Walmart is ahead" - since the Walmart might actually be way to the left or the right (or behind you if you just started up).

You would not want the .mp3 file to play too long as it might conflict with another alert - but there is nothing that says you have to take whatever sounds are on the site. You can make your own.

CraigW,
Hmmmmmmm, I read your school zones alert revelation, and the ensuing saga, and if it works by simply adding the underscore and TourGuide to the 3 components of the POI files, before feeding to the POI Loader, then it's a (relative) no brainer, which always works for me.
Are there any other known Garmin-related restrictions to using and creating these types of poi files to trigger the off road proximity alerts? I don't have traffic alerts on my nuvi 855, for example. May I assume that the TourGuide function does a 360 degree scan of the area around your nuvi, and the radius of the scanned area is user defined while assembling the poi.gpi file using the POI Loader program? Is it a memory hog/abuser, do you know? After the 2014.20 map update, I'm getting a bit memory constrained.
Interesting, though. I'll give it a try and see how it goes. I'll post up any questions or results.
If it works for the Walmart/Sam's Club file, then it's a great (new to me) feature for folks like me who aren't overly computer savvy, but are always willing to learn. If I run into any other similar alert issues, I will hopefully be able to modify my poi files accordingly.
Thanks Craig.

As many say, you can't please everyone.It's not that the file isn't useful and I can live with the changes but I will say every time you do change the layout, someone else will ask you to accommodate their request. My suggestion is to decide on how you are going to present the data and then stick with that format. Remember, the amount of data that can be displayed on the screen is limited so by the time you have the store type and city, you often have more than the 20 characters the Nuvi will display on either the search or Go screen.

Absolutely, particularly when I'm on the road in an unfamiliar area. That wasn't the issue. I just wondered if I had done or changed something accidentally that was causing my proximity alerts to cease to function. Almost all my other alerts based on my POI Loader .gpi files still worked, and I suspected something had changed in the Walmart input file, with the location of the exact coordinates being the most likely culprit. As it turns out that seems to be the case.
I plan on trying the fix CraigW suggested.

jgermann,
I've actually removed more than a few of those unexpectedly repetitive and annoying alerts. You sometimes don't realize how bad they can be until you get out there and they start driving you crazy. "Wifi locations" was one that I recently added, and then removed, after about a week.
I have quite a few in my custom POI folder, and they seem to work fine,as they sit, for me. The exception was the recently noted absence of the Walmart alert. I'm honestly not even sure when it stopped working. None of the other custom POI files I have loaded into my 855 failed to alert me by proximity, so I assumed the Walmart file had somehow changed. It appears that may be what happened after all. I'm planning to try CraigW's suggested work around, and I'll let you know how it works, but if it's as simple as adding the _TourGuide to each component of a poi file group, then I should be fine, and now have a fix for any other files that go "off road" as well.

If you were asking my opinion on where to place the poi location coordinates to make each poi entry the most useful, I would place them on the roadway where the poi's primary address is situated. If the store's address is 1 Main Street, Anytown, Anystate, USA, then I would place it on the roadway that is included in the place's street address. That should get you to the main entrance, on the main roadway, and after that, it's up to the individual user to figure out which parking lot entrance works best for them.

The situation I experienced with the poi location being moved off the roadway, effectively hides that poi from my nuvi, as I travel along my route. Unless I'm using _TourGuide (how many users out of the total number of Garmin nuvi GPS users, use it?) to find something that I know has had it's locator moved off road, I would have never known there was a poi in the area. Whether it's hidden behind trees or buildings or whatever. Even using TourGuide, I still may not be able to see the Walmart when the alert sounds, and that makes it more tedious to find while I'm driving. I used to be able to simply scan the road ahead, once I heard the alert. It was the easiest way to add custom pois if I didn't have to worry about where the exact poi was located, for it to alert me to it's existence farther up the road along my route.
I can sort of understand the other logic, that I'd know there was one nearby, but the old way of poi on the road worked best for me.
I'm thinking I may use TourGuide for things like Observatories, and Waterfalls, and Covered Bridges, and other poi items that aren't always on a roadway, or that might not have a street address.
Like I said, I'm learning.
These are just my opinions, and not intended to offend.
I can also live with the changes.

