Fatal Errors in Some Files

What version of POI loader are you using and as far as errors did you notify the poi maintainer. If you are using 2.60 that could be why you are getting errors.

I used the latest version of Garmin POI Loader that is the link on this website. So if that is not the latest, that would need attention as well.

Phil Swanson

Remember Phil that you in all likelyhood paid zero for those 150 files because many unpaid volunteers take the time to make and maintain them. Find a file with errors? Simply contact the maintainer.
What are you willing to do to turn your suggestion into reality?

The files on this site are all free and maintained by members that are giving their time (also free). Although there are some files that are not the best, or have errors, it would assist the forum by helping to clear up those errors. The best way is to contact the maintainer of the files and get them corrected.

You have been a member for 2 yrs and 42 weeks. And you are not active. You have (IMHO) in 2 posts degraded the site.

"This is a great service but this website is not laid out very well IMHO. Too hard to find the things you need most. The alphabetical listing of ALL files should be up front on the home page. Just a suggestion. "

"I used the latest version of Garmin POI Loader that is the link on this website. So if that is not the latest, that would need attention as well."

Edit: I looked at A and W and it has not had a update since 5/21/2009. It is probably abandoned. Also, the file is on 26 entries and is in horrible shape. I can not tell you what format it is in, but it is not a proper csv file for this site.

Which Kaiser? because there are 5 files.
Worlds Best Truck stops is most likely an abandoned file also. Last update 11/29/2007.
Southwest Public campgrounds was last updated 3/3/2008 and shows on the main page 83 unusable records.
Food City last updated 1/20/2009. Its file is completely unusable. All its data is in 1 col.

I hope you are not purposely picking out bad files.

5 bad out of 150 in reality is not bad odds. It is, however what I would not like to see from this site.

I can tell you that the members here are trying to identify bad files and abandoned files and either get rid of them or get them new homes. I am sorry that you ran into this but lets move on and get them taken care of.

What I am willing to do is to provide feedback and that is what I have done. Give me a break, there are free POIs all over the net but without people providing feedback, nothing would get fixed. What business is it of yours anyway as far as what I am willing to do about it? And no, it was not totally free but well worth it.

Phil

"What I am willing to do is to provide feedback and that is what I have done."

Phil, your feedback is what I consider complaining when you clearly state (or don't state) you won't do anything but present issues you want fixed when you should offer to help. You won't even take the time to notify the maintainers of the files you found problems with. Hmmmmmm

"What business is it of yours anyway as far as what I am willing to do about it?"

It's only my business because YOU posted in a very public forum that YOU want issues corrected but YOU
offer nothing to help fix the problem.

"And no, it was not totally free but well worth it."

Ok Phil, you paid $5-$20 for 150 poi's. What's that per poi? Sorry if you think me or others are a little hard on you but I take this site for what it is. A lot of people taking what I consider their precious free time to do something that helps many others and their pay is satisfaction. If I paid $100 a year maybe I would expect alot more.
When someone donates their time, as is the case here you are not a customer.

Why shoot the messenger? philipswanson merely commented that some POI files have problems. So? He's not their maintainer. Let's not get personal about someone else's observations. We've got a pretty nice site here; let's not bully folks we may not agree with.

There is no reason to attack a new person that is trying to help us out guys.

I will take a look at those files this week and see if there are line errors that need fixing.

Miss POI

Try deleting the current POI file with the loader. Then, after the loader restart, load it again. That worked for me on XP Pro.

I agree, but he has been on this site for at least 3 yr with no partipatilon and now all he can find if fault. I think he could have went to each maintainer or miss POI with the probllems he found before posting on the site. We always need people to revies our poi's as they can change very quickly.

Edit: I looked at A and W and it has not had a update since 5/21/2009. It is probably abandoned. Also, the file is on 26 entries and is in horrible shape. I can not tell you what format it is in, but it is not a proper csv file for this site.

Which Kaiser? because there are 5 files.
Worlds Best Truck stops is most likely an abandoned file also. Last update 11/29/2007.
Southwest Public campgrounds was last updated 3/3/2008 and shows on the main page 83 unusable records.
Food City last updated 1/20/2009. Its file is completely unusable. All its data is in 1 col.

I suspect, as I already stated, that the files are abandoned. They are so old that correcting them will do no good because they will still be out dated.

The maintainers need to be contacted to be offered the choice of what they want to do. Either give them up or remove them. I suggest removal because they would have to be completely redone from the beginning.

I looked at all the files that are in question. None of them are even close to a properly formatted file.

I looked at the A&W CSV file via Excel. Instead of loading this file by double clicking it, open Excel first. Then from a blank sheet go to the DATA tab at top, choose Import External Data then Import Data. Path your way to the desired file (in this case your A&W file) and choose it. When the Import starts, check off Delimited, then click on Next; Select Comma Delimited, then Next, then Finish. When you are back to Excel's Sheet, click on OK. At this point the entries are totally different from simply clicking on a file name to load it into Excel and the data can be manipulated, especially by using ASAP and Excel's Edit tab and Replace function. You can get rid of extraneous quotes; leading, trailing and excessive spaces; and so on. Save the file as a CSV. I always load the finished CSV file into CSVed and then save it using CSVed's option to put quotes around each column.
Using the import process above for Excel works great on many of the CSV files that seem otherwise corrupt. A little effort on your part will pay big dividends. NOTE: Sometimes an import will appear messed up in the 3rd and 4th columns. A lot of times that is because Word Wrap was used. The data can be reset in these columns by selecting each column, right clicking on it, select Format Cells, then click on the Alignment tab and unselect Wrap text.
Good luck.

Still using Poi loader 2.5.4 & haven't had any problems along those lines for the files I'm downloading. Until all the files here are scrubbed clean, we are going to continue to have these problems with the new versions of Poi loader (2.6.1).

There is a price to be paid by early adopters!

Fred

If the Kaiser file you're having issues with is the Mid-Atlantic (DC, MD, VA) file in CSV, then it's a known (maybe?) issue. I sent a couple of messages last week to Jon/Miss POI about it being truncated on download but have not heard anything yet and it's still broken.

Also, there is a GPX alternative to it that I uploaded but it doesn't show up in a search, so I put a link to it on the CSV version page. It downloads & works fine. The direct page link is http://www.poi-factory.com/node/32372.