Seattle Avionics

[NASA515]

I'm having problems with Seattle Avionics, their software, and their customer support.

My problems with SA began over a year ago with their Voyager product. This is a free flight planning package that they produced for DUAT and hand out DVDs at aviation trade shows. I installed it and noticed immediately that it was seriously out of date. Like three years! A message appears telling you "an update is highly recommended" followed by "File could not be downloaded. Please try again later."

But - you could BUY a subscription - BUT it was for the same obsolete data - this time not free! After trying for several months with no change, I called SA. They said "Yes, the Voyager product was seriously out of date and not being maintained, but they had concentrated their efforts on other EFB products and paid subscribers. I pointed out I could buy a Voyager subscription, but the data would still be obsolete, which they acknowledged. I asked why they were SELLING obsolete data. I was told that updating Voyager was "on their list."

SA and DUAT were still handing out those obsolete DVDs at the Washington Avition Show about a month ago.

Now to Skyview.

When Ver 10 released last week, it said a new SA Downloader was required. I downloaded and installed the new Downloader, but it was not functional. I got a Windows message "Downloader not available" Nor was the old Downloader still available. I re-downloaded, and re-installed the Downloader several times - and even tried re-installing the old Downlaoder. I removed the Downloader using several program removal products and tried installing in several locations, default and alternate - all without success. Finally, my last installation bricked my computer. After many hours, with Win 7 Restore failing to perform a succcessful restore, working through the BIOS, I was able to get a successful Restore and regain use of my computer. Three days fooling around.

I then installed the SA Downloader in a new machine running Win XP SP3. This time, it installed, but before updating, wanted my Password - which, unfortunately I had lost during the attempted update on the Win 7 machine. It accepted my email address as valid and said it would send me an updated password. But, it never did. I tried several more times - still no password.

So, I called SA. Their line answers with a recording saying send Tech Support issues to them via email. So, I did. It responded with a Ticket Nbr (Dynon Support # 17131) and a canned message that "we'll reply to you soon." I should point out that Seattle Avionics and Dynon share the same building - SA is upstairs from Dynon.

After two days, I sent SA Support another email requesting a password reset. No response. After 3 days, I called their number again - the only "live" person you can get is punching 200 for Sales. I hit 200 (as I had done earlier with Voyager) and got ---- the same canned message: Send an email.

After 7 days, I've been unable to contact SA via their Downloader interface, email or phone. So, I've been flying all week without the new chart features (for which I've paid), and gotten nowhere.

And, as others have pointed out, their software is very buggy and leaves a lot to be desired.

sign me: not happy with Seattle Avionics
Bob Bogash
RV-12
N737G

 

[TRCsmith]

Bob
Sorry to hear of your problems. Other than your Voyager product, as you can see by the hundreds of us that are using the SA products only a hand full are having problems.
One thing you may want to do is check your computer for the amount of ram and available HD memory you have. Not only what the drive has printed on it but a computer read out of the drive or RAM. Also check the updates to be sure they are current. Again I haven't read one problem other than yours and it looks like the computer seems to be the problem. Also the downloads seem to working fine now. So that leaves me to believe that your computer is the problem and SA support isn't helping you much.
Just saying...... :-/

 

[tucsonphil]

I have had a similar problem with running the new SA Data Manager. I keep getting the error message that Windows (7) is having a problem and trying to fix it. I tried uninstalling. Restarting. Downloading and reinstalling.

Sent a email to SA tech support 2 days ago and have only received a auto reply. Not possible to reach a live human at SA tech support.

If Dynon could put some pressure on them to respond to this problem it would be much appreciated.

 

[NASA515]

Thanks TRC - well, I've got 9 computers running here using everything from Win 98SE to Win 7 and Linux.  This computer is only a year old and has 1 TB HD space and 12 GB RAM with a Quad Core Intel CPU.

All I really want from SA is a Password reset and I can go from there.  With no email response, unavailability of phone contact, they look like one of those fly-by-night infomertial outfits on late night TV selling food choppers.....

If all else fails, being local, I just may drive over there and chain myself to the receptionist's desk (assuming they have one.....)

Bob

 

[dynonsupport]

Seattle Avionics is here with many of us at Sun 'n Fun this week, so I imagine they are a bit behind on tech support. Give them a day or two to catch up next week before you get too frustrated. We're waiting until next week too.

 

[rls14]

Bob, I'm having much the same problems, only with a Mac.
I bought the charts from Seattle avionics 6or so months ago, an still haven't been able to get them running. All communications with Seattle avionics been the same as yours 
Non existent!
Not happy!!!!
Ron

 

[60av8tor]

+100 to Bob's sentiment.  I've always really disliked SA's update program - it really operates like a program circa '96  :. I just updated to the latest version and now no matter what I do the plate status is red.  I deleted everything on the USB and started all over - probably tried 5 or 6 times - and still red.  I'm thinking I no longer have approach plates for my SV...

