Mailing List Archive

On Fri, Oct 08, 2010 at 08:20:10PM +0200, Johann Spies wrote:
> The next morning my N900 was unresponsive and I needed to switch it
> off. After a restart Modrana would not show any map.

This may be related to bug https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9150

(That has nothing to do with downloading. Just leave ANY application that
accesses GPS running and you are likely to run into this.)


Above is the most frustrating bug with N900 that I ever noticed. Just
can't use a navigation app continuously for hours during a journey.


Agree with most of your observations. Nokia maps is extremely stable
though has little functionality. Among the remaining you mentioned I find
Modrana to be most promising.

Mayuresh.
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On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 1:20 PM, Johann Spies <johann.spies@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am still trying free navigation software on the N900.  So far my experience:
>
> 1. Nokia Maps:  Since the possibility of using it offline it is good
> as a mapping instrument.  Navigation is still absent although it can
> do route-planning.
> 2. Navit: works as navigation software but the interface is difficult
> to understand and simple functions as searching for an address is not
> obvious.  I fail to understand the menu structure properly.  This is a
> common problem to many of the programs I have tried.  For
> voice-enabled navigation Navit is the best of the bunch.
> 2. Mappero: It took my quite a while to figure out how to use it, but
> I have some success now. Still primitive.  The possibility of
> recording my own voice instructions is there but I did not take time
> to do it.
> 3. Cloudgps: apart from the few keyboard shortcuts I am unable to find
> a way to use it for something useful.  I see no menu for searching,
> routing or navigation.  Nice maps.
> 4. Modrana looked promising but I fail to understand some of the menus
> e.g. the Download-menu's.  I don't know what the different options
> mean like '5up'  or '8down' .  After guessing  thte options I started
> a download process for more than 24000 tiles to carry on overnight.
> The next morning my N900 was unresponsive and I needed to switch it
> off.  After a restart Modrana would not show any map.
>
> A remark about all the products except maybe Nokia's Maps: I could not
> find proper documentation and it is difficult to understand the logic
> of the menus without the documentation.
>
> Summary: Navigation software on the N900 still has a long way to go.
>
> If I want to search for an address: Nokia Maps is the easiest and then
> next one is Mappero.

Nice report, I have not yet tried Navit. modRana seems like it is
powerful but I have barely touched it so far. I think the "+ x Down"
and "+ x Up" has to do with zoom level that it downloads up or down
relative to current settings. But I could be wrong about it.

It is not navigation, but you can use Google Latitude Updater to view
and search google maps in your position and to get directions
(textual)

You can also try Libellule which uses Qype and Yahoo Local to search
nearby locations based on your current position.

I saw Sygic Mobile Maps in a friend's N900, it was definitely the most
"professional" of the list, and of course it costs money. I don't
think it is as good as other software available on other platforms but
for N900 it's the best you can get. As far as search/POI, others like
modRana might be better since they can query Google etc. while Sygic
is just using their own database which can be limited and outdated at
times. When I rode with him it seemed to lag behind pretty badly at
certain points (it would tell us to turn after we already passed the
street, things like that), and it does not speak street names, so if
you're in an urban area "turn right in 200 meters" could be any of
several streets. Because of that you have to read the N900 screen as
you drive, which is dangerous, and also uses battery faster since you
need to keep the backlight on.

Personally, for navigation I use a Garmin Nuvi that I keep in my
car... works great and won't kill my N900's battery, and it tells me
the street name so I don't have to watch it the whole time, just
listen. :)
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On Friday 08 October 2010, Paul Hartman wrote:

> I saw Sygic Mobile Maps in a friend's N900, it was definitely the
> most "professional" of the list, and of course it costs money. I
> don't think it is as good as other software available on other
> platforms but for N900 it's the best you can get. As far as
> search/POI, others like modRana might be better since they can query
> Google etc. while Sygic is just using their own database which can
> be limited and outdated at times. When I rode with him it seemed to

Ovi Maps has the better search IMO, even if you have to use it online.
You can just enter a street name, and it'll find the closest one to your
position or view, or you can get a list of closest matches.

With sygic you have to enter very detailed information, and if you leave
something blank, it doesn't mean "don't care", it means "use the first
option available in the list". I sometimes have to use Ovi Maps to find
some place, and then copy the location into Sygic for navigation. In
some instances, not even the locals who live at the destination know the
correct details sygic wants for the search..

> lag behind pretty badly at certain points (it would tell us to turn
> after we already passed the street, things like that), and it does
> not speak street names, so if you're in an urban area "turn right in

Outside cities it speaks road numbers for me, slightly distorted. For
example it might call road 7430 "five t seventy-four thirty", and it
took awhile before I realized the "five t" part was some nonsense not on
actual road signs anywhere. The "prefix" seems to vary between different
roads.

> 200 meters" could be any of several streets. Because of that you
> have to read the N900 screen as you drive, which is dangerous, and
> also uses battery faster since you need to keep the backlight on.

In general with version 10, the lag issues have mostly gone away for me,
except for when I have bad GPS signal, which I often have in the
location I like to keep my N900 in.

