Sup,

I will clarify for you and everyone else one major known bug, Maemo-mapper as for now (version 0.1), has a bug, if the gps -receiver don't have a fix before maemo-mapper is launched, it will crash when it tries to get a fix.

This is a known bug and should happen with almost all of gps-receivers. You tried with getting a fix first and then launching mapper?

And, there is a list in this forum that hopefully will someday have quite a decent list of working gps-receivers: http://www.internettablettalk.com/fo...ead.php?t=1970

I'd believe that:

gdouble fraction = running_total * sqrt(num_sats_used)
/ num_sats_used / 100.0;

What if num_sats_used is zero?

divison by zero
 

Then the answer will be 0, if you turn it around then it will "divison by zero"and it will crash.

EDIT: didn't look close enough... yes it will crash if num_sats_used is 0.

Sorry :o

EDIT2: have to blame it on the early morning... need coffe...

That worked! I also noticed the icon changed post-reboot from the standard .deb packager icon to a "gridded-globe". I also got some strange behaviour post reboot where the app would close depending on the pattern of interaction with the settings. I found I had to setup the MAC to 00:00:00:00:00:00 and the URL, ok, disable GPS, close the app, reopen the app, then auto-download.

Also, I was zoomed in a bit too far!

Looking like a good app.

On the subject of where the application goes from here, rather than forking which in my opinion is rather coarse grained, why not go the plug-in route and allow people to develop and install what they _want_ to develop and install, upon the same basic mapping software?

Clearly the app would probably have to mature first, otherwise API instability would probably piss off a lot of plugin developers :)

thanks for the re-post, I'm sorry I did not noted the reply from gnuite. Anyway it doesn't work for me, because I can't replace the etc/profile file, as I have no permissions. Maybe I should have root access for this operation?

Hmmmm..... Is this comment correct or should the "not" be deleted?
Also, given that the other three constants start with RCVR_, I would call it RCVR_FIXED instead.

This patch check the NMEA checksum and doesn't skip potential end-of-string '\0' characters:

http://russnelson.com/maemo-mapper-0.1-nmea.patch

Actually, since we're working with floating point numbers here, the answer will be 0.0 / 0.0, which resolves to NaN. This is almost definitely why some have seen the gtk_progress_set_percentage CRITICAL assertion failure, since the protective BOUND() call would not detect a NaN. I'm not sure if that would cause a force-quit, though, since it's not a FATAL assertion failure, but I haven't actually tested the case with 0 used satellites, so I can't say for sure either way.

Actually, I think the real problem is that sometimes the "apps" directory itself is missing (if, for example, you never used the built-in e-mail client). So if you have "/home/user/apps", you'll be fine.

Also it appears that you need to be careful about what other bluetooth devices are near when you run it the first time after the install - the program tried to connect to my desktop (w/ a motorola bluetooth adapter) and it just wouldn't connect to my garmin gps. Even though I had it installed and working fine before (I just did a reflash).

The solution was to run "hcitool scan", note the gps' MAC address, then manually typing it into the settings menu.

Just in case somebody else finds themselves stuck like I was.

BTW, excellent work gnuite. If you're ever in SW Portland, I'll buy you a fine local microbrew (or two) at a real local dive.

Brad.

Yes; Maemo Mapper creates the maemo-mapper directory if it doesn't exist, but not the apps dir. The real problem is that there is no mkdir-recursive function in GnomeVFS, which really bothers me. For that reason (and because the GdkPixbuf libraries don't work with URI's anyway), I'll probably forget about using GnomeVFS for the Map Cache.

Right; in my instructions, I recommended running Maemo Mapper for the first time in the presence of only one bluetooth device: your GPS device. This is because the "auto-detection" only searches for the first bluetooth device that responds. I did this to minimize binary size, since this funtion is only ever used once in the entire use of the program.

In v0.2, I will move the entire "Initial GPS Setup" code into a separate binary that will get run the first time Maemo Mapper is started. This will allow me to make the wizard as arbitrarily large as needed to ease initial setup.

Does anybody else have a problem with maemo-wrapper 0.1 ceasing to function after a few minutes of proper operation? It ignores the GPS. Telling it to disable and enable the GPS causes it to start looking for a GPS receiver, but it never finds one. If I reboot and re-run maemo-mapper, it works again. Implication is that there is nothing in the state of the GPS receiver which causes the failure. Problem only seems present when a fix is available.

