organizing folders

Charlesd45 has an excellent FAQ on this.

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/25721

path is my cpu/docs/my docs/garmin nuvi all folders/nuvi 2455lmt poi loader files/hd (this contains all bike related pois) files..............................

cpu/docs/my docs/garmin nuvi all folders/nuvi 2455lmt poi loader files/roads ....................

cpu/docs/my docs/garmin nuvi all folders/nuvi 2455lmt poi loader files/food ....................

Then just run poi loader and point to cpu/docs/my docs/garmin nuvi all folders/nuvi 2455lmt poi loader files

when i run poi loader and point to nuvi 2455 lmt poi loader files 1. it will have hd,roads,food,etc in the subfolders? 2. both sub folders will be added to custom poi? 3. should i use poi loader to remove the existing poi hd files on my garmin? thanks i really appreciat the response.

Create a folder on your desktop named POI. Create a folder inside this folder for HD, another for Food, and yet another for Roads or whatever. Put the 3 HD files in the HD folder, put all the food files in the Food folder and the roads files in the roads folder. Open POI Loader then tell it to load POI which has all the other files. POI Loader will create a single file on your unit named POI.GPI which will have the other files within the folders inside the POI Folder.

And, mkd, if your original file name on the nuvi with your earlier POIs was poi.gpi and you keep the same name when loading with POI Loader this time, too, then the old file will be overwritten so there's no need to manually delete the older one to avoid duplicates.

i have done what was suggested and started a folder on my desktop and added 2 subfolders. hd dealers and motorcycle roads.i have put each poi folders with the gpx,bmp,wav,sox & poi loader.exe in the appropriate sub folder. you guys helped tremendously and suggesting reading the garmin custom poi help topics further clarified the folder/subfolder confusion.i am going to run the above and see what happens. yes i have a backup done! thanks for someone suggesting that on one of my previous posts!

You are making this much more complicated than necessary. First off, there is a MAJOR difference between programs and files. Sox and POI Loader are programs that are installed on the computer. Once installed, you don't need to worry about them again as you will probably never touch SOX and only update POI Loader when Garmin releases a new version. So, stop worrying about these two programs. The both belong in the Program files (x86) folder and then within the Garmin Folder. Make certain there is a copy of the files there and then GET RID OFF EVERY OTHER COPY!.

The only thing that goes into the folder for your POI Files on your unit are the data files, those are the CSV or GPX file, the BMP, and the WAV file associated with them. These are read by POI Loader and automatically placed into the proper file on your Nuvi.

If and that that's only if POI Loader sees a WAV file, it will look within the same folder to see if there is a GPX or CSV with the same name. It does the same with the icon or BMP files. if it finds a match, then POI Loader will use SOX to associate the WAV file with the locations and will also associate the icon or BMP file IF THEY ARE PRESENT IN THE SAME FOLDER. POI Loader understands how you have the files arranged and will create separate groups for each folder inside your main folder. It will also group all the data files (that's the CSV or GPX file) and put them in the group folder. POI Loader then creates a temporary file on your computer that has the data (that's the CSV or GPX) associated with a sound or icon if they have the same name. POI Loader will then create it's database and then transfer it to the proper location in the Nuvi's memory.

bear with me box car i'm a slow learner at 62! i now have a poi file with hd dealers and rustic roads subfolders.the poi loader exe and sox loader exe. do not have to be present in the subfolders? only thin needed is gpx,bmp,and wav,? .................update i now have the sox.exe and poi loader exe in program files(x86)/garmin .now what do i do to get the poi installs?

When you download the POI Loader from Garmin and run the install file, it will put POI Loader into the Program Files(x86) folder (gives you no choice).

From this folder you will run POI Loader.exe.

Into that same folder, put the correct version of sox.exe

Make a POI folder as suggested above on your C:\ drive. Under that folder create sub-folders of HD, Food, etc.

In the sub-folders, put the .csv, .bmp, .wav files for each POI file. One folder might have multiple POI files (food, for example)

Point POI Loader at your POI directory when you run POI Loader and it will get all of the files in that folder and one level of sub-folders.

The new versions of POI Loader let you name the output of POI Loader with a name of your choice. To that name it will append the extension .GPI. It used to be that POILOader always created the same output file (called POI.GPI) but that is not true with newer versions of POI Loader.

You might have POI Loader delete all .gpi files the next time you run it. That will let you start with a clean slate.

the listed version above i just got from garmin has no remove files in the poi program.i just installed the harley dealers and motorcycle road maps and they are now listed as subfolders. however i also have the previous version of dealers to remove.how do i remove the hd poi file i don't want? the version of poi loader i used to start with has a uninstall feature to remove the unwanted poi files.

