Seattle Avionics chart data… yet again

[Jeff1]

Here is a pic of my data manager. No text, no red balls, no green balls.
However it is still updating IFR hi, which I have toggled off.
Seattle Avionics has.l been sooo frustrating for the 18 months that I’ve had the plane. Every month it takes 3 hours of downloading to just do the new. Two to download to computer and another hour to transfer to USB.
This month I got the beta 6.6.0.2. Issues, so I sent email to support five days ago and every day since with no response. Phone calls all go to VM, until yesterday when David answered and helped me out. The whole process took ten minutes, hallelujah! Wait too soon. Put in the second USB into computer and it didn’t recognize it. Tried a couple of other sticks and they weren’t recognized either. Put first stick back in and it was recognized. Turned computer off and on the got the above screen and it doesn’t change.
Plane has been down for over a week now pending solving this issue. Any ideas? Seattle Avionics is absent

 

[RV8JD]

I've had that happen once or twice. It seemed to happen when I started the Data Manger Program before Windows fully booted up. I'm on an iMac running Windows 10 using a Parallels VM.

No issues otherwise, but not running the Beta version.

 

[swatson999]

Any moment now, a certain poster will show up here and defend SA and tell you it's all your fault. LOL!

So now I'm glad I *didn't* get the beta version of the software. What's more concerning is the complete lack of support you're experiencing. I still think that DataManager is going to get orphaned soon, now that the company got acquired. It'll be too costly to re-engineer (which they should), and too low on the priority list to maintain, and too unimportant to provide support to the customers.

Just my prediction...I hope Dynon is looking for an alternate provider NOW.

 

[midlifeflyer]

I'm not going to defend SA. It's funky and old-looking. But since I started using in in December I haven't seen any of the problems folks are reporting.

 

[jnmeade]

When is Chartdata done loading and how do I know it by looking a the Chartdata Manager screen?

 

[midlifeflyer]

When is Chartdata done loading and how do I know it by looking a the Chartdata Manager screen?

 

[jnmeade]

That part seems to take for ever after you see West Virginia. I suppose it is my fault, but if I designed the user interface I'd make the progress and completion a little more obvious - including for example a temperature bar showing nearness to completion. I used to load two at once but it was so confusing I now load one at a time. Whenever I use this product I expect to see Fred and Wilma come on the screen at any time.

 

[Rhino]

No, just Fred. Wilma wasn't able to operate the chisel and stone tablets.

 

[midlifeflyer]

That part seems to take for ever after you see West Virginia. I suppose it is my fault, but if I designed the user interface I'd make the progress and completion a little more obvious - including for example a temperature bar showing nearness to completion. I used to load two at once but it was so confusing I now load one at a time. Whenever I use this product I expect to see Fred and Wilma come on the screen at any time.

I think everyone can agree it's not the best interface. More like a command prompt screen dressed up a bit.

Having watched it take forever, I think it may actually pull the files to the desktop/laptop first, then copy them over, and then do a verification check. Fortunately, I can put in the two thumb drives in at the same time and go away, so the time sequence is never an issue.

 

[cbretana]

What they need to do is add a progress bar, (or two, - one for overall progress and a bar for progress within each category), and a green light that comes on when it's done. The "Update Complete" line in the activity monitor is not sufficient as it appears multiple times in some scenarios.

 

[soarhead]

I'm not sure why people bother. I have heard nothing positive about SA. I use PocketFMS for keeping my Skyview AIRAC up to date. Couldn't be simpler. Takes less than 30 seconds.

 

[jethound]

In times past I have experienced everything you are talking about
A couple items come to mind that really helped
Make sure you format the usb stick
First time it down loads it will take almost an hour

second when updates come available only choose to up date new charts and changes not do the complete download

I have been using Seattle avionics for almost 5 years. Some of the USB sticks do not seem to work as well as others.
I takes me about 15 minutes to do one USB stick then I do the other one for the second Dynon Display

the sling shot capability when your downloading the entire country except Alaska and Hawaii was not an option.