Maybe I missed this. Is there a way to enter/store/whatever points of interest? For instance, I want to enter in my house, all my friends' houses, free wifi hotspots, etc. Minimally a dot and a text tag. Nice to have, different color dot or symbol depending on type of POI.

I have this problem. Not sure what the reason is, but I suspect it has something to do with power saving on the nokia, or somethink like that (even I read it could be defective units, but everything else works fine for me, so I don't think so). The problem arises also with gpsdrive.

So finally I created a workaround for testing (a better scripting would be great, or another solution). I run this script as root while I'm running maemo-mapper and whenever the connection gets lost, it restart it and maemo-mapper does well refinding the gps.

You will need your bt gps address stored at /home/user/gps.id. Also, you can delete logging code if it doesn't matter for you. I was interested in the times the Bluetooth was restarted.

Hope it works for you.

Running those two commands got it back again. I was going to run strace on it to see what was happening on the system level, but I can't see strace in the Application Catalog. Sounds like it might be somethiing outside maemo-mapper's control.

I've also seen maemo-mapper lock up on restoring from screen blanked. I have debug turned on now, so if that problem recurs, I'll at least know what subr it happened in.

pstorralba or RussNelson:

Are either of you doing anything special (like also being connected to a cell phone or to a WAP) when this happens?

I thought I saw this happen to me once before, but it went away when I put the cover on and took the cover back off. I did this before I added the "Enable GPS" checkbox to the code, but disabling/enabling that causes the same course of events that is caused by replacing/removing the cover, so my debugging was similar to RussNelson's. Since my actions made the problem go away, but RussNelson's didn't, I can't be sure that I experienced the same thing, but I'd still like to figure out what's going on.

pstorralba: You said you saw the problem with GPS Drive. Was that using GPSD or by having GPS Drive directly connect to the GPS receiver? If the anomaly doesn't manifest itself when using GPSD, it might be a suitable workaround. (GPSD support is coming in Maemo Mapper v0.2.)

Thanks for your help, guys.

Nope. Not using any other BT devices. Enabling / disabling the GPS doesn't solve the problem for me. With verbose debugging turned on, I can see that it's calling g_iol_cb_error (or something like that; message already scrolled off) with GIOCondition==24 (8 == ERR + 16 == HUP). Then it tries closing and reopening the bluetooth socket.

Nothings special. No wireless, nor other BT conection.

Both. At first I used GPS Drive with GPSD. I tried connecting directly to the GPS receiver, but it didn't worked.

hciconfig hci0 down/up is the only solution I found. It works also for GPS Drive and GPSD.

Do you know how can I enable more debugging info on the kernel side? I think the problem is down there.

Thanks for your program :-) I can wait to see that 0.2 version.

I have the same problem with maemo-mapper and I had same problem with gpsdrive and gpsd.

I don't think the problem is from power saving on nokia. I did this with mine to test:
<maemo.org instructions>
1. Using xterm, scan for remote BT devices:
# hcitool scan
2. Copy the adress of the newly found BT GPS receiver. (looks like xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx)
3. Start the serial protocol over BT :
# rfcomm bind /dev/rfcomm0 xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx
4. After that, your BT GPS should get connected to everytime /dev/rfcomm0 is opened. You can check this by doing:
# cat /dev/rfcomm0
This should give NMEA GPS output.
</maemo.org instructions>

and I left it like that, running, overnight (about 10 hours) and I got the nmea gps output all this time with no intreruption.

-ioan

first of all, i want to thank gnuite and the others for maemo-mapper and the effort you are putting into this.

but unfortunately i experience problems with the gpx-webservice. i get the error "Error: An error occurred while attempting to retrieve the driving directions - are the source and destination valid?" with sources/destinations that work in google-maps.

What were the source and destination Addresses (not the "Label"s)?

I can try duplicating the functionality of hciconfig down/up in the error handler.

ioan, would it be possible for you to repeat that test with gpsd (instead of cat)? That is, start gpsd and use wget to get continual output from the GPS?

can you give me the option flags for making wget to loop getting same url? or do I have to make a script for this?

I thought, since GPSD gives no length for the HTTP response, that wget would simply continue reading data as it comes in (similar to cat), but if I'm wrong, then yeah, I guess a script will have to do.

Thanks.

Oops, missed that, sorry. I think that sometimes this isn't practical though maybe I'm an odd case - I was setting this up in my office and the neighbors are a startup with tons of local wifi and bluetooth traffic.

I wonder if it would be better to let the bluetooth plug-in handle that? (I'm hoping that becomes a standard part of the OS)

Also, have you considered a library version of this application, ala roadnav?

