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Seattle Avionics - Map Loader Problems

f1rocket

f1rocket

Well Known Member
A quick search of the forum showed me that I'm not the only one with issues in getting Seattle Avionics map loader to function properly. Wish I'd done the search before I bought a subscription. If I could get my $99 back, I would.

I took the time to download just the VFR stuff I was interested in, like the Flight Guide. I was okay with the longer download times due to USB 2.0 limitations. However, no matter what I do, I cannot get the loader to push the Flight Guide to my USB stick. It knows it's there, it moved the sectionals, but will not load the Flight Guide.

Unfortunately, my email requests for support from these guys has gone unanswered. Really crappy service. I can see why. They are probably overwhelmed with issues.

Hopefully they will answer some day and I can at least get one year's worth of use out of my money.
 
I have had a "repair ticket number" for over a week now. No phone calls, no emails, nothing from Seattle Avionics. I know that issues happen and the company is probably working on a fix but it is totally unacceptable to not respond in any way to customer issues.
Dynon has posted a way to get through the current issue on their forum. They are talking to Seattle Avionics daily but SA still is silent.
I wish SA would take lessons from Dynon on customer service!!
 
Hey Randy, I had the same problem. I tried Mac with crossover an boot camp, no go. I tried an old PC with XP an no go. I finally bought a newer PC with windows 7 off e-bay an got it to work. I did get a response from Seattle AV an all they said was, get a PC.
Once u get it sorted out, it works quite well.
 
Randy,
Sorry you are having issues.

If what you really want is your $99 back, we can make that happen, even if it is Dynon that needs to refund your money.

If you'd like us to help you out getting everything working, we can make that happen too.

What is the issue you are seeing with it "not pushing" Flight Guide? Is the ball never turning green for "On Device" or is there something else happening?

Have you verified the USB stick is not out of space? The Seattle Avionics program will not warn you about this and just silently fails and doesn't load the data, but does leave you with a yellow ball (and a puzzled expression).
 
Thanks Dynon

Thank you for the offers. I may take you up on the refund offer, but not quite yet.

Yes, it leaves the ball "yellow" and won't push it to the stick. There's absolutely no disk activity and it has over 15.8 G available. It moves the sectionals but not the Flight Guide.

Seattle finally sent me an email this afternoon and recommended a total reload of the software and all the map files. They sent me some instructions for clearing out all the files left over from the uninstall that Windows 7 leaves. I downloaded the loader and am in the process of re-downloading all the files again. I'll know overnight whether this works or not. If not, I'll take you up on a refund offer.
 
Dynon - My Avionics Co.

This level of customer support is exactly why I will be a Dynon user in the future. Really don't want any Big 'G' products in my 12 if I have a choice. Wish that Van's would find a way to include the new Dynon radio into the ELSA package instead of the 'G' product.:cool:
 
I initially had trouble getting the sectionals to load onto the Skyview. They were on the drive but not being seen so I deleted all the files and reloaded and now everything is there.
Hopefully this will work for you as well.
I do wish the airport diagrams would automatically load when on the airport, that's one thing Garmin does well.
I'm still amazed and the power and functionality of the Skyview.
 
We do hope to "stitch" the airport diagrams onto the map one day. For now, do you know you can just press and hold the MAP knob for 1/2 second and it will load the airport diagram you are on?
 
dynonsupport said:
We do hope to "stitch" the airport diagrams onto the map one day. For now, do you know you can just press and hold the MAP knob for 1/2 second and it will load the airport diagram you are on?
Click to expand...

Nope, didn't know that. I'll try it tomorrow, thanks. I know I'm only scratching the surface of its capability. Maybe you could post a tip a day?
 
No Joy

Well, the overnight load resulted in the same thing. The charts loaded fine, but the airport diagrams are Green on the computer but Red on the device. I'm still willing to work on this but my patience is wearing out. Any suggestions? I've sent a response back to Seattle to see if they have a suggestion. I guess there is something in my computer setup that is causing this, not sure. If it works for others and not me, then I must have some unique set up issue. Just not sure how to fix it.
 
Randy,
I was able to re-create your problem here. Good news, I believe know how to work around it. It is a bug that SA will fix as well.