When I run POI Loader v2.7.2.0, I'm given the option in the 4th window to "install new custom POIs onto your device" or "Remove all previously installed custom POIs from your device."

In addition to this, if your old and new POIs file created by POI Loader is the same name (default POI.GPI), the loading of the new POI file will overwrite the older one after you receive a warning of the overwriting and therefore will delete the older POIs.

have the folders and subfolders and everything is loaded in the internal memory and it shows up in the custom poi list.what happens if i install the poi files to external memory drive 3 in the 3rd step of poi loader? craig w!...........it does have an uninstall step!

Don't.

Installing to an external drive is particularly useful if you share the compiled file between devices or with friends. Just let it write the file to the Nuvi's internal memory for now.

well everyone thanks for sticking with me on this.i now have everything loaded and i could not get the wav file to work for the motorcycle TourGuide subfolder. first the hd alert worked twice with the hd dealer poi's because i had the folder and subfolder tourguided and then i fixed that but couldn't get the motorcycle road TourGuide to work at all. it was also doubled up but in fixing the double alert issues i made a typo in the wisconsin rustic road subfolder files. wisconsin rustic road TourGuide. bmp....wisconsin rustic road TourGlide.wav...wisconsin rustic road Tourglide.gpx ! twp out of the three were mispelled. i'm going to finally check it now if it's right i'll get the harley engine sound going thru the gears for the dealership poi's and ray charleys singing a short wav clip of "hit the road jack" for the wisconsin rustic roads poi's. thanks everyone for your help! HA! I FORGOT TO LOAD THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i get a double sound notification for the hd dealers and a single notification for the rustic roads. somewhere i have one too many RoadGuide triggers. i have internal memory files and micro sd card that shows empty.i have unloaded the poi's before i did the re installs but i'll be honest i might have changed the subfolder names in the middle.how can i find where the second hd dealer sound alert trigger is located. can i drag it out of the gps while the internal memory is brought up in windows.

Look for GPI files on the unit. The only one you want right now is the one that matches the name of you master folder. Move the others off the unit and into temp storage on your PC and see if that corrects the problem.

Can you try and use proper sentence structure? Like upper and lower case and separating your sentences with a space between sentences. You have everything running together and it is very difficult to follow.

boxcar. the double alert comes when i load the garmin poi folder with the sub folder hd dealers and wisconsin rustic roads.i can uninstall the poi category files on the gps and reinstall the garmin poi folder/subfolders.i deleted the gpx dealer file and got it here again on poi factory and reinserted it.didn't make any difference.if i deleted the image bmp file or sound wav file and got new files. would that help?............ as i quit for the night when i start the gps up 2 alerts sound in a row for the hd dealers and one alert for the wi rustic road right after them.i am located within parameter limits set for both poi's.

Do us all a favor and take the time to structure your posts. As we've stated time and time again, running everything togetherinonelongunbrokenstringisdifficulttounderstand.

Now, try explaining your problem again using sentences that use an upper case letter at the beginning with a period followed by a space at the end. Once we can figure out what you are rambling about, then perhaps we can diagnose your problems.

1. In Windows Explorer, look on your GPS for a POI folder. In that POI folder, look for files with a GPI type. (You may have to change Windows Explorer settings to display file type extensions.)
2. Delete all GPI files on the GPS. If you have commercial POI files loaded such as Mad Maps files, leave them alone.
3. Put the GPX and CSV files, with associated BMP, MP3 or WAV files in ONE folder in your "My Documents" folder and name it "My POIs".
4. From the Start button, navigate to Garmin and run POI Loader.
5. Point POI Loader to My POIs.
6. Each GPX or CSV file will be automatically placed in a separate list under Extras>Custom POIs.

This will ensure you only have one copy of the H-D POIs and others loaded that have TourGuide properties.

It sounds like he is getting 2 alerts for HD dealers (indicates 2 dealers within range), and getting 1 alert for the WI rustic road (indicates 1 within range). But that is only a guess.

that's exactly what's happening. i am within range of only one dealer and one wisconsin rustic road. if i uninstall the TourGuide hd dealer poi file the alert is not present.if i reinstall the Tourguide hd dealer poi file i get the double alert. the file path is HD Dealers poi files/TourGuide H-D Dealers.bmp Tourguide H-D Dealers.gpx TourGuide H-D Dealers.wav

Check your spelling. You have here "Tourguide H-D Dealers.gpx". Notice that the "g" needs to be upper case. Or is this a inadvertent mistype?

