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Nuvi 1490T Bluetooth problem

Former Member over 14 years ago

Hi all,

I've had a 1490T for some time now and like it a lot. Unfortunately, lately, it has started doing weird things, coinciding with the installation of the latest firmware (4.30). It won't stay paired to my phone (RIM BlackBerry Bold 9700) after it (the nuvi) has been shut off. The "Friendly Name" on the nuvi is erased (blank) every time I check, and it doesn't remember my phone (the button is "Add" instead of "Change"). Disabling/re-enabling Bluetooth does nothing. Adding the phone again works about 10% of the time, if I delete the nuvi's profile from my phone first. To boot, when it is having this problem, there is no sound (voice or keypress tone) from the nuvi. Rebooting it may make it work in 1 time out of 6 or 7 tries. I've checked the diagnostics pages (accessed via the speedometer) and other than "Abnormal Powerdown" reported a few times, there's nothing I can really see that jumps out at me.

On the About page, in Software Versions, I have GPS ver 4.30, Text ver 4.20 (American English), Keyboard ver "Unknown", Audio ver 2.60 (American English-Jill), and Bluetooth ver "Unknown". Doing a reboot (holding down the power key until it goes off, restarting so the Garmin splash screen comes up) - over and over until I get a beep from pressing "Agree" - when I go back into "About", I get still Keyboard - Unknown, but Bluetooth - 1.73. At that point, going back to the Bluetooth setup page, it still has forgotten my phone, but the proper "Friendly Name" is back.

My email to technical support received a less-than-helpful reply. I got exquisitely detailed instructions on how to download and run WebUpdater to make sure I have the latest version of firmware - despite the fact I mentioned in my email that I already have the latest firmware, and wanted instructions on how I might download/reinstall it, and perhaps the Bluetooth firmware as well. I was also told that my phone may be too new to be compatible with the nuvi. Well, true enough, it's not shown on the website as being compatible, but it's been working with the device day in and day out for months prior to the latest firmware update.

I thought that WebUpdater used to allow you to reinstall the existing firmware if there was no new update to be had. I tried running it just now, and all I get is "There are no new updates. Press Next to look for other updates like voice and text" etc.

Anyone got any advice? Either 4.30 is badly screwed up and needs a bugfix (and judging by the frequent reboots going back to the normal map from the traffic map, this is probably true) or I need to reinstall 4.30 and/or the BT firmware. I'd love to do it, but I can't find a way to do so.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

I returned my 1490T Today ....

After hearing about 1390T Bluetooth issue, I guess I am not going to buy Garmin with Bluetooth anymore. I very seldom was getting my iPhone Contacts in 1490T , hence I returned it today..... it seems they have some software issues or something with Bluetooth.... Guys anybody who has a Bluetooth working properly in any of Garmin GPS .... with Phone Contacts appearing on the Garmin , clear sound etc...pls let me know... thanks

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

Same damn thing here and driving me NUTS

Same problem on: ATT Samsung Impression (SGH-A877), ATT Samsung SGH-A737, LG Dare (Verizon).

Bluetooth randomly won't pair up; the "friendly name" is erased; and the bluetooth version is blank. A hard reset brings it back to working every time. New, out of the box, it was working great UNTIL I updated to the latest firmware with the Webupdater. I wish I could go back to the previous version, but Garmin does not provide that option..

It is maddening that Garmin support is so clueless on this. No acknowledgement of the issue; unaware of it being a problem, blindly returning units for RMA when it REALLY points to a software issue; wasting company money doing so; and finally zero communication to its users about the status of the problem.

Is this really what has happened to American quality and pride in your company? Keep this up and you can all kiss your jobs and company goodbye. Come on Garmin, grow a pair and talk to your customers. Acknowledge and fix your issues, stop hiding behind excuses like "It's not on our compatibility list". Fix your software validation process - it seems to be broken. It really isn't rocket science to go buy a couple of the phones mentioned here and recreate the issue for yourselves. There is enough data in this thread alone for your software engineer to have a starting place. Can you say "uninitialized variables" and "buffer overflow"???

0 TLHUTCH over 14 years ago

An Update

The problem with these unit's is not likely to get fixed until Garmin (et al) admit there's a problem.

I had to get angry with the customer service rep ("Product Support Specialist") who insisted phones have to be paired every time the unit is turned off/on following an update. According to her that is "normal operation" as reported by many customers! I asked for a Supervisor to intervene and got an RMA to return the GPS Unit (at MY expense).

I have a replacement unit now with firmware 4.60 and it loses pairing when turned off. At least the Bluetooth Firmware/Software is loading (so far) and the phone can be re-paired. No audio issues, yet.

I agree this is a firmware/software issue and it isn't going to be fixed any time soon unless Garmin Management wakes up and realizes there is a problem..

0 CORTIG over 14 years ago

Just adding my comment to the (long) thread here.
Same issue with a 1490T. I can't connect to my iPhone anymore and on top of that, the unit doesn't make any sound anymore. Nothing!

