Problem with shaping points

Don't worry about adding gas stops or restaurants to the route. In fact, just ignore them and when you need to stop, do so. The unit will not lose its routing, in fact it will attempt to correct your stop and get you back to the route.

Your problem right now is more from not knowing how the route will be laid out in the unit, but that shouldn't be a worry either. You have looked at the route many times on a map, know the roads you want to take and, how long it should take. You even have an idea of where you will need to stop for breaks, so don't fret. Let the Nuvi do its thing, you do yours. After all, who is in control? You or the Nuvi?

I get gas when I need gas, or when it's convenient. "Jack" starts to complain and may tell me to take a U Turn, or get back on the ramp. That's when I show him whose Boss. Same with Rest Areas, Restaurants etc.

I will add hotels, to the route, but I usually pick a hotel, about 2 hours before when I plan to stop for the night. I make a reasonable guess about what town, to choose and book my preferred hotel. Most are close to the highways, but it ensures that I get the right exit.

I generally don't plan gas stops, either. If you are on an Interstate, nearly every exit has gas services.

It's not a big deal, I was just wondering if there was a way to fix that. If you have to get gas off of an exit and need to make a few turns to get to the gas station, it might be a little confusing to find your way back to the highway in an area you're unfamiliar with, especially if the GPS routes you backward after that. Like I said, no big deal. I'll find my way. I paid a lot for that unit, so I just want to make sure it works properly and I'm using it properly. Thanks.

You're right. it's no big deal to add stops on the fly. For planning purposes, fire up Gas Buddy before you leave and get an idea of gas prices along the route. You already have an idea of the range you can drive with the fuel in your car so you can pick a station with low prices somewhere near your normal refuel point. You could even add that station as a scheduled stop which solves your problem of adding a stop.

As for eats, the method I use is when driving through a small town look for a place that's busy. It's almost always a good indicator of good food. If the locals like it, I'll probably like it too. The biggest issue with most trips is the tendency to try to over plan. You need to remember, the GPS is an aide and not the boss.

I'll probably just contact Garmin on this and see what they say. They answered me about the map updates. Maybe I'll get lucky again.

I understand a GPS is just an aide, and a GPS is not the boss, but it's not much of an aide if it isn't routing you properly. It's not much of an aide if you can't use some of its functions when needed. On a long trip, you'd like for all of its functions to work properly when needed. You may have to stop in an area at some point that you're not real familiar with. That's when you'd like it to be your guide. Otherwise, if you have to be on your own and ignore it, then it's useless to have.

If it gets to the point where you have to ignore the GPS, because its routing is going haywire when you simply punch in an extra destination, what's the point in having one then? When I'm on a trip, and I want to punch in a gas station or some other place to stop at along the way, it should route me to that gas station and then route me back to my original route. If it routes me backward to my previous shaping point, when I decide to add something extra to the route, then there's something either I did wrong when customizing the route, or something wrong with the unit itself. That's what I'd like to try and find out from somebody.

BTW, I hope I don't sound rude in this post. I just feel like I'm getting lectures instead of answers to my original post. If nobody has an answer to my problem, that's fine. Like I said, I'll deal with it if I have to. But, if there's a way to fix it, I'd just like to know, that's all.

No, you don't sound rude to me - just a bit frustrated, which I understand.

By the way, I added the email you received from Brandon at Garmin to http://www.poi-factory.com/node/42417. Thanks for getting that information.

I tried to visualize what you had done with the simulation you discussed in the original post - visualize because I do not have a device that has the "Up Ahead" feature (ie. 2595 vs 2597). My 2595 has the Trip Planner so I can see how to create a route, name it, and then "Go" with it. But since I can't visualize what happens when one selects "Up Ahead", picks a location, and then "add[s] to active route", I got lost. So let me ask you to help me understand what happens.

Where in the simulation were you when you decided to use "Up Ahead"? I am asking this because you are describing being routed back to the previous "shaping point" after the stop at the "Up Ahead" POI. Were you given the option the "optimize" the route like I am when I use Trip Planner?

Perhaps you did not use Trip Planner? I say this because you speak of "Shaping Point" but the manual for your 2597 does not contain this phrase.

What I am trying to do - without having a device to test on - is determine what options one is offered when using "Up Ahead" to add a destination to the route. From the manual, it looks like "Up Ahead" is intended mostly for "Services" but it does indicate that I can select the "Wrench" and then select "Custom Search" and enter a business name or category.

Would this option let me get into Custom POIs and find a Hampton Inn and add it to the route and "optimize" the route?