Verify in the HD poi file that there are not duplicates.

it was a mistype.i have two subfolders in garmin poi folder.each of the three files in the two subfolders have TourGuide in their title. if i do not install the rustic road subfolder and only install the hd dealer subfolder it only alerts once on startup.(because i'm inside the perimeter radius)................... onestep.TourGuide is not in the folder title and only appears in the subfolder in the bmp,gtx,and wav file headings.

Are you stating the HD file alerts once when you turn on the GPS because you are inside the radius, and then a second time when you start to move?
If so, that's normal.

Boxcar .i don't want to confuse you but i installed backup files i made previously to my nuvi because i thought i corrupted the files and it wasn't working right.i now only have the TourGuide H-D poi file installed and everything appears to be working correctly. the TourGuide H-D Dealer alert always played only once on startup as long as i did not have wisconsin rustic roads installed. as of the current right now install i think it only alerts once on startup.i am currently working on the double alert problem thus more questions............1. how does the TourGuide function make the wav file play? 2.is it possable TourGlide can be running and Work from 2 dif. locations on my cpu? i did a start search for files and folders and found more than one TourGlide H-D Dearler file. 2 of them were in emails and behind the app data in subfolders.i now only have one file showing. maybe tomorrow i will do a backup of what i have now and try adding the two subfolder poi files and see how many alerts trigger. it always was 2 for the hd subfolder and one for the wis rustic road folder.

going tp try to figure out what you are saying here. My 68 year old mind just doesn't want the aggravation of dealing with someone that isn't willing to break down their thoughts into coherent sentences. GOOD LUCK!

1st poi file installed in subfolder 1 alert on gps startup...........add a second poi in subfolder 2 alerts for the original poi file first installed and 1 alert sound for the second added poi file on gps startup. first file contains us harley dealers TourGuide,second file added contains wis rustic roads TourGuide.second 12 hr day on this i'm tired!

It sounds like you are telling us you are getting 2 alerts. If you are in range of a poi, you will get an alert. Being that it is a TourGuide you will only get 1 alert for each poi. Since you have 2 different files, and you are within range of each poi, then you will get 2 alerts.

i'm actually getting three alerts.2 wav alerts in a row on the original poi TourGuide file followed by a different wav alert for the added poi TourGuide file.

1st off, the issue with you getting 3 alerts is not what you stated in my previous quote. You need to break up your sentence structure so we can understand you.

I want you to run poi loader and have it delete ALL pois that are loaded.

I then want you to install ONLY the H-D poi file.

How many alerts are you getting?

Do not. I repeat. Do not install the Wisconsine rustic roads poi!

i am not an english scholar and not a computer geek. now!....... i presently have the hd Tourguide gpx file in a subfolder of the garmin poi folder on my desktop. after installing to the gps i get one alert for the hd tourguide poi.

Before we continue. This is how TourGuide works

I just tested my TourGuide that I have for schools. This is how it worked. When I was in range of a school I started up the GPS. I got 1 wav file playing for the 1 alert. I also got a pop up on the screen telling me "TourGuide Webster School". The pop up stayed as long as I was in range. I then got another alert (another school) with a wav file and a pop up. The pop ups will sometimes "fight" over which one wants to display. The 2nd pop up was "TourGuide Schroeder".

Moving on, since you only get 1 alert from the H-D Dealers poi, then that portion of it is resolved.

You can now install the Wisconsin Rustic Roads poi along with the H-D Dealers poi. Pay special attention to what poi loader is showing you. You should get a warning that the H-D Dealers poi already exists AND do you want to overwrite the file. You say yes to this question. If the file names are the same, poi loader will ask this.

Test the file loading. You should only get the 1 alert for the H-D Dealers. If you are in range of a Wisconsin Rustic roads then you will get an alert for that also.

i agree the hd dealer TourGuide folder is resolved when run by itself!i have had the second poi folder rustic roads installed several times.i did not install it by overwriting the hd folder though.i uninstalled the hd poi folder with poi loader and then installed hd TourGuide and wisconsin rustic roads TourGuide. both files were subfiles of garmin poi folder on my desk top. when done i get two harley alerts and one rustic road alert. i am within parameters set for one hd dealer and one rustic road during startup.

Is there a copy of the hd poi inside the rustic road folder?

no copy of hd inside rustic folder

Tell us what you are doing when you get the 2 alerts.

