Issues since the 5.1.0-462 update / Crashes and lag

[Massimo Cardone]

A wonderful good morning

We set off on the ‘La Routes des Grandes Alpes’ motorbike tour last Wednesday and came back yesterday evening. It was simply fantastic. I’m talking about the tour, not the sat-nav.

There were five of us in total, including me, and my four friends all use MRA because I recommended it to them and they took my advice. Naturally, I’d been promoting MRA and talking about it with great enthusiasm.

But when MRA doesn’t work as it should and we’re all frustrated, it unfortunately reflects badly on me, as I was the one who recommended it to them.

We set off at 7.00 am on Wednesday. The problems started at around 11.00 am: MRA crashed and the cursor lagged. I got MRA working again, but at almost exactly 12.00 noon the same problem occurred. After that, I had a crash practically every 15 minutes until the evening.

As I am – and was – the group leader, I had to let someone else take the lead. After a while, the new group leader also had to let someone else take the lead, as his MRA was constantly crashing too, and it carried on like that until the evening. Each of us took turns as group leader, and it was a HUGE nuisance!

I then somehow got the feeling that one of the causes of these problems was the heat, as my mobile phone had been very hot the day before. And for safety reasons, mobile phones reduce their power output.

On the second day, I took my mobile phone out of its case and placed it in the tank bag with the screen facing downwards. Why with the screen facing downwards? Because I assumed that the heat is dissipated through the back of the mobile phone. And lo and behold… I didn’t experience any more crashes. I did have to take the mobile phone out of the tank bag during breaks and let it cool down properly in the shade.

But towards the evening, the cursor started to lag, most likely due to the heat again. In my opinion, the MRA has required much more processing power since the 5.1.0-462 update. Why do I say that?

When the four of us were in Piedmont last year (we were all riding MRAs), the outside temperature was between 35 and 38 degrees for four days. It was really hot; the sweat was just pouring off us. And in Piedmont, there were no mountain passes at, say, 2,000 metres, where it’s cooler. Did we have any problems or crashes? No! None of us did.

I’ll repeat a point from my first post. The problems started for all five of us at the same time, following the 5.1.0-462 update. Incidentally, with the iPhones, the app would try to start the route first thing in the morning and MRA would simply crash. Without having driven a single kilometre and without any exposure to heat. This problem was mentioned either in this thread or in another one that I’ve read. Fortunately, I haven’t experienced this phenomenon with my Android mobile phone.

On the fourth day, whilst we were on the return journey, I didn’t experience any crashes, but near Bergamo the navigation was so severely delayed that I no longer knew which motorway exit to take, as the cursor was at least 100 to 200 metres behind my actual position. This was very frustrating and tedious, so we had to pull over at the side of the road and once again appoint a different group leader whose MRA was working reasonably well.

I know the report is a bit long, but it’s detailed, and now I hope that Corjan and his team will get the problem – or problems – under control and that my MRA will work as well and as fantastically as it did before update 5.1.0-462.

Kind regards

Massimo

PS: By the way, on Peter Zehentreiter’s advice, I tried navigating using the offline maps, but the problems were still there.

[Peter Zehentreiter]

@Massimo-Cardone Thanks for your detailed explanation

By the way, I now agree with you that the problems are, among other things, due to the temperature.

Hopefully, the developers will figure out why this wasn't an issue before the 5.1.0 update and fix it.

[Albert van den Elsen]

I had the exact same experience this weekend.
I started a route, and after 20km I noticed that the turn-by-turn directions were correct, but the map was lagging about 200m behind my actual position.
After completely restarting the CarPlay unit and closing MRA (MyRoute-app) on my iPhone, the map aligned properly again.
On top of that, the app completely crashed for two people in our group, forcing us to restart everything from scratch.

[M. Schrijver]

@massimo-cardone
You wrote something about getting your phone out of the case and put it face down in the tankbag. Are you riding with Android Auto or Apple Carplay?

The best place for your phone is somewhere where the wind can cool your phone. No matter what navigation app you use. Also don't let the phone on your in the hot sun during a break. Problems guaranteed.

