Re Updated POI Loader to V 2.6.0

I downloaded & installed the new POI Loader. I tried to recreate all the POI files I have replacing the last load I did several days ago with the old loader. It kept finding problems with the files that worked just fine under the old POI loader.

Removed the new loader. Installed 2.5.4 & was able to recreate all my POI's. Don't know what the problem is. I guess we'll hear from others if it's a general problem.

Fred

Sounds like nice improvements. Thanks for the info.

Anyone checked to make sure we didn't lose the ability to use wav files with new poiloader?

How do I check the version of POI loader I have?

Still at 2009 version

Find PoiLoader.exe - mine is in C:/Garmin/PoiLoader.exe. Right click on PoiLoader.exe, select Properties, select Details, and see File Version.

Deleted.Answer already provided.

As you know, POILoader does not seem to have an "About" button that gives info about it.

The way I found out what my version was involved a "portable" (and free) application from www.portablefreeware.com called 'Version Info". This application told me I was using version 2.5.4.0

I was doing the right click on the icon at the Start menu, thanks Hawk51

My is older than dirt 2.4.2.0

I downloaded the new version and had nothing but problems with it and downloaded an older version 2.5.4,I wrote an article on POI forum about my experience with the new POI loader.

Just downloaded the new version of POI Loader v2.6.0 and loaded all my files (which are in .csv format) with no problems in the manual mode. Had updated POIs earlier today with old version but wanted to check new version out.

One neat little feature it now has is That it shows how complete the upload to the GPS (or card)is via a bar chart after the last file is managed.

Looks like some problems for some of you, so I'm just going to wait, the old version is working fine for me now.

I down loaded with the auto mode and had nothing but problems I went back to an older version,glad to see yours worked ok.

Version 2.6.0 is significantly faster than 2.5.4. Took less than 2 minutes to read my source files, convert them and then upload to the GPS. 2.5.4 took about 3 times as long.

2.6.0 did barf on loading the Cabela's file. It reported an error on line 2. Deconstructing the file, which did load n 2.5.4 showed several errors but I didn't see anything that would stop it from loading in just a quick glance. I corrected the errors and converted the file to GPX. It then loaded.

Earlier today I installed POI Loader version 2.6.0.0

It found one error out of 57,864 pois that I had it load. When I checked the csv file that POI Loader said contained an error, I was able to find and correct the error – there was an extra comma on one line of data.

I just installed and ran the new version. Went ok, but didn't load the speed & red light wav files, said wrong format. Checked were it had installed (changed directories without asking) and sox was missing, transferred a copy over retried ok. Old version was in c:garmin, new loaded into c:program files(x86)garmin. I am running win7 pro 64bit. Come on turboccc, new style EPE will probably work better anyway.

BUT after I installed 2.6.0 I had to re-copy the sox.exe file to the folder where PoiLoader.exe is.

Thanks for the heads up, I will look at the file today when I get in.

Edit: Both the csv and gpx versions load fine for me in POILoader 2.6.0.0. What errors did you find on line 2? Thanks

You can also click the icon in the very upper left location of the program and you get a drop down box. You will then see the "about". Click on that to get the version.

Thanks to mdh31951 for notifying me of an issue with my Kohl's csv file. I took this as an opportunity to check some files that I use. I installed the new version and it picked up errors on the following files I use.
Covered Bridges.csv
Best Western USA.csv
Days Inn USA.csv
Motel Six Redone.csv (my own personal one)
Kohl's USA.csv
In looking at the files I found miscelaneous commas and double quotes in the 3rd column (name). I will work to correct these on my end to be sure they load before contacting the maintainers.

The question now becomes...Is this an opportunity to correct some minor mistakes in our files? or should we all just forget version 2.6.0.0 and use version 2.5.4.0

Good question. I think I'll wait until the files get corrected because when an error is found in a file, everything beyond that point in the file is NOT loaded. In the first 10 sec of processing with the new POI Loader, it found 5 separate files which had errors. At that rate, I would have lost the majority of all the POI's I had on my Garmin.