I tried to solve it using an external bluetooth gps unit, but Location
has so many bugs in N900 that actually introduces huge amounts of lag to
sygic when you use an external bluetooth gps, it also reduced the fps to
1 and pegged the CPU. I managed to fix some of that in gypsy-daemon,
though the response on bugs.maemo.org says my fix is wrong. Works for me
in terms of eliminating lag and pegged cpu. I still have a timing issue,
in that satellites will only sometimes be reported, and sygic and others
seem to rely on satellites used to determine whether they're getting a
good gps fix or some useless network based position. If they don't get
the satellites, they don't ever do anything. Switching the bluetooth gps
on/off and then tapping yes when maemo asks if you want to reconnect
fixes it most of the time. I think the issue is that if I connect to the
gps unit at the wrong time, it's sending the second part of a 3 part
satellites message, and gypsy-daemon is unable to collect the 3 messages
into complete satellite status if it doesn't start from the first
message right away...

More serious issue for me with sygic is its focus-stealing behaviour. It
takes focus, even if it's not in view, every second. Even if
conversations is on screen, all keypresses go into sygic.

Sometimes after a long drive, it just crashes, or the voice guiding
stops working. The latter also prevents sygic from shutting down
cleanly, and it doesn't start again unless I kill the rogue
process/thread left behind.

Sometimes the keep-screen-alive thing also stops working, and I have to
start tapping screen repeatedly or fiddle with the lock button.


Despite all this I'm happier with Sygic MM10 than with Nokia Maps on my
Symbian phone, which I'm now stuck with as my N900 is in for repairs.
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Hi,

ext Mayuresh wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 08, 2010 at 08:20:10PM +0200, Johann Spies wrote:
>> The next morning my N900 was unresponsive and I needed to switch it
>> off. After a restart Modrana would not show any map.
>
> This may be related to bug https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9150
>
> (That has nothing to do with downloading. Just leave ANY application that
> accesses GPS running and you are likely to run into this.)

SGX drivers have improvements in the next release.


> Above is the most frustrating bug with N900 that I ever noticed. Just
> can't use a navigation app continuously for hours during a journey.

Triggering the driver bug typically seems to indicate bad behavior in
the application, it's using huge amount of memory (e.g. leaking it)
and doing updates to its window although the window isn't even visible.
Former is also a performance issue (device swaps more) and latter is
a use-time issue.

Once the apps are fixed to behave more properly, bug 9150 is much less
likely to happen (I encountered it myself last in 2009, but I don't use
the navigation part of the map applications).


- Eero
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Hi,

ext Mayuresh wrote:
> On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 03:15:48PM +0300, Eero Tamminen wrote:
>>> Above is the most frustrating bug with N900 that I ever noticed. Just
>>> can't use a navigation app continuously for hours during a journey.
>> Triggering the driver bug typically seems to indicate bad behavior in
>> the application, it's using huge amount of memory (e.g. leaking it)
>> and doing updates to its window although the window isn't even visible.
>
> I have noticed that this bug triggers when the display is off (though the
> app is in the foreground). By visible you meant the display being on or
> the app being in foreground?

Application gets notifications whenever its window visibility
changes (and it also loses keyboard focus). If the display is off,
the application window is not visible.

With the "xresponse" utility from the SDK tools repository you can check
whether application does window updates. Or you can build the latest
xresponse version from gitorious:
http://maemo.gitorious.org/maemo-tools/xresponse

Then just connect to the device through SSH and run:
DISPLAY=:0 xresponse -u -w 0 -a '*'

To monitor window updates.


>> Former is also a performance issue (device swaps more) and latter is
>> a use-time issue.
>>
>> Once the apps are fixed to behave more properly, bug 9150 is much less
>> likely to happen (I encountered it myself last in 2009,

Sorry I remembered that wrong, I saw them also in April 2010 when
testing Maep more.


>> but I don't use the navigation part of the map applications).
>
> Well, that may be right, though wonder whether so many applications have
> that problem.

Because nobody's filed bugs[1] about their behavior?

I wonder whether community QA even does this kind[1] of checks...
(If not, they should)


> The bug has been confirmed on modrana, mappero, maep and may
> be a few others described on the bug thread.

Of those Maep is the only one I've used more.

[1] It should've been fixed already before summer:
https://garage.maemo.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=5515&group_id=1155&atid=4332
https://garage.maemo.org/tracker/index.php?func=detail&aid=5520&group_id=1155&atid=4332


- Eero
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On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 04:18:08PM +0300, Eero Tamminen wrote:

> With the "xresponse" utility from the SDK tools repository you can check


I am thinking of following workaround for the issue:


I would like to kill the navig app as soon as the display is switched
off.

I know, it sounds a horrible workaround (but then so is the bug!), though
when I use N900 in car, I use a car charger and select the option to keep
display ON when charging. The bug usually triggers after I switch off the
car engine to get down. So this workaround will work for me.

Is there any way (preferably with bash/command line or python) to catch
the display off event and invoke a shell command such as killall to close
the app?

Regards,
Mayuresh.
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> Ovi Maps has the better search IMO, even if you have to use it online.
> You can just enter a street name, and it'll find the closest one to your
> position or view, or you can get a list of closest matches.

But having to use it online makes it immensely unusable for most usecases.
In fact, this limitation is the single most disappointing and annoying isssue that I have with my N900.

That this STILL isn't fixed after 10 months on the market is a tribute to Nokia's handling of their customers :-(
(This did work on my N82 with Ovi Maps perfectly well 3 years ago or so...)

Happy hacking :-)
-Tom


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On Oct 12, 2010, at 12:10 PM, Thomas Waelti wrote:
> But having to use it online makes it immensely unusable for most use cases.

This is why most apps on other devices have map packs available for purchase & download. One of the free, community contributed mapping projects I looked in to a while back was horribly inaccurate. It's a neat idea but even commercial mapping projects have a hard time keeping up to date.

-Gsry
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