Here's what to do:

1) Go to the USB drive, and go into the ChartData folder.
2) Delete the FG folder (if it exists)
3) Delete the file "ScannedCharts.sqlite"
4) Start the Data Manager
5) Make sure "Approach Plates and Airport Diagrams" is selected. The bug here is that the FG diagrams will not update without this selected.
6) Click "download now"

If it really is taking hours to copy data for Flight Guide or Plates, you may want to try a different USB stick. A flight guide copy for me only takes about 5 minutes (I just did it here 3 times).

We really like the SanDisk Cruzer Fit USB sticks:
Amazon Link


You can get these locally at Best Buy and Staples for just a dollar or two more.
 
Thank you for the update.

Today, just for kicks, I decided to load the approach plates and airport diagrams. Just as you described, once they downloaded, the Flight Guide was magically loaded to the USB stick.

However, now the approach plates and airport diagrams won't load. So one problem fixed, another uncovered. I just sent Seattle the log file and they are trying to figure out what's going on.

BTW, I went to Best Buy and bought a 32 GB Cruzer Fit. It took 12 hours to download all 16,250 approach plates and airport diagrams. It doesn't take long to write them to the stick but it takes a long time to download them from Seattle with my stupid network connection. I live in the country so the phone company is all I've got.

Do you think your suggestion will get the approach plates to load? I may try that in the morning.

Thanks again. You guys have been super.
 
Randy,
I would try deleting the data on the stick to get it to re-do the approach plates. This doesn't force it to re-download off the internet, so you won't have to wait for that again.

Are you getting a red or yellow ball for the Approach Plates?
 
I'm getting a yellow ball so when I click download now, it takes another 12 hours.

I'm just finishing up another overnight download so see if I can get the ball to turn green. It's got another hour or so to run. I'll re-initialize the stick to see if all the data will all move over to the stick.
 
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This thing is a real mess. Another overnight download but still a yellow ball. I tried deleting all the chart data off the stick and hitting re-load, but because of the yellow ball on the plates, it wants to re-download all 17,000 again. Now I have nothing on the stick.

Seattle sent me another email and said they had the bug fixed in the DM but didn't tell be when the software would be released and offered me no further help in getting my charts loaded to the stick.

So for now, I am chartless. I'm making a huge cross country (1,800 nm) in about a month. Hopefully this will get resolved in time.
 
I had the same issue with my downloads when I first started. I eventually just erased EVERYTHING from the USB and started over. Except that the download is slow as molasses, I have not had a problem since.

:cool:
 
Just wondering

This is more of a question/ suggestion for the support guys. I've been a network engineer for 24 years and remember even just a few years ago when upgrades or new firmwares came out depending on their size, sometimes if the download speeds weren't fast enough the packets would get corrupted during download. All it takes is 1 packet dropped during encapsulation and now the instructions on the update are corrupted. I'm just wondering here if the download is taking 12 hours where they should be taking 3 minutes, maybe a packet is being dropped or timing out and his download will always be corrupted. If this doesn't get resolved it may be a good idea for you all to send him a stick with the data pre-loaded (one that has been tested), and see if that fixes his issues. If not, at least at that point you can eliminate the stick or the download as an issue and focus on the hardware.
 
Having retired as a software manager, it's ALWAYS a network problem. :p That's a given!

I've sent Seattle the log file and they are looking through it to see if that might be the problem.
 
Randy,
What I am trying to understand is if the "On Computer" is Green, Yellow, or Red.

If the "on computer" is green, then there is no data to download over the internet, so the network connection shouldn't matter. In that case, if something is taking 12 hours, we need to look at the USB stick.

If the "on computer" is not green, let's get that fixed first. You can get those to be green without even having a USB stick in the computer.

So what is the exact state of each product's "on device" and "on computer"?
 
The Flight Guide is Green on the stick and Green on the computer.

The Plates are Red on the stick and Yellow on the computer.

The Sectionals are Green on the stick and Green on the computer.

Then, I deleted all the files on the stick and all three went to Red on the stick.