The worst part is that I had a previous 1490T that had the exact same problems. Garmin exchanged it for a new unit that was originally working fine, but is doing the same thing now.
I submitted a ticket ontheir site, but I know it's going to be an exchange of 10 e-mails asking me whether I updated everything (done!) and suggesting I reset (again) all my data (done too!) to eventually tell me to send it back to them.
At the end, I pay the shipping cost, I'm left out without a GPS for a while and I get a new unit that will most probably eventually exhibit the same symptoms.

I now believe there is something wrong with these units and since it appears after a certain amount of time, I fear it might be hardware more than firmware…

Corentin

0 CORTIG over 14 years ago

One discovery I made that might be of some use here.
I read in other threads that some people had damaged directory structures on their 1490T.
I verified mine (using Disk Utility, I’m a Mac user), then ran a repair.
The log went from:
[…]
2010-11-16 10:43:17 -0500: 4191 files, 274864 KiB free (68716 clusters)

to:
2010-11-16 10:44:06 -0500: 4205 files, 274744 KiB free (68686 clusters)
after the repair.

I rebooted the Unit and for the first time in a long while, I had sound again!
Now I don’t know how long it will last, and I can’t yet be 100% sure that it corrected the problem for good, but I’m tempted to say that these units are susceptible to directory damage (a bad update??) and that it leads to losing bluetooth and sound.
In any case, I’m sure the GPS needed the 14 files it couldn’t access anymore :cool:

Corentin

0 NuviAcct over 14 years ago

Same problem on: ATT Samsung Impression (SGH-A877), ATT Samsung SGH-A737, LG Dare (Verizon).

Bluetooth randomly won't pair up; the "friendly name" is erased; and the bluetooth version is blank. A hard reset brings it back to working every time. New, out of the box, it was working great UNTIL I updated to the latest firmware with the Webupdater. I wish I could go back to the previous version, but Garmin does not provide that option..

It is maddening that Garmin support is so clueless on this. No acknowledgement of the issue; unaware of it being a problem, blindly returning units for RMA when it REALLY points to a software issue; wasting company money doing so; and finally zero communication to its users about the status of the problem.

Is this really what has happened to American quality and pride in your company? Keep this up and you can all kiss your jobs and company goodbye. Come on Garmin, grow a pair and talk to your customers. Acknowledge and fix your issues, stop hiding behind excuses like "It's not on our compatibility list". Fix your software validation process - it seems to be broken. It really isn't rocket science to go buy a couple of the phones mentioned here and recreate the issue for yourselves. There is enough data in this thread alone for your software engineer to have a starting place. Can you say "uninitialized variables" and "buffer overflow"???

Same problem with Nuvi 1370T, version 4.4 software, also after updating to 4.7, GPS 4.3, BT 1.73 when working, BT unknown when not working. Full reboot (hold down power button long enough to black out screen when Garmin logo shows, then restart) brings it back. No response yet from customer service email.
Does Garmin think this level of support will convince me to spend $15K on their aircraft GPS?

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

Email tech support and send your units back-demand they pay for shipping- if you can not take them back to the store you got them at. It's the only way Garmin will have to deal with these faulty units. When I took my first 1490T back to Costco, the shelf had 4-5 units on it. It's not just a couple of people with these problems.

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

Not that anyone is listening but...

To further characterize the issue (even though nobody at Garmin is apparently listening)...

I have noticed that the loss of Bluetooth pairing only happens upon powering up the unit. Once you do get it paired up, it stays working for that uptime and it does not lose the pairing.

But once you shut off the vehicle (or the Garmin) and come back to it some time later, THEN is when you discover the Bluetooth will no longer pair with your phone. At that time, the Garmin Bluetooth SW version info says "unknown" and the "friendly name" field in the Bluetooth menu is blank. From that point forward the Bluetooth will never pair up to your phone without a hard reset on the Garmin. When it's in this "failed" state, the sounds you normally get ("ding") when you press a menu on screen are also gone.

Edit:
I was able to replicate the failure by simply power cycling the Garmin enough times.
Power/traffic cable attached, powered by vehicle; power cycle using vehicle power
Power/traffic cable attached, not powered by vehicle (just hanging there); powered by internal battery
Power/traffic cable detached, powered by internal battery
All the above conditions will eventually fail, given enough power cycles. So the issue appears to be brought out by power cycling.
Reloading the software 4.7 again from the webupdater have no effect - same problem occurs.

It's ridiculous that we have to do all the troubleshooting for Garmin.

Poor Costco. I wonder if they'll ever carry Garmin again... I'm about to return this thing (again, this would be my 2nd return) and hope that I get the v4.3 or the v4.4 version firmware on the replacement. The display model at the store is v4.3... If I do this, I will NEVER LET IT TOUCH THE COMPUTER again for any kind of update. At least until I hear some sort of root cause and fix has been applied.

0 Former Member over 14 years ago

Not that I expect it to do much good, I sent product support a detailed email about this Bluetooth issue and referenced this thread. Rather than deal with the RMA frustration, I will probably just return my 1490T back to Costco and get a replacement with older firmware (hopefully).

0 CORTIG over 14 years ago

I got this reply from Garmin today:

This is a software issue and our engineers are working on a
software update to correct the problem. Best estimate at this time for a release of this software is 2-3 weeks.

Corentin