Why doesn't the Subaru POI file work for me?

The file, as shown, contains 8 fields. POI Loader for Garmin only sees 4 fields; so everything following 4950 N Tongass Hwy will be cut off. If you want all of the information to display, it should be:

-131.7255,55.3755,Skinner Subaru,"4950 N Tongass Hwy,Ketchikan,AK,99901,907-225-8383"

with quotes.

RT

But, POILOader uses the comma character to separate fields for loading.

So,
if you replace the commas in the address-phone field
-or-
enclose the address-phone field with double-quotes, you'll see all that info on your GPSr.

dd

Thanks RT and drdevo. I suspected that it might be something like that.

When I get the time, I will make the changes to my copy. I am not familiar enough with the procedures here to know how the original POI file in the POI download section might get corrected?

If you want to send me the original file I'll correct it for you. Send me an email via my contact link and I'll give you an email address that accepts attachments.

RT

That would be really great RT if you have some fast way to do it. There are a lot of listings included. Correcting each one by hand is a bit daunting.

I got the original file from POI FIles Page under the auto/cycle dealerships. It might be easier to find with the Alphabetized List of Poi Files.

Is that all you need?

Appears as though it has been removed as it's no longer there. Could you send it to me?
RT

RT,

I just checked and find that I made a mistake. The file did not come from here after all.

I really do appreciate your generous offer to help.

I sent you an email regarding this.

Thanks again,

VeeTee

would that file work for a 660 nuvi and if so would you mind sharing it with me?
Thanks

Lewis@lr77.com

Lewis

It's on its way.

RT

At the moment I have on my Garmin 5000 more then 3000 POI's saved by myself. It's possible to save as a Favorites only 3000, so I had to use my Custom POI's option where I can save all of my Favorites and much more, but there are some problems. Of course I divided them to some categories and put them to my Custom POI folder with POI loader. Some of them display exactly the address, city, phone etc. But some (and that's a lot of them) do not display anything else but the name of my favorite-(poi). Now... if I get them back, the same POI's and save them back as Favorites it will display all: the name, address, city, post. code the phone nb... I wonder if anyone have experienced something like this ? And why this is happening ?

Wondering if your poi files are in csv or gpx format.
CSV files would only have the lon/lat and name.
GPX files would give you all the address details including phone nb.
download Extra POI Editor at: http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/Extra_POI_Editor
to convert CSV to GPX format.

That is not correct. The official Garmin CSV format includes four fields. This is the syntax per the Help in POI Loader:

POI Loader assumes a .csv file utilizes the following format for each POI (brackets [ ] denote optional text):

Lon,Lat,["]Name[@Alert Speed]["],["] [comment]["]

Longitude and latitude must appear in WGS84 decimal degrees format (ddd.ddddd; negative numbers indicate West and South).
If you include quotes around the name or comment, you can include line breaks in the text.
The following are examples of Custom POIs in the proper format:
-94.81549,38.80390,Bonita
-94.79731,38.81099,Ridgeview@25
-94.74240,38.81952,Heritage Park,Perfect site for a picnic
-94.76416,38.81227,Garmin,"1200 E. 151st Street
Olathe,KS 66062
913/397.8300"

I'm still fighting with my issue. I've got Extra_POI_Editor... At first I've opened my address book and saved as new gpx file. Then I uploaded to my garmin and there it was. Everything as I needed was there. So I started editing some of my records and uploaded it second time. After few times I've noticed that below the name of my POI there is nothing there again... Everything was gone like at the beginning... The same as what I was getting with Map Source... What's the f... problem ? What am i doing wrong ?

Here are the screen shots of my "work"
http://home.cogeco.ca/~banaszak/gps/index.htm

You state you save the file. What are you saving, Favorites or a custom POI file?

The saving of Favorites from a program is broke - it's not EPE or Mapsource, but the unit software itself that isn't right. Favorites are stored in a protected area of the GPS and unless they are "cleaned" by using screen input, they will continue to repopulate whatever you send with one of the programs.

Using Favorites is handy, but when you start getting a lot of entries in Favorites they quickly become cumbersome. I would open Current.GPX in EPE, edit the entries as needed and then store the data as a Custom POI GPX file. After pulling the favorites from the unit and creating the custom file, I would then use the screen input and tell the unit to erase all favorites. Your mileage will vary.

"You state you save the file. What are you saving, Favorites or a custom POI file? "
=========================================
:) No.... Of course I save them as Custom POI's... I have separate file which I've called "Address Book" and when I'm done with editing records I save it as gpx file. Then I open POI Loader and upload it to my garmin directory of POI's. I don't know what the issue is because some of them ( as you see on screen shots) some of them come just right...
PS...Thanks for reply...

I'm now beginning to think it may be the data you have for each of the POI. I would load the GPX file in EPE and save it as an M-Col XLS file. Before saving it I would set up the M-Column options to save Lat, Lon, POI Name, Address, City, State, Post Code, Phone, Description, Comments. That's a total of 10 different data elements. (You can add Proximity to the list as well, but it will display the metric distance measurement.)

Look at what is saved as an Excel spreadsheet to be certain the information you want is in the proper cell. This may correct your problem as some records may be missing data elements causing the information to be skewed in the save process.

I'm not really sure how would you want to setup these "columns"... I don't use spreadsheets to record my POI's. These records use to be my "Favorites" but then I saved them to gpx file and open-edit them in Map Source or just recently with "Extra_POI_Editor". Then saved gpx file I upload to garmin with POI Loader.... Now, the M-Column setup I thought it was preset in the program... If not how would you set them up ? Ther are 23 or 24 fields... I'm gonna make another screen shot and put it on the web right here: http://home.cogeco.ca/~banaszak/gps/column_edit.jpg
Can you please take a look at it and put the numbers beside each field the way you think it should be... I already marked Col#1 and Col#2 with red digits... I'm not sure of that how to continue because some of the field are not used at all...
===================================================
PS. Are you the guy who created "Extra_POI_Editor" ?

You could e-mail me back please, by replacing (my_nick_name)@cogeco.ca

I'm still thinking about: why would I have to change the option "M-Column" if there are some records that display everything properly.... (?)

e-mail sent

Thaks, Got your e-mail... I'll come back here next weekend, a...maybe somewhere at the truck stop... I'll let you know how am I doing - Thanks again
- Zyg

Hi There... Did you solve your problem ?

Well as I already mentioned before I had the same issue and I did figure it out just last weekend what is that we are missing... I use a Map Source to edit my POI's. When you edit these POI's you can't leave the "comments" field empty. If you do that's what happens. The gps unit will not display anything after that empty comment field. If you put some info in comment field you'll get everything you have after that, it means your address, City, State etc...