In order to have 2 icons you'd need to have 2 files. One for WalMart and one for Sam's Club.

One of the reasons I encourage those having issues to let us know what they "really" want is that others learn from reading the back and forth of the discussion. CraigW's logic on the distance from schools, for example.

Every person may have something that they would like to know is near - even if they do not need to go there right now. As an example, whenever we or my kids go on vacation, I spend the time to find out where the 24 hour pharmacies are in the vacation area and surroundings. Several times in the past I have needed some medicine in the dead of night. At least I become aware that there are some around.

I have found that experimenting with the sounds played by alerts can make driving easier. I remember a Starbucks alert that I was using for testing made me jump every time it activated - it was so startling.

So for twentyfourhourpharmacies, I have six seconds of Charlie Pride's version of "Help me make it through the night". I find that a musical line is less distracting.

As a clarification, you do not have to have an underscore with the nine characters "TourGuide". As long as those nine characters are somewhere in the file name - and each of the files in the set (.csv/.gpx, .mp3/.wav, and .bmp) has the same characters to the left of the extension - the TourGuide will work. You must have a sound file, by the way, for TourGuide to work.

The reason CraigW and I would use the underscore is just for readability. I did not want anyone to get the impression that the underscore was a requirement

I think you can specify which icon when using a GPX file or is it the alert? It's been a while but I used to alert just the Wal-Mart gas stations. I now strip them from the file and build a separate one as it's easier to search. I do know you can assign the Garmin gas station icon but don't remember if you can do one of the custom icons or not.

I checked the long/lat from the WM file, dated June 2013, and compared it to the latest WM file. The long/lat has not changed.

The issue with the Ancaster Walmart's location was well over a year ago, probably happened back in 2011, around the same time I requested a correction for the Waterdown Walmart's coordinates, so that's not surprising. It was another one that wasn't firing my proximity alert, because it was too far off the nearest active roadway. I think I sent a request for a correction when I first noticed it, and I'm not sure if I followed up on it with the maintainer. Usually, when I see a problem with a file, I fix my copy, and send an FYI note to the maintainer. I don't usually expect or always receive a response, but that's not a problem.

So, I gave it a try and the function works really well. IN fact, it works so well that it crashes my nuvi 855 after about 3 or 4 proximity alerts fire, and I'm thinking it's just not going to work on my unit, after all. The nuvi 855 is probably just too old and under-memoried/under-powered to handle TourGuide.
I used a nearby poi as the guinea pig, and it sees it almost immediately (because it's my home) and repeats the alerts a few times, before the nuvi hangs/freezes. The fix is a 30 second power off reboot, and that simply repeats the cycle of failure. I suspect my unit is very near a situation where either the memory constraint is causing the problem, or the processor (which is probably close to 5 years old now) just doesn't have the power to process so many alerts in such short order.
So, unless there's a way to make it fire once or twice and quit, I'll have to find another solution.
Thanks to everyone who got involved and tried to help, but it's OK, I can live without the alerts for Walmart while en route. No big deal.

In case anyone has any other ideas, I'll check back later, but for now, thanks, and take care all.

I have used TourGuides successfully with my nuvi 855, but only one of my POI files was a TourGuide and my alert radius was set to 500-600 feet. There has been discussion, but I'm not sure it's ever been confirmed, that TourGuides require constant excess processing power and that slow downs or freeze/reboots may result--and if your TourGuide alert radius is several thousand feet or more, it may require even more processing power.

On my 855 with TourGuide, I only had your hang/freeze experience once--and it was very similar to your experience. I stopped for gas and let the nuvi power down. After gassing up and starting the nuvi again with its long active route, I found that the gas station was within the radius alert of my TourGuide and right upon boot up, it tried to give a TourGuide alert and froze. I was able to successfully restart the nuvi a couple miles down the road when I was away from the alert location. So your experience with a hang/freeze starting your nuvi at home where it will boot and try to do a TourGuide alert is not that surprising.

As you say, though, if you want a pretty large alert radius (say a mile or two) for a TourGuide, which is likely what you'd want if you're trying to know about off-route Wal-Marts, then a TourGuide and at least your 855 might not be too useful.