What I am wondering is if you are driving or simulating. I am assuming you are driving.

We know so far that when
1) you clean out the Garmin\POI folder on your 2455 and,
2) then load just the HD folder on your computer using POI Loader
that
you get 1 alert.

But,
You have not told us what name you gave POI Loader to assign to the .gpi file it was about to create when you did the successful run of only HD (after letting POI Loader delete all then existing files)

and,
you have not told us whether you had POI Loader delete all existing .gpi files before you then pointed POI Loader to the garmin poi folder on your desk top.

I would suggest that - until we help you resolve this -
that
EVERY TIME you do a POI Loader run that you ask it to delete all existing .gpi files.

Now, please let us know what files are in your
\(nuvi)\Garmin\POI folder on the 2455 right now.

By telling us this, we will be able to determine if there are two HD files there - one from the first HD only run and one from the second run from your garmin\POI folder (that has subfolders) that is on your desktop.

Thank you for this!! We are turning into a society of individuals that will not know how to write or spell......It does not take any longer to type things out using proper structure and spelling!!

unless you are "thumb" typing on a phone's number pad. Kids can do this amazingly well, but it takes me forever to type that way.

i get the double alert after i turn the gps on.i am within one rustic road and one hd dealer at startup.

Please stop with the grammar police. He has already commented on his lack of writing skills.
I admire everyone that is helping him with his POI problem.

on my desktop i have the main folder titled Garmin folder poi.when i open the garmin folder i have two subfolders,one is titled hd dealers which when opened has three files labeled H-D Dealers TourGuide.bmp H-D Dealers TourGuide.gpx H-D Dealers TourGuide.wav. the other is wisconsin rustic roads which when opened has three files labeled wisconsin rustic roads TourGuide.bmp wisconsin rustic roads TourGuide.gpx wisconsin rustic roads Tourguide.wav.

This is probably stating the obvious, but ...
when you run POI Loader, make sure you are pointing it to the Garmin folder and not to the individual sub-folders.

alandb! yes when i loaded it with poi loader i selected the garmin folder not the subfolders. this is the info i got here and followed to make my TourGuide poi's!

TourGuides are really kind of special when setting alerts. The distance or proximity defines the radius of a circle drawn around the point. Anytime you enter the circle, the alert will sound (provided you have a compatible sound file). Normal proximity alerts require your vehicle to be pointed at the location so they typically alert only when you will be passing the point, not when you are just in the vicinity.

You will need to convert your MP3 alert sound files to WAV and then load them with a second file resent in the same folder as POILoader.exe. That program is SOX.exe (Sound Exchange) and it must be version 14.0.1. There are later versions, but because the procedure call used by POI Loader hasn't been changed they won't work.

SOX is described as "the 'swiss army knife' of sound converters" so it will change a WAV file to a format compatible with the Garmin hardware, but it doesn't convert MP3 to WAV. For that you will need another program. I use Audacity, but there are many different ones that work.

Your next steps will be to convert the sound files to WAV. These will have to have the exact same name as the POI file. The sound file, and the icon (BMP file) also have to be in the same folder/subfolder as the POI and named the same except for the extension.

After converting the sound file and putting SOX.exe in the program files folder holding POILoader.exe, run POI Loader in manual mode. (Express is the recommended mode, but you want to assign custom alert distances.)

As poi Loader reads each file it will ask if you want to assign values. You can assign either a distance or a speed, but not both. Once all the files have been read, POI Loader then processes them associating the icon and sound into the GPI file which is used by the unit. When POI Loader completes, you will get a final screen either telling you a file was in error or congratulating you on loading X number of custom POI.

Clear as mud?

You only need SOX once as it is in the POI Loader program folder but you will need the MP3 to WAV converter every time you want to add a new file that has only an MP3 sound.

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I am in TOTAL Awe!!!
My chin just hit the floor.

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i am not taking credit for the info.i stated in the above posting i got it here! you know i'm on a knife forum,a pistol forum,a small equipment forum,two harley forums, and facebook and have never had as MANY PROBLEMS AS I'M HAVING HERE! i can't understand why you people are more interested in bashing me than trying to solve my problem.i may not be the most literate and computer savy person but i can tell by what's going on here some of you have way bigger shortcomings to worry about than i do.if all your going to do is banter me about my lack of computer skills i don't need this place.there are some pretty small people here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He/she has already told us he is not an English scholar nor a computer geek. Just leave it be. Move on and help him resolve the alert issue.