Finally, I'd love to see you create an API so additional functionality could easily be added. BTW, great work!

Brad.

Actually, I've been using maemo mapper with a cell phone and bluetooth gps and my experience has been about the same: It seems to lock up after running fine for 10-20 minutes... I've managed to give it a "kick-start" by pressing the on-off button (is this the same as closing the lid?)

A few other comments:

- Downloading via cell is a problem, at least when speeds are slower than EDGE. The user interface seems to freeze while the map is loading, and at 30 miles per hour (or more) I don't think maemo mapper will ever keep up (since more and more maps need to be loaded).

This could be a problem because I'm in-between cell towers or maybe the 770 just doesn't have enough oompf to run multiple threads efficiently.

And a EDGE speeds, the display can get a little jerky when downloading (though I have no idea of the network conditions when the problem occurs) but it's still usable.

So in my limited testing, I don't think it's practical to download maps are you travel - yet. But when it works it's very cool.

- Twice I've lost my gps fix for about 40 seconds (the west hills tunnels). As I was driving, my girlfriend was watching the 770. She told me that the track suddenly jumped "way off" but after we exited the tunnel, tracking resumed as expected. Certainly a minor glitch, but I wonder if sanity checking of the gps positions returned (vs. the current speed/position) isn't warranted?

- flite works great, but the volume is so low I don't think this is really useful without earphones. And by great I mean it has a terrible voice but is a real cool hack :-)

- I think the latest firmware 5.2006.13-7 has improved system stability when more than one bluetooth device is connected at the same time (or so it seems). And it seems that using wifi and bluetooth at the same time is also improved. But maemo mapper seems to kill any active connections when it starts, so I've gotten used to making sure I don't connect to T-Mobile until _after_ the application is started.

I'll report more as I keep testing.

And good news about gpsd integration for the next version - I'm getting ready to put a soekris box in my trunk (ala stompbox) and I was hoping to use the 770 as the front-end.

Brad.

I've had this problem when my address had a "#" in it. Format was something like:

4433 SW Amway #2, MyTown, MyState, 99999

I replaced the "#" with "Apt" and it worked just fine. So I'd assume that certain characters may not be valid?

Brad.

The GPX Driving Directions web service (and hence Maemo Mapper itself, which uses the web service) utilizes Google Maps and thus should work with any address that works with Google Maps. To be more specific, the web service uses maps.google.com - it may not work with maps.google.de or any other locale-specific version of Google Maps.

When the driving directions parsing code is moved from the web service into Maemo Mapper itself, you will be able to provide your own URL, meaning that you can use the .de version (or any other version) if you wish (at the risk of violating Google's copyright?).

Error parsing GPX file
 

Attached is an .xml route file created using gnuite's GPX Driving Directions page running on the Nokia 770 (ie. the issue of file format discussed earlier does not apply). When loading the route in Maemo-mapper it gives an "Error parsing GPX file" message.

Is it the German special characters, or the length of the file causing the error?

I am loving this program more and more, thinking of buying the Nokia LD-3W receiver :D

Sounds like you need to zoom out a little more.

Perhaps the autloading algorithm should give up on map tiles that have gone off-screen?

Probably, but I thought the zoom was reasonable at the time. Was taking ~10 secs to traverse a tile (or so). Of course it's all relative to your speed (I did like the suggestion the map should zoom relative to the current speed).

The real problem with this is the bandwidth available - sometimes it sucks. Makes a 28.8k modem feel fast (ok, I guess it's about the same really). My experience with GPRS is it's very slow. I'd guess it takes about 10 secs to download a single map tile, vs. 2 secs with EDGE. Add in any dropouts while moving and download time can really lag.

(I've been so excited lately - I just got my EDGE phone and it's changed the whole experience for me - before having GPRS connectivity was useful in a pinch, but so slow. Now with EDGE, it feels like a decent connection. Like slow DSL, I guess. I sat in a bar tonight scrolling around, downloading maps, watching the progress bar in maemo-mapper just amazed at the speed. Guess I'm easily entertained)

A great idea actually. Plenty of opportunity there for tuning too - sample the download speed as well as current speed and load the queue (maybe non-trivial, but could be fun to tweek).