 

[Garrett]

I wish SA would show the release date on the download page. Also the release of each month's downloads are very close to the day that it needs to be used. I.E. sometimes I think I have the latest release and it's not.

 

[meljordan]

If you scroll the cursor over the "on computer" green information it will tell you the effective dates of the information.  That helps you to know if it is the new data. 

I too feel SA needs to post the new data much earlier.  As far as I can tell, it is only available the afternoon of the day before it becomes active.  Really not acceptable if you are on a cross country as it is not something you can download in a pilots lounge.  I guess we are pretty spoiled by Dynon's  excellent support for AV data.

 

[60av8tor]

  I'm thinking I no longer have approach plates for my SV...

And I didn't...nor the improved sectionals.  My approach plate column on the updater program said "on computer: NA".  I deleted the program and all files on PC and USB, reinstalled, and everything worked as advertised.  Not sure the cause of my snafu.

 

[cptbob]

I am having same issues! For some reason my desktop down loader won't open. No reply to my emails. Same password issue. Reply was "Login to www.SeattleAvionics.com then use the link to change your password" there is no link I can find. Their support and product is no where near as good as Dynon's.

 

[Dw1oakes]

The stories that you guys are telling is making me not wanting to even subscribe to the charts. I can understand a little trouble with downloads and such, but the greatest concern is the lack of support. I am even surprised that Dynon as good as they are would even "hook up" with a company that seems to lack a the very necessary ability to provide customer support. There should be someone at the headquarters when others are out on sales calls, that can give the help when the need arises. It shows where the priorities lay.
Dave

 

[Garrett]

SA's delivery method for Dynon needs improvement in several areas, you can't beat the price although the system works great on the Apple platform running WingX Pro. I hope they address these issue's soon.

 

[johns_Rv8]

Now I don't feel so bad after reading all your problems.
I downloaded SA Data manager and it has been running on my Win 7 for almost 2 weeks and has not yet fully updated my 32g memory stick. Now I get messages that there is a problem that some of the charts are corrupted and it wants to delete them one at a time and start again. I also discovered that there are 2 iterations of Chart Manager running simultaneously on my computer. Where did that come from?? :-/ I can't delete just one iteration, without deleting both. I don't think I have the life expectancy to get my charts on the memory stick. :'(

 

[swatson999]

OK, just found another "problem" which really should be addressed by SA...

I downloaded all the latest sectionsals to my laptop (deleting the folder which held them) to force a new download with (hopefully) the latest, greatest vector-based graphics and what have you. That took...a while...which was okay,I guess.

Plugged in a memory stick and let it start to load the new files onto the stick...about 1/3 of the way through, last night, I had to hit the sack (it takes *forever* to load the stick), and figured I'd just shut down the computer and let it pick up where it left off later.

All day today, not in a location which had access to the internet, and when I went to continue the process of loading the memory stick...

it started over at Alaska. Sigh. Guess I'll have to leave it running all night to make sure they're all loaded.

Really? The software couldn't do a comparison with the dates on the stick to figure out if the files were current or needed to be updated?

In my years of software experience, I'd rate this sort of user experience as "poor".

 

[dynonsupport]

Steve,
I'm not here to make excuses for SA, and I know the Data Manager has many warts, but that's expecting a lot of the program. If you download every state and product, there are 500,000 files on the USB stick. The dates on a file don't tell you anything, since they could be modified by another program, or the clock on your PC could have been off when it wrote them. The only way to know a file is truly up to date is to do a CRC, which you need to do to your source and destination files. At some point it's easier and safer to just copy over them.

I see you're in California, yet are downloading the Alaska charts. Alaska is 1/5 of the US land area, and thus is 20% of the files and copy time. The whole reason the SA Data Manager lets you choose states is to minimize how much it downloads and copies to a stick. We highly recommend only installing the data you need. In my experience, Sectionals and IFR LO charts for California copies to a stick in under 10 minutes. It's when you start asking for so much data that you are hitting hundreds of thousands of files that the copies start taking hours.

Remember that the copy time is a function of the speed of your USB drive as well. If you use a $100 USB stick that has a high performance controller inside, you can copy everything in a few minutes (I've done it). One unfortunate tradeoff of inexpensive, but huge USB drives is that they are awful at tiny files, of which we need gygabytes worth. This isn't SA's fault, it's just the reality of how high density, inexpensive flash drives work.

If there's any experts out there on how to speed up copying 500,000 100kb files to a USB stick running a FAT32 file system, please let us know!

 

[swatson999]

I know it's not a big deal, and not asking for you to take the heat for SA, just was a little exasperated, that's all.