I have,comcast or xfinity service, and have great downloads speeds

I have friends that don’t and live in fringe areas and they are alway complaining about downloads regardless of what it is

I life revolves around downloads.
2 Dynon
2 Seattle avionics
1 Garmin 650
Foreflight and FlyQ since I do a lot of Flight Reviews and check outs and different folks have different chart data.
Jack

Dynon downloads are quick so are Garmin

 

[rjones560]

I have been using SA for a little less than a year. I have the latest chart manager. It is a bit slow to update, but I really like being able to display the charts on my Dynon HDX1100 screens. I also download everything available.

 

[swatson999]

PLEASE, Dynon, find another supplier of chart data.

Brand new USB stick, 32GB, Sandisk, formatted properly and contains the SkyViewUS folder. Update gets through the Airport Diagrams downloaded, then 4,990 of the Approach Plates and Airport Diagrams (out of the 26,000), and stops. Then I get a red warning message that the USB flash drive is read-only blah blah. Well, it wasn't read-only for the diagrams that already got loaded, was it?

NOTHING else has a problem with any of my flash drives. Guess I'll reformat it and try again.

 

[Rhino]

If you're formatting with Windows, you might try using a standalone formatting tool. Not sure it well help, but it might be worth a shot. There have historically been problems using USB drives formatted with Windows.

Best USB Format Tool 2024 (Top 10 Utility Comparison)

Discover the top USB format tools of 2024. Compare features and prices to choose the right tool for efficient USB drive formatting and data management.

crm.org

 

[jnmeade]

We understand frustration with Seattle avionics but I for one find some of the language here offensive and certainly unnecessary. Please find some other way to express your frustration rather than to affront me with vulgar language. I hope it is deleted.

 

[RV8JD]

We understand frustration with Seattle avionics but I for one find some of the language here offensive and certainly unnecessary. Please find some other way to express your frustration rather than to affront me with vulgar language. I hope it is deleted.

+1!

As a side note, I just downloaded the latest charts (except for the IFR High Altitude Charts) with no problems.

 

[airguy]

I find it odd, given my historical bad experience with SA, that I have had no problems since the recent software change. One thing I have noticed in the past however, is that the temperature of the USB was correlated with the same failure mode that swatson999 is seeing. Some sticks run hotter than others, and I can't tell you why but there were certain sticks that would favor an overheat and get the "write-protected" error.

Objections aside, I will join swatson999 in his vociferous comments - they are warranted, given the history of SA. If I didn't have a lifetime subscription for the data, I certainly would be using a different source for the charts. I would like to see them eventually un-ass themselves, but I don't hold out much hope at this point.

 

[TRCsmith]

Been using SA for around 10 years no issues here. Always fast and never a problem with USB sticks. Never uploaded the beta version. I also never turn my computer off unless power failure or is doing stuped stuff.

 

[swatson999]

See, that's the thing about consumer electronics. It doesn't matter if 95% of your customers have no problems. It's the 5% who DO who can wreck your brand (not to mention your bottom line if you have to accept returned products or warranty repairs, etc.).

And yes, DM will work fine for several months for me, too, then something will change and *kablooey*. In this case, it was using a brand-new USB stick because the old one (of two that I use) got broken. Mind you, SAME manufacturer, SAME size, SAME performance specs as the other two. SAME computer. SAME software. SAME formatting using DM's format and setup routine. SAME dataset selections.

And yet, it repeatedly crapped out early into the download to USB part, returned a wonky error message about the stick being write protected (which it clearly was not since it was in the middle of writing to it). Repeated reformats didn't work. I ended up using a different computer, reformatting the stick, and deleting all the data on the hard drive, forcing it to re-download everything from SA. Finally it worked, but who knows what next month will bring.

This is just continued amateurish software development. Neither of the computers was old (one is practically brand new), the OSes are up to date, the works. It just...got confused and quit.

But it seems SA will ignore the complaints of anyone having an issue, and take comfort in the ones who post "well, *I'VE* never had a problem". Like I said, I don't think SA will continue to support this for much longer, anyway, now that they got bought out and their focus (and development money) is elsewhere.