Obviously, something's afoot & needs fixing.

Sorry to hear that I'm not the only one affected by such problems.

Fred

The one error that occured apparently was caused by a comma in the name field even though the name was enclosed in quotation marks.

This line (as downloaded from POI Factory) caused a POI Loader 2.6.0 error:

-71.107665,42.834129,"Singer Subaru, LLC ","77 Plaistow Road
Plaistow, NH 03865
(603) 382-7101"

This edited line worked ok (notice the comma after Singer Subaru was deleted):

-71.107665,42.834129,"Singer Subaru LLC ","77 Plaistow Road
Plaistow, NH 03865
(603) 382-7101"

I received an email from @mdh31951 that he had an error loading my Tampa Bay Area Attractions file. He was also using the new version POI Loader. Visually, I could see nothing wrong with the formatting of the file.

After reading this post, I went back and looked at the file again and found the same thing - "The one error that occured apparently was caused by a comma in the name field even though the name was enclosed in quotation marks."

That formatting should be legit (a comma inside double quotes). So for right now, I am not going to change my file. I'm going to wait and see what Garmin does with the new POI Loader.

Worked with no problems, using windows 7 64 bit and sp1

I think different users are going to have different experiences depending on which POI files they routinely load onto their GPSs.

This version is really bad. Even though 2.60 installed into the program files it uninstalled my version 2.5.4 that was in C:/Garmin.
Version 2.5.4 allowed an alert on my Bruegger's file but 2.6.0 does not.
The alerts I put on my other files show up.

And a comma between quotes should work. It is making no sense.

But we can't change our files based on what mood version 2.6.0 feels like at the moment.

That's why I'm not changing any of my files right now. I'm hoping garmin will quickly realize the problem and release another update to POI Loader.

Don't ya love it when companies release program updates that breaks something that used to work correctly - sheez!

I'd have to check, but it is one I've had for eons. Some of the errors I encountered were incomplete telephone numbers but that may also have been my file manipulation as well.

seems like they might be making the editing more strict.

Changes made from version 2.5.4 to 2.6.0:
◦Added ability to specify a custom POI file's name
◦Added ability to handle swapped lat and lon values in CSV files
◦Fixed issue with multi-line CSV files not being read correctly
◦Fixed issue with extended ASCII characters in CSV files
◦Fixed issue with reading large gpx and csv files making the application unresponsive

Changes made from version 2.5.3 to 2.5.4:
◦Fixed issue with handling commas in CSV files.
◦Fixed issue with file paths including non-English characters.

Apparently 2.6.0 unfixed the "Fixed issue with handling commas in CSV files" done in 2.5.4.
Perhaps done while recoding to "Fixed issue with multi-line CSV files not being read correctly"

I do like "the ability to specify a custom POI file's name" added by 2.6.0

I sent email to Garmi this morning about the 2.60 release.It would help if others would do the same so we can get someone to look at it..

The way I see it, Garmin doesn't get to "set" the rules regarding the delimited text csv format. It's an already established standard:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comma-separated_values

They get to "follow" the rules and a comma enclosed by double quotes is part of that standard.

Just my 2 cents.

You can determine the version number of Garmin's PoiLoader utility by right-clicking on the titlebar when you've launched the program. Selecting 'About PoiLoader' will tell you its number. Also 'Check for Updates' can be deselected if you don't want it to check every two weeks for a new version.

didn't know about the "right-clicking on the titlebar when you've launched the program" method to view version number. Quick and simple

If you check the other letters you will see you are in good company.

After reading all of the post I'm convinced I need to wait until there are more favorite reports come to light. I hate being a beta tester!

