Map Data Lost - Improve error handling and add "Locate Maps" feature
  • My phone: Samsung Galaxy Note 1. Android Jelly Bean.

    It has happened twice to me.
    All my maps are on the Removable SD Card
    All of a sudden, when I started mapFactor, it couldn't find any of those maps.
    It said "No maps installed. Download Maps"? There was a big cannon ball in my stomach by this message - when I was about to leave for an 8 hour drive to Italy!

    If I say "no" it closes - if I say "Yes" I have to download maps worth 3-4 GB!.
    As a workaround, I quickly downloaded only the smallest size map (Vatican city). But it still downloaded the @75-80 MB the voice data etc.
    After this, I configure it to move all the map data to the SD card. Once moved and restarted the application, it could then find all the other maps as well.!
    Pheeeww...

    However, all the "My Places" were wiped out.

    This has happened twice! The second time it happened when I was driving!!! The phone had become slow so I stopped the navigator via the "Exit" menu and restarted the phone. When the phone was up, I started the navigator, then it gave me this message "Maps not found".

    I suspect that perhaps the SD card was not yet fully initialized and when the navigator was launched, so it couldn't find the maps and thus the message. I couldn't understand why "My Places" got vanished.

    I think the error handling needs to be made more reliable and robust.

    Another feature I think is missing is to "Locate maps" e.g. If I take my SD card to some other phone and install mapFactor navigator there, I will be able to simply select the folder which contain the map data, and I don't have to "Download" maps again. I could also copy over the maps data to another phone or a tablet instead of re-downloading it again on that device.




  • 5 Comments sorted by
  • I would try another SD card..who knows?

    For the second problem, it is possible to copy the maps file to another phone or tablet if you find the correct folder.

    I use Navigator for windows on my pc and Navigator for Android on my tablet and phone. When there are some maps to update, I first download them on windows through the setup utility and then I simply copy them (*.mca) on the sd cards of my tablet and phone and they wotk ok.
  • I had the same issue and it turned out to be a damaged SD-card. I first did a "solve what's possible" and then I reformatted the SD-card. It did fine.
    One week later it was damaged beyond repair.
    I'm afraid you have the same.
  • My SD Card is fine, as I also store photos and music on it and none of these apps have ever complained.

    It is just my suspicion that perhaps I started the navigator too soon i.e. before the map data on the SD card was available, and hence pointed to a possible bug in the error handling of the app.

    The second feature request is because once the data is 'lost' there is no way to simply 'locate' it again.
    It defaults to the phone storage where it doesn't find anything and thus assumes that there is no map data at all, and thus it will not continue unless you download a map (and the base data e.g. voice, etc) - it is either download or quit. This is where the "Locate" feature will be handy.

  • erdfcv246 mentioned: "My SD Card is fine, as I also store photos and music on it and none of these apps have ever complained."

    That is no guarantee whatsoever. It can be a local problem on you SDcard. Did you really did a full check for bad blocks?
    There can be errors in the file/folder structures (simple checkdisk) and there can be bad blocks on your device (requiring a deep full disk scan for them).
    If your maps make use of the bad blocks you will get errors. Your photo's, music, ebooks, whatsapp history or whatever would never have to use those part of the device.
  • Sd cards can be strange beasts. I have a 4 Gb card that works on any device, except for my tablet. And all other sd cards that I tried work ok with this tablet. They just don't match when they are together, but this is not your case though.

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