My reasoning for downloading them all was that I'd do that once, onto each of two memory sticks, then just keep one plugged in to the computer on my desktop all the time and when a chart cycle completes, it'd update a handful of them, I'd swap the stick with the one in the plane, and just do that repeatedly. That way, if I decide to go to Oregon, or Nevada, or Texas or OSH or wherever, I'm already all set. Maybe even Alaska some day .

I was just a bit surprised that the program couldn't resume where it left off. I can think of quite a few ways to code such a capability, including an index file with current dates for the *complete* charts (not each individual file), the download status (complete, incomplete, whatever), expiration data, other metadata...and then the program can write-lock the individual files (or even folders), unlocking them as needed to update (and a savvy user can unlock them manually if they really want to force a reload or something). Lots of ways to implement that capability, but it's not a huge deal in the long run.

A bigger deal is just the generally kludgy, non-intuitive user interface itself, but I can live with it

 

[jc2da]

It's already slow enough with my 2 states selected that i can't imagine wanting to do them all. I can live with the extra time for that occasional longer trip.

 

[dynonsupport]

For those of you having issues with the Seattle Avionics Download Manager updating your enroute charts (Sectionals, IFR Lo/Hi), let me personally apologize. While the process has gone smoothly for many people, others have become stuck, and are in various states of missing some or all data. That's clearly not the experience you expect from a Dynon product.

Because Dynon does not control the Seattle Avionics data manager, there is only so much we can do to rectify the situation until Seattle Avionics is able to update their software to deal with the bugs that many of you have encountered.

We're aware that Seattle Avionics is not being as responsive as our joint customers would like. I can say that we speak with them daily, and they are aware of the issues. We are doing our best to communicate the frustration that many of you have to them, and to motivate them to fix the issues as soon as possible. At the same time, Seattle Avionics is a company that supports many different platforms and customers, and they need to prioritize their energy in the way that they feel is best. All small aviation companies are also dealing with the time crunch that this time of the year brings, with Sun n' Fun, Aero Freidricschaffen, and just the general uptick in people flying as the weather gets nicer in the northern hemisphere. This can put a strain on support and engineering resources alike, which is not a great recipe for customer satisfaction.

We will continue to speak to them each day, push them to get a fix out as soon as possible, and to continue to pass along the feedback about their products that you have been giving us. Hopefully the current situation is short lived.

--Ian Jordan
Chief Systems Architect
Dynon Avionics

 

[dynonsupport]

I would also like to add some instructions to hopefully get some people that are stuck moving again. Below is how you can delete the sectional data to hopefully push the Data Manager to get the downloads working again. The below process will also work if you have working data but want to force the system to pull the new, clearer sectionals that the FAA released last week.

This does assume you have a Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 system. Windows XP is a bit different, and we can give instructions there if anyone is using the download manager on XP.

I realize this guide is a bit technical and won't solve everyone's issues, but I will do my best to make it a step-by-step guide.

1) Shut down the Seattle Avionics data manager. It runs in the notification area, near the clock, usually in the lower right hand corner. It looks like a blue earth icon with a small green arrow. If you don't see this, click the up arrow in the notification area to see all items.

Right click the icon and choose "Exit"

2) Press Windows Key + R to get the windows RUN dialog box up. In this window, enter or paste:
%appdata%\Seattle Avionics\DataManager\ScannedCharts

3) This should bring up a window with a single directory of "US" and a few files starting with ScannedCharts

4) Click on one of the files to highlight it. Now press CTRL+A to select all files and the directory. Now press Shift+DEL, and say yes to delete all these files and the directory.

5) Close the window.

6) Put your Seattle Avionics data USB sitck in the PC

7) Press Windows Key + E to open "My Computer". Double click on the drive that you use for your SkyView charts.

8) Double click on "ChartData"

9) In this directory, hold down CTRL, and select the directories SEC, LO, HI, and the ScannedCharts.sqlite file. You may not have LO or HI if you haven't downloaded IFR charts.

10) Press SHIFT + DEL to delete all of these directories and files.

11) Start the Seattle Avionics Data Manager. To do this, click the "start" icon in the lower left, and type "Data". The Data Manager program icon should pop up. Click it.

12) Once the data manager is running, select the VFR, IFR LO, or IFR high products you want. Additionally, click on the "X states selected" blue button and choose the states you want to download.

It's highly recommended that you only download the states you really need. Remember that just adding Alaska and Texas will make your data set at least 50% larger.

13) Click "Download Now". This process will take a while, maybe even a few hours depending on how much data you wanted to download and copy.

14) Once you see "Download Now" and not "Cancel Download", you should be done and ready to use your charts and sectionals.

15) If you have more than one USB stick, you do not need to repeat steps 2-5.


Please let us know if this isn't working and we'll do our best to keep helping.

--Ian Jordan