One final thought and this is old history so I may be remembering it wrong: I vaguely remember that with these older nuvis (the ones that can use mp3 audio) that mp3 audio does cause freeze/reboots and that this can be fixed by using wav audio instead. It may be worth a try, but then, you'd need to switch your mp3 alert audio to an acceptable wav format and you'd need to install sox.exe (for PCs--not needed for Macs) in your POI Loader directory. Your 855 can use wav audio as well as mp3 if you do things right. My 855 had many fewer freeze/reboots after I swapped all my alerts (TourGuide and standard POIs) from mp3 to wav.

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/25730

Having nothing to lose at this point, and being the tinkerer I am, I got rid of the TourGuide Home poi file, and instead went back to plan A, and created a separate Walmart_TourGuide.gpi file/folder which I copied to my "S" SD card, and then into the memory on the "N" drive upon boot up. I also restored and loaded my old poi.gpi file, where everything else but Walmart proximity alerts work. Then I went for a drive out towards the local Walmart, and the TourGuide alert triggered the proximity audible alert. As far as I can tell, it only fired once. I was traveling at around 60mph on a nearby freeway, but was within the 1 mile radius around the Walmart's coordinates. I set my alert distance to 1 mile. I have yet to try it at lower speed nearer to the poi epicenter. I'll see how that goes when it happens.
So, it does seem to work for the Walmart file, but appears that if it sees enough poi occurrences in a small geographical location, or maybe the same one over and over, it may bog down.
So, I'll keep it set up this way until/if it becomes problematic, and starts causing repetitive freezes or any other unexpected problems.

I'll check back on here again in a bit to see if anything interesting comes up.
I'm too tired to even think about the MP3 to WAV conversion project.
I read up on the conversion at GPS DATA TEAM and it's just not likely to happen. It's an old nuvi, that mostly does what I need it to do, and that will have to do for now.
I'm also not sure I wouldn't consider a tablet or smartphone GPS solution next time out, if/when my 855 finally gasps out it's last lane assist picture and breathless pause during.
Please standby, or carry on, whichever you prefer.

How long does the Oval alert giving info on that particular Walmart on the display stay with you?

Just guessing, but I think a TourGuide on your home is likely to cause problems since it is a special category on the unit.

That's great.

Just checking--do you use the default Junction View file that comes with each map update or have you downloaded and copied the large jcv file to your 855? The large file is awesome.

The one I use is just under 25,000 KB, so I'm not sure which one I have. I recall reading something about Lane Assist/Junction View file sizes a while ago. I don't do anything special when I update my maps, so if that's the big one, it must be included with the map/software package.
I haven't seen a standalone software update for over a year now. I guess when Garmin discontinues a product, the support goes too. Then it occurred to me that maybe they have map updates that are model specific, with software tweaks included. Just speculation, though.
Thanks again for the suggestion on TourGuide. I hope it continues to work problem free.

The 8XX series will freeze if there are too many announcements in a limited area. The freeze can be the map just stops updating but the directions continue to a complete freeze where everything stops. It primarily happens when two (or three) announcements need to be made simultaneously. It may work or it may not. Two simultaneous TourGuide announcements will cause total lockup.

Oh, TourGuide announcements don't repeat. They fire just once.

The large JCV file works well. The version for map 2014.20 can be downloaded from Garmin at

http://download.garmin.com/support/2014_20/NA/JV/D3060110A.J...

and is D3060110A.JCV which is 798,554KB in size. It's likely too big to fit on the nuvi itself so you would install it to a SD card in a folder you've created: /Garmin/JCV

You also would need to disable the small jcv file you have now and it's easy just to add a .disabled to the file name for the small file you have now.

You will be amazed at the improvement in Junction Views displayed. Note that future map updates will delete this large file and with each map update, if the large file is preferred, you'd need to download and manually install the new large jcv intended for the new map update to the SD card.

Sorry, other priorities.
It sounds for about 1 mile radius, which is what I felt was a useful alert radius. It's not continuous.