Thanks jgermann for trying to help. I did use the trip planner feature to plan my route. I customized where I wanted the route to go by adding way points to it. If you touch the gold flags next to those waypoints in the list, it gives you the option to turn them into shaping points instead. That way, your GPS isn't constantly prompting you every time you go through one of those locations. Having those shaping points on your route allows you to direct the route wherever you want to go.

When I run the simulation, I use the up ahead feature to try and add something to the route. The up ahead feature gives you a selection of three different categories to choose from. I picked the gas station category. It then gives you a list of gas stations to choose from. I chose one that was a couple of miles ahead. After choosing one, it asks me if I want to add to active route or start a new route. I choose, add to active route. Once it adds it to my route and recalculates, it decides to route me backward to a previous shaping point that I already drove through, instead of just letting me continue ahead. I'm trying to figure out how to stop it from making me backtrack. It's like it wants to make you drive through those shaping points all over again before reaching your added destination to the route. I hope I didn't confuse you further with all of that. Lol

Just out of curiosity, have you tried this same simulation using a route that has all hard waypoints instead of shaping points? It could be something in how the device recalculates a route with shaping points.

I know in older Garmin devices that had shaping point support before there was trip planner (nuvi 760 and maybe some older zumos), if you deviated from the route, the recalculate algorithm would ignore all remaining shaping points and route dirctly to the next hard waypoint or final destination. This flaw has aparently been fixed with shaping points on Trip Planner devices, but perhaps you have discovered another odd behavior related to shaping points.

That is why I don't use "Add To Active Route". The few times that I have used it, it takes me back instead of continuing on my Route.

So, you had the same problem that I am having? If you choose "Start new route", doesn't that just cancel your other route you were on? Maybe what I have to do, if there is no solution to this, is just use "start new route" for whatever stop I have to make, and then just go back into my trip planner and start that route all over again when heading back on the road. I don't think we should have to do that every time we need to stop somewhere, but maybe we don't have a choice at this point.

If I have to stop, what I do is leave the GPS plug in so that when I get back in the car, I am ready to go or if I unplug the GPS, I go back to Where To and start over again. If I am using Trip Planner I do the same thing. Start over.

@Garmin2597Guy,
we do not know whether or not rthibodaux made the points into "Shaping Points" or not - but I suspect not since he likely would have commented such.

Have you tried a simulation following all the same steps except not designating the POIs as shaping points rather than as intermediate destinations?

I think we both feel that "adding" a "up ahead" stop should not be causing the problems you and rthibodaux have, but what happens if you do start a new route rather than adding to the current route? Once you complete the "up ahead" stop and then bring up the original Trip Planner route, would you have to "edit" it to remove the shaping points already visited?

I'm sorry if it sounded as if we were lecturing you but the issues with routing have been present since almost day one in these units. The situation where it was stated the unit would try to have you reverse direction isn't always the case, in fact, it's fairly rare in my case but it does happen. That's the reasoning behind my caution about having to ignore the directions from the unit.

Most of the times when I run into the situation where it tries to route me back to a point I have already passed happens if 1) the point wasn't placed exact enough or, 2) the trip database became corrupted at a stop and the wrong waypoint was selected as the next destination. The latter error can be corrected through editing the trip and selecting the correct waypoint. The first error comes down to exactly how careful you are in the waypoint placement. I find I often have to play with the placement several times to work around Garmin's snap-to-road feature as it often will snap an eastbound waypoint in the westbound lanes. The only fix is to play drag-and-drop until it quits the backtrack routing.

One of my biggest gripes with Garmin's routing is when you have a choice between Express and local lanes along an Interstate. The default is to always route through the local lanes used for exit and entrance ramps even though your route extends long past the local lanes. It's quite common here in the DC area. I have placed a waypoint in the express lanes which I include in my routes just to stop the local lane routing. My other major gripe is with the hardware designers and engineers designing the computers used in these devices. They never include a DWIM (Do What I Mean) instruction.

It's OK Box Car. I appreciate your help. I appreciate all of your help. I just get frustrated when I can't solve a problem. This one is annoying because I don't think there is a way to fix it without starting a new route for the place you want to stop off at. If you plan a route and let the unit plan it for you, you don't have this issue since there are no way points or shaping points on the map for it to route you backward to. Problem is, if I let Garmin route this one, it takes me right near DC and the hell that is I-95. Never doing that again. I still have a month before my trip. Maybe I, or someone else, will think of something. If not, then so be it. I emailed our friend Brandon about this. I think he might be getting sick of me now. Lol

this issue occurs with shaping points only or if it behaves the same with hard via/waypoints. I have tried to reproduce this problem with waypoints, but have been unable to do it with simulation. It may just be that I have picked the wrong spot on my route to add an additional point.