When I hit download, it started downloading the Plates all over again because they are Yellow on the computer. The DM will not put the Flight Guide or the Sectionals over on the stick until it loads (or think it loads) the Plates again.

I've watched this twice now. Once the Plates are downloaded again, it will move the Flight Guide and the Sectionals over to the stick but the Plates will remain Yellow on the computer and Red on the stick.

As has been suggested, my guess is that the download of the Plates doesn't work successfully for some reason and that is why is stays Yellow and the DM won't move it to the stick. That's also why I am hopeful Seattle will go through the log file and either confirm this or give me some other reason for the Plates remaining Yellow on the computer.

As you know, if I do not check the Plates for download, in order to bypass the 12 hour load, then the DM will not move the Flight Guide to the stick. It will remain Green on the computer and Red on the stick. however, it will successfully move the Sectionals.

That's where I'm at.
 
Randy,
If you want to get it to start all over on the plates, you can delete them off you computer manually.

Go to:
Hit Windows+R
Type/paste: "%appdata%\Seattle Avionics\DataManager\"
Delete the GenericChartData.US.PlatesPNG1024 directory and the GenericChartData.US.PlatesPNG1024.zip file

Seattle Avionics is close to having a new data manager that will fix a few of the known problems (like the FG not downloading w/o plates) and should make troubleshooting the others easier, so you could just wait a day or two for that as well.
 
I finally got all the charts to load last night. Seattle sent me the latest version of the DM to try. I did find a bug in it but it didn't affect my upload.

Thank you to Dynon Support for your assistance. Great job.
 
Randy,
Word from SA is that they finally got you working 100%. Sorry for the troubles and let us know if there is anything else we can help with.
 
The new Seattle Avionics Data Manager is available. The version is 4.1.4.014 as shown in the lower left hand corner of the program. It should auto download and update if you close and re-open the Data Manager. If it does not, it can be manually downloaded here:

http://chartdata.seattleavionics.com/Apps/DataManagerSetup.exe

This should hopefully fix the various problems people have been experiencing over the last two weeks since we released sectionals. It also improves copy speeds to the USB stick by up to 5X.
 
f1rocket said:
I've watched this twice now. Once the Plates are downloaded again, it will move the Flight Guide and the Sectionals over to the stick but the Plates will remain Yellow on the computer and Red on the stick.
Click to expand...

Any other Skyview users having fits w/ Data Manager and Windows 8? I went through the same mess as above last month - probably deleted, downloaded, deleted, uninstalled, reinstalled, etc. 30 times until it worked properly.

Now once again same thing... plates yellow on the computer and red on the stick:mad:

This alone will push me to a Garmin panel for my -10 when the time comes. Free only goes so far...
 
60av8tor said:
Any other Skyview users having fits w/ Data Manager and Windows 8? I went through the same mess as above last month - probably deleted, downloaded, deleted, uninstalled, reinstalled, etc. 30 times until it worked properly.

Now once again same thing... plates yellow on the computer and red on the stick:mad:

This alone will push me to a Garmin panel for my -10 when the time comes. Free only goes so far...
Click to expand...
Isn't this more of a Seattle Avionics problem than a Dynon problem? I have had zero difficulty with Dynon-provided map and firmware updates.
 
Dgamble said:
Isn't this more of a Seattle Avionics problem than a Dynon problem? I have had zero difficulty with Dynon-provided map and firmware updates.
Click to expand...

Sure is, but if the only way to update my SV cockpit is through SA.... I, too, had no issues prior to V10 - which may be totally coincidental. I love Dynon's support, but the thought of continuing this hours/days long ritual of 17k files download again and again each month does not appeal to me.

Dynon has told me it is a SA issue, which it is, so I go through SA. SA service is less than stellar, so at some point it becomes a package deal in my mind - Dynon/SA - can't have full functionality of one w/out the other. That is ALL I was saying.

I guess I should have clarified, however - this is NOT Dynon vs. Garmin. I love Dynon and my Skyview! The new Garmin products are VERY attractive however, and when the time comes, it will be a difficult decision for me (and who knows what else will be out when that time comes). As others have said, the competition in this market is great for the customer. All products have issues in some way; this experience will just be a small part of my calculus when the time comes.
 
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