That scenario must be raising it's ugly head, either multiple announcements overlapping, or multiple Tour Guided files clashing. I "converted" some of my plain old roadway coordinates alerts to TourGuide alerts. In either case, I'm removing TourGuided files from my custom POI group. The 855 crashes aren't worth it to me, to have them in there at all. I'll just have to look for Walmarts/Sam's Clubs manually, or just wait and see which ones still fire from the roadway, and which don't.
Thanks all, for the suggestions and the lesson in TourGuide.
It was a good idea, but I think my 855 is just too old/slow to handle it.

I may look into the enlarged/enhanced junction view file to see if that might be an improvement. To make it work (big file .75GB?), I would create a /Garmin/JCV/ folder on the "S" drive (SD card), and disable the existing copy on the "N" drive (nuvi) by renaming it to something else? Will the boot routine ask if I want to copy it to the nuvi, like the POI files, or will it just read it from the "S" folder when it needs it to present a junction view?
One more question. When I log in to My Garmin account, I don't see an obvious link to the fancy junction view anywhere. How would I find it again, if the world were to end and POI Factory vanished off the internet? What heading or tab is stuff like that under? Maybe I'm not paying for it as an optional download, so it's not included in my Extras/Downloads/Dashboard/etc. ? Just curious, if the explanation is fairly simple. I'm a simple man.

Yes, you have described the correct procedure for installing the large JCV file. I install it on my 855 after every map update. The nuvi will not prompt you to copy it to internal storage.

In general, Garmin does not publish the link to the large JCV file on their site. It may be there in a FAQ somewhere, but is not easy to find in any case. POI Factory isn't going away, so you will be able to find the file by checking this forum after each map update.

This is off topic for this thread, so if you have any more questions about the JCV file, you should go to one of the other threads that discuss it.

I've downloaded it, installed it, and done the renames, and ran a simulated route. Interesting. Better, more realistic picture of the background during lane assists. I'm not sure it's as effective or makes the lane assist easier to understand quickly. It is interesting, though. I assume that the .jcv file is map specific? Also, a new map will find the existing large file during the update process, and delete it from my SD card? Is that how it works? Again, I'm curious.

Hello alandb.
Thanks for the answers to some of my other initial questions.
Too late on any other JCV file questions, as I've already posted them on this thread before I saw your warning. Sorry. Since CraigW asked the initial JCV file size question a few posts ago, and I answered him on here, I posted my follow ups here, so he could find them easily. If you want to move them to a more appropriate thread, please do so, and please post a link here, to redirect us to their new location. I'll leave it up to you to decide which one.
Thanks again.

I have tried a few more times to set up the Walmart/Sam's Club POI file as a Tour Guide file, and it still seems to regularly crash my 855, no matter how short a proximity distance I use. I finally tossed in the towel. Maybe if I get a newer unit, I'll try it again.
It's a shame that the file changed to move the actual POI locations to the "front door" of the various locations, instead of leaving them on the nearest active roadway. Since I can't (and maybe many other users also can't or don't know how to use TourGuide files?) get the 855 to even alert and tell me if I'm on the roadway to a Walmart/Sam's Club, directing me to the front door won't help me find it. At least the old way the file was set up, I'd know if I was approaching a poi location on my current course, and then it was left up to me to look around for the actual building(s), once I was within a few meters of it. That seemed more logical to me, than placing the poi location cross hairs on the doorstep, where my unit can no longer see them.
Not criticizing, just disappointed that I can no longer use the file. It's a great poi file, and the effort required to maintain it must be enormous.

Thanks to all for your help, it was an interesting and informative experience.

RT190P.

I have the 885 and use the Walmart file with no problems. But then I don't necessarily want to know if I'm driving near one either. Just having the file so I can find one when needed is enough for me.

As to the crashes with the 800 series, it's one of those things that happens when the processor gets overloaded because it's trying to keep track of your position, alert for turns or give you warnings, move the map, draw new streets, monitor your custom poi, play MP3 files or Audible books and then play a custom alert sound. Actually the system hangs when a third call is made to the sound processor while the others are active. That usually means you have too many alerts on your files.