Shaping points are supposed to be "soft waypoints" which means (as I understand the concept) that you can skip a shaping point without being constantly alerted or directed back to it. So if the navigation logic is demanding you to go back to a shaping point already passed, it seems like something that should be reported to Garmin as a bug ... especially if you can provide a reproducible example.

I recently got my 3597 and still experimenting/learning the new features it offers. With my 255W I would add multiple vias and it would take me from point A-B on every single road I wanted it to take. If I wanted to stop at a gas station I would add the new via and once completed the unit would continue with the next via.

I would like to note that on the 3597 I have created various routes using vias and not shaping points. As an example let's say I created route "A" using 7 vias.

I've also noticed that when I add a gas station to the route & once completed the unit wants to take me back to my very first via and thats not what I want.

Therefore what I do is when I add the gas station I "start a new route" and it'll direct me to the gas station. Once I'm fully gassed up I then go back to trip planner and choose the route I was on (route A) and press go. The unit will ask me what my next via will be and if I've passed 4 of them I'll put a check mark beside my 5th via and then the unit will route me in a proper manner.

When you first start off on a new route you've pre-programmed (Route B with 10 vias for example) after having press go it'll ask you what's the next via you'll be going to. In this case you'll put your first via as you haven't yet started but if you made a pit stop after 6 vias you'll have to tell the unit that your next via will be # 7 to be properly routed.

I certainly hope I haven't mixed you up now & not 100% sure I'm doing this the right way neither but I will do more testing in November when I head back down to Florida and will report back with my findings.

PS.

Member Dobs108 also wrote a FAQ regarding the above: http://www.poi-factory.com/node/44330

Cheers

You have described the problem very well canuk and confirmed that it happens with hard waypoints as well as shaping points. I have added stops mid route many times on my 3597 when traveling multipoint routes and haven't encountered this problem. So I wonder if it is related to proximity of the added point to the original route waypoints/shaping points. Also, I haven't used my 3597 on a trip for several months (been staying at home lately), so maybe this issue was introduced in one of the recent software updates?

I quite frequently stop over night on a route. I just let the unit cutoff when it complains about loss of power. It goes into standby and the route is held in memory. Next morning, when I power up, the route is there and Samantha, or whatever her name is, nags me to drive to the calculated route, and I continue on the way.

I see no need to stop the route, then reprogram it.

For several months I have been wanting to update that FAQ or write another FAQ on routes and Trip Planner for via points and shaping points. I have taken several real trips with the 3597 using both via points and shaping points. I brought my 760 for the most recent vacation which included several different routes.

My purpose was to record what happened and use that for writing an FAQ. It was very disappointing! Both GPSrs acted unpredictably. At one time, before Trip Planner appeared, routes were unvarying. You could leave the route for a gas stop and return to the route easily, but not anymore!

A trip in Trip Planner with "via points only" is segmented. If you miss the via point because its location is a little off, like Box Car says above, you will not transition into the next segment and the GPS will keep trying to return back to the last via point.

Shaping points is an improvement, but they do not make the route (trip) unchanging. If you go off the route for a good reason, the GPS is ready to dump the trip and recalculate navigation to the end point.

I am not ready to write and the existing FAQ needs revision. We can't write about a product that can't stay on its route. As nuvis are getting better, they are losing the good features they once had.

dobs108

@Garmin2597Guy, here are my thoughts:

There may be limits to a simulation. Looking at "up ahead" and adding a point to an active trip/route may not work the same in a simulation as actually driving the route.

Previous to seeing this thread, if I wanted to add another point to a trip, I would shut down the trip, edit it, make sure the points are in the correct order, change the new point to a shaping point, save it, and then reactivate the trip. All this cannot be done while driving unless there is a passenger who knows Trip Planner.

For an unplanned side trip such as a gas stop, I never edit the trip/route. I shut down the trip and either drive without navigating or navigate with a "Go To" the side destination.

Rejoining the original trip may go all right but may not. In this situation common sense must be used in spite of what the nuvi says. The further away from the trip, the more chance of error. Shaping points are Saved Places, so the safest thing to do is a "Go To" the correct shaping point.

There are situations where you can't get back to the trip because of the arrangement of the roads. New Jersey comes to mind, but there are other areas like that.

All of the above is in answering your question, because the nuvi is not perfect.

dobs108