Mike

a comma in a value enclosed by quotes is just a comma(special character), not a value separator see your link. If you have any question try reading the file into excel, it treats the "field, field", value, as two values not three better yet, take in one of your poi file, change one of the columns to include a comma separating fields and see how excel saves it, open it in notepad and you see the column now enclosed in quotes. If I'm not mistaken Garmin looks for 4 values when it takes in a POI file, Long, Lat, Name, other, what I think they are doing is the Name value can no longer contain special characters. Just my opinion.

Posted the following on Garmin's website in their POI Loader Forum. Thought others might be interested and want to reply to Garmin to correct the problems in POI Loader v2.6.0. No need for v2.5.4 to work and v2.6.0 not to work on the exact same custom POI files.

"Just updated from POI Loader v2.5.4 that was working fine with many many custom POI .csv files, some I created myself and some from POI Factory.com. Total of just over 126,000 individual POIs. v2.6.0 will not recognize a lot of lines of text for individual POIs that v2.5.4 will recognize; v2.6.0 will give you hundreds of line errors that v2.5.4 never had a problem with.

I was able to correct some errors in some of the files from POI Factory.com, most were either a comma in the wrong place or quotation marks that shouldn't have been there. After changing many errors I soon realized it was a futal effort due to the hundreds and hundreds of lines to correct.

POI Factory.com poi files that have lots of errors that v2.6.0 will not read but v2.5.4 will read include but not limited to the following files: Auto Zone.csv; Pilot Travel Centers.csv; Marriott Hotels.csv; Outback Steakhouse.csv; Bass Pro Shop.csv; REI Stores.csv; this is just a few.

Did not have any problems with several .gpx custom POI files.

v2.6.0 does runs considerably faster but I would not recommend upgrading from v2.5.4, you may have lots of .csv files with POIs that won't load due to line errors. Once a line error is detected in an individual file no additional POIs in that file are loaded until that line is corrected, even if the next POI line is correct"

Well said. No sense wasting our time on an inferior piece of software.

Fred

I also sent an email to Garmin hopefully they will get the message and find out what the problem is with their new POI Loader 2.6.0,because the new loader is much quicker.

How does the saying go, "if it ain't broke,... fix it till it's broke." That seems to be their motto. Sheesh, think I'll stick with v.2.5.4 for now.

I hit the same problem with one of my TriMet files. Garmin's parser is definitely out-of-spec.

Further, finding the specific issue was complicated because the line number is not literal -- it's a count of points. In other words, the "data format error on line 6421" was complaining about the 6,421st point in my file, which happens to be at line 58,369.

When you get a chance would you download the current cabelas (csv) version of the file and let me know what you get. It processes fine on 2.6.0 in winserver 2k8.

Thanks

In the CSV files I use, there is one line for each point.

However, the actual error is usually on the preceeding line. For example if the error message says "data format error on line 121" the error usually is actually on line 120. It seems the actual error causes the next line to be misread.

In the case of my cabelas file you are correct, mine reported line 2 error and I couldnt find a problem, but after reading this post I went back and checked the 1st entry (line) and there was a stray "," although the "," is enclosed in quotes along with the rest of the address info. Removed the comma and 2.6.0 processed further through the file until it found another comma.

Thanks

If you get an error in one or more of your files with the new version of POI Loader as I did,,, Convert the CSV to GPX and it will process the file NORMAL.

That's if you don't want to waste time looking for the error.!!!

Worked for me.

I did check my file, it was from 2009 but I overwrote it as I rearranged for input to GPX. Since I converted it to GPX it loads and that's what I prefer to use. Since you have tested the current file, there's no need for me to repeat the test.

Thanks for looking into the problem and verifying the current file loads. It will save some people a lot of grief in the future.

I have found with my 885T I have to either delete the POI.GPI file manually or tell POI Loader to delete the file before the new file will load.

POI Loader goes through all the steps, except it won't transfer the file to the GPS if an older version file is present.

I'm using V2.5.4.0 on W7-64 laptop, and it is working fine with my Nuvi 660.

I see no reason to change...