When I last had the Walmart POI file on my Garmin (about three years ago), things alerted with no problem. I took it and several others off at that point ... But recently tried to use the Walmart POI file with no success. I put several other POIs on at the same time as the Walmart CSV file; they (Arby's, McDonalds, etc) all alert as they should.

All of my Walmart files have the same leadIn name -- simply "Walmart". Even tried multiple versions of the sound files converted from the mp3 file (tried stereo, mono, high quality, low quality etc) even though I didn't need to do this with the other POIs.

Used the Garmin POI loader to remove and reinstall the POIs several times.

Am currently in northern AZ. Although both the Walmart Supercenter and the Sam's Club in Bullhead City, AZ are in the CSV file, neither will alert. (Have not been to any other areas to check other WMT locations).

Any suggestions as to what to try?

Thanks
Tom

Before we get to deep, how far off of the main road are they? A directional alert or along the road will only alert within about 75 ft from the road. Where is the latitude and longitude for the poi placed? If it is on the building, it could be to far from the road.

This is exactly what the OP's issue is. The location marker is for the building, not along a major roadway fronting the property. If a marker is within 75 yards of a roadway, I would be very surprised.

I don't know if the alert is attached to the road or the building, but I have driven past both locations multiple times in both directions and have been in each parking lot immediately in front of the buildings.

Guess I don't understand the difference between the types of alerts and why I have no problem with McDs, Arby's, Casinos, etc in the area.

I manually set the alert distance from 10000 to 15000 feet depending on the POI. I even get alerted in Bullhead City to a McDs across the Colorado River in Laughlin, NV.

Thanks
Tom

The two alerts available in a Garmin are an along-the-route which is the default and a TourGuide. The TourGuide requires the keyword TourGuide (exactly as shown) be in the file name, the icon file and the alert sound. In order to function, a Tourguide alert MUST have an audio file.

Along-the-route alerts can be visualized as a box extending the distance of the alert that is about 50 meters (160 feet) wide with the location at the center of the back edge. If you are a) traveling toward the location and b) enter the "box", an alert will sound.

A TourGuide is a circular alert in that a circle is created around the location with a radius equal to the alert distance. Anytime you enter the circle, you get an alert.

In order for the default along-the-route alerts to work, the alert location has to within about 75 feet (25 meters) of the road you are traveling on and you have to be traveling toward the location. If the location is more than 25 meters from the road, no alerts regardless of the distance set in POI Loader. Most of the WalMart locations are not within 75 feet of the roadways so you would never receive an along-the-route alert.

or roughly 98 feet according to Garmin. 75 yards is 225 feet so that would not alert.

Remember that Garmin's native measurement is expressed in metric terms. Those of us in the US must remember that we are out of step with the world by continuing to use Imperial measurement.

Nevermind quick google search figured how to merge two cells so I can search the POI by store number.

Thanks again.

The Walmart in Troy, NY was expanded and became a Supercenter (still at the same address) in October. Can someone tweak it to reflect the change?

Troy has been updated. Thank-you for the info.

The 9/12/14 update is not going through the POI loader. One line must be messed-up somehow.

Just downloaded it and POI Loader took it.

Worked for me yesterday.

An early version on that day was bad. Corrected later the same day.

Don

Thanks for that update. Those who had problems always like to know that their software worked as it should.

That didn't work for me. The csv file contains the column titles on the first line and that seems to trip the POI loader (version 2.7.3.0). After deleting that line from the file, it works fine.

I also use 2.7.3.0 and it works with the header line in the file.

Wonder what the difference could be.

I update this file on a weekly basis...love it!

I update this file on a weekly basis...love it!

Mine just shows a small black square. I figured I would need to break the file into 3 (Sams, Walmart, and market) parts for the icons to work.

Assuming you have downloaded or acquired an icon (which you had to name with exactly the same character string to the left of the .csv extension followed, of course, by the .bmp extension) letting POI Loader know you have an icon file,

and, assuming that the .csv file and the .bmp file are in the same folder, you should be getting whatever icon you have chosen if you zoom in close enough.

It would be OK to break the file apart and have separate icons and the "folder" would then contain
Sams.csv
Sams.bmp
Walmart.csv
Walmart.bmp
Market.csv
Market.bmp