That app stops working because the phone is getting hot. Is something nobody can do much about it. But it would be nice if the app warns you for a hot phone and what will happen if you do nothing.

Just a personal experience of mine with TomTom Go on Android Auto in 40 degrees (2022) and how a app can work. Android Auto was pretty new to me at that time.
The phone was connected in the topbox. Because the wired connection was placed there. TomTom Go was working fine. No problems. It was just guiding me as expected. After a while (1.5 hour or so). I stopped for a break. I openend the topbox and my phone lay there, blistering hot with a message that TomTom Go has stopped working because of the heat. Strange, 20 sec before that it was just running fine on the Android Auto screen. Knowing this i was a bit worried. It was my only navigation. For the next few days. The phone runs (to) hot every time but TomTom Go on Android Auto was working flawless.
The story behind this, is just a message to the developers. Keep pushing on stability. There is still enough to improve there.
The app is good but version 5.2 doesn't seems to be most stable version ever released.

[Massimo Cardone]

I use Android Auto (as mentioned in my post). Before the 5.1.0-462 update (which was rolled out towards the end of May), I could even leave my mobile phone in its case and it always worked perfectly.

Since the update, I – and many others too – have been experiencing problems with crashes and cursor lag. My mobile phone was always getting very hot, so on the second day of our ‘La Route des Grandes Alpes’ motorbike tour, I decided to take it out of its case and place it face down.

That was the right decision, because from the second day onwards I had practically no more problems. And where else would I put my mobile phone if not in the tank bag? I certainly won’t mount it on the motorbike, as that would break the camera.

And sorry, it used to work perfectly, even in the case. Somehow, the new version uses far too many resources or processing power. Never change a running system. Though that’s always the way it is with improvements. We see it in everyday life. You add a new feature and something else ends up getting worse.

In any case, we’re now waiting for Corjan and his team to sort out the problem as soon as possible, because at the moment it’s like a four-leaf clover. Only I don’t say, ‘she loves me, she loves me not, etc.’ Now, before I set off, I always say, ‘does it work or doesn’t it…’

Kind regards

Massimo

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Massimo-Cardone I hope for you all that the latest update (beta 480) will have solved this problem

[Jozef Malik 0]

So, I've got two devices I can use on my bike, either a phone cradle or Android Auto. With mra running, no matter which one I choose, both experience the same issues as above. Last week went to Annecy, and decided to use the simple Waze. Well, funny, I've got no issues with a hot phone, lags, or crashes, etc. Why mra needs to use so much of the phone's resources is beyond me?

[Peter 3b]

I'm on an Android 13 tablet (Carpe Iter Pad 4C, 8GB), no AA. I have used previous MRA nav versions for more than a year on this same device practically without problems.

Since the 5.1.0 update I too have a lot of stability and functional issues: inability to restart a route halfway after interruption or app crash; waypoints getting stuck (waypoints control top right not updating); waypoints and waypoints control not showing at all. Popups of "app not responding".

The only way to resolve is a full device reset, which is not endearing me to my riding buddies. I've tried both offline & online nav and have disabled track logging. No clear difference. Like Massimo and others I have the impression the app now uses a lot more resources, leading to app and device instability. Btw, currently running 5.2.0 - 474 with no improvements in stability.

Maybe my hardware and/or Android 13 is no longer suitable for MRA nav? I can live with that, but at least give us some clarity. For now, if I had a magic wand I would conjure back the old pre-5.10 version into the Play Store.

[Marinus van Deudekom]

@Peter-3b my advise would be to send in the logs to service so they can give a solid advise and or solution

[Massimo Cardone]

Following our ‘Routes des Grandes Alpes’ trip, I sent Corjan and his team an email with the log file.

Corjan himself wrote to me a week later to say that they expect most of the issues to be resolved in the next update (5.2.1).

This update should be available later this week. But even if it’s not available until next week, I know that Corjan and his team are working hard on this issue.

@Peter 3b: It’s interesting that you experienced the same problems as us, even though you don’t use Android Auto. I always thought that CarPlay and Android Auto might also cause problems in some circumstances.

Now let’s wait for the update and see how things go.

Kind regards

Massimo