Brad.

that would be great as there are also other issues with localisation.
for example the german "Straße" becomes "Stravenueße" if it stands alone. combined words like "Universitätsstraße" do not get changed, though.

maemo mapper nokia 770
 

hi, nessuno parla italiano??
help maemo mapper

At 30 mph or more, you probably don't need to be at the most detailed zoom level; the further you zoom out, the fewer maps you will need to download, which should help alleviate bandwidth issues.

I don't think it's a thread inefficiency problem. I've tested auto-downloading on my Nokia 770 over my high-speed WAN (panning around a lot to stress the system) without any maleffect on the UI, so it's more likely a bandwidth problem, although that shouldn't affect the UI itself.

There is a built-in sanity check in the NMEA protocol, so unless your GPS is ignoring that part of the protocol, it shouldn't plot a point unless it is considered "valid" by the GPS receiver. This is, of course, receiver-dependent.

[QUOTE=bradb]- flite works great, but the volume is so low I don't think this is really useful without earphones. And by great I mean it has a terrible voice but is a real cool hack :-)

I've noticed this sometimes with my WAN connection, but only when that WAN connection is not currently in use. If I'm listening to internet radio while I start Maemo Mapper, for example, I have no problems. It's bizarre, but I'm not sure there's anything I can do about it without moving all of the bluetooth connection code outside of Maemo Mapper.

GPSD support (which will hopefully also assuage some of the nastier connection-related problems with Maemo Mapper) is coming with Maemo Mapper v0.2, which will be released for the 2006 OS.

I'll be releasing a v0.1.1 later this week to address some of the reliability issues.

Hi,
Firstly, thanks for a great applicaion - very slick in operation, does what it's supposed to do (mostly anyway, see below :-p) and without the bloat...

Secondly, I'm experiencing the locking up problem as discussed earlier in the thread - has any progress been made with this at all? I'd be willing to do any diagnostics with my setup if required.

Essentially what is happening is that mapper locks up and becomes unresponsive to any user input. Sometimes a small white box appears in the top right corner of the screen, similar in nature to the dialogue boxes that say "Searching for GPS reciever" or "Establishing GPS fix", although no text actually appears. The screen will still change back and forward from fullscreen mode - although the screen isn't properly refreshed when doing this.
It is possible to close maemo-mapper by clicking the red X in the top right. Reopening maemo-mapper results in it being unable to find the GPS receiver. Interesting, running 'hcitool scan' reveals no bluetooth devices (even though my BT phone is in range) and gives an error message along the lines of "Cannot open socket" (IIRC).

Rebooting fixes the situation. I don't believe the GPS reciver loses signal when it happens, but I could be wrong.

FWIW:
IT 2005 software edition, v 5.2006.13-7
Nokia 6230i phone with BT enabled and in range at all times (although not actually connected at the time)
An unbranded BT GPS reciever, claiming to be a model GNT-120 (chosen because it was cheap!).

Sorry for the lengthy post, I've tried to include as much detail as possible. Again, I'd be more than willing to do some debugging if required.

Thanks again,
Ed

**
And having just posted all that, I've noticed that you're planning to release v0.1.1 to address these issues - feel free to ignore me!

I've seen the same thing as ehjones, but don't have a good sense for exactly when it happens. The UI has definitely stopped running.

I fixed my own problem of errors when parsing route files. I open the .xml file in Notes and then save it. This removes/changes the characters which prevent correct loading of the file. The announcements will probably use the modified text but at least I can load the route.

Now that I have a route opened, I want to download the maps along the route using the relevant entry in the menu but it takes far too long. I think this is because I used an angle of 0.000000 when generating a nice smooth route and I suspect that a map is downloaded for each neighbouring location, ie. each jpg is downloaded several times. Is there any way around this, or will gnuite change this in a future version?

More of atof problem!
 

I think there are same kind of atof/ftoa problem in GPX route/trace files, because I have to replace dot (.) with comma (,) in lat and lon to get route files generated with "GPX driving directions" to work with my MaemoMapper and all saved trace files use comma!

:confused:

Flite
 

I'd also like to say this is one of the best apps I've used thus far for the 770. I even went out and bought the same bluetooth GPS reciever and hooked it up. Went driving around sometoday and I'm just totally blown away. This takes my nokia to a different level.

One thing I'd like to say is that there's a donate button on the site. Personally I already clicked and donated. I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but just suggesting that we all love open source and I personally think if we're going to encourage it, its good to give a little back.

So, my real question in all of this is flite. I've installed it, and the little 'flite test app' gives me text when I type it in. How-ever when I'm running mapper, I hear no speech at all, and I've got the volume turned all the way up. Is there anyway to trouble shoot this?