Tread Changes Exisiting Routes - Shaping Point Issues

[smfollen]

@proofresistant Well, from what you have, it looks like the change happens between 3 and 4, that is between Explore and Tread App.

How did you get from the XT2 to Explore without going through the Tread App?

[smfollen]

@proofresistant It seems that when the automatic sync happens, explore has only the route.

ExploreRoute.png (1.89 MiB) Viewed 635 times

Your third image (ChathamLoopOriginal3Explore Cloude.png) has both route and track ... and you say.

3 Explore Cloude arrived an track created

So you apparently converted the route to a track on the Explore web page?
That involves an additional sync which would not normally happen automatically.

Explore.png (2.94 MiB) Viewed 635 times

Without that additional sync, Explore appears to have only a route made up off only waypoints.

My guess, and its only a guess, is that when the Tread App syncs back from Explore to XT2, it takes only the waypoints from Explore, since that is all that is there, builds a route from those, and then adds some random shaping points to that new route.
Tread does seem to "know" how many shaping points belong between each waypoint pair, so it creates the original number of them, but in random locations of its own choice.

Of course, it could be the XT2 adding the random shaping points back in rather than the Tread App, or even Explore?

[proofresistant]

How did you get from the XT2 to Explore without going through the Tread App?

I tested with my Tread 2 Nav Device.
Unlike the zumo XT2, the Tread 2 device can also synchronize with the Explore Cloud via Wi-Fi (without the Tread app).

@proofresistant It seems that when the automatic sync happens, explore has only the route.

Yes, exactly.

Your third image has both route and track ... and you say.
So you apparently converted the route to a track on the Explore web page?
That involves an additional sync which would not normally happen automatically.

Yes, I did it manually; it doesn't happen automatically.

Without that additional sync, Explore appears to have only a route made up off only waypoints.

That's exactly what I thought, but the shaping points are also available in Explore Cloud.
That's why I created a track from the route on the website. That way, you can see more of what the cloud has to offer.

I have now also attached a gpx file with the track as it was found in Tread 2 Device.

ChathamLoopOriginal Tst2 Route-Track.gpx

(68 KiB) Downloaded 7 times

It was a 2nd test without the Tread app, which I had “locked away in the basement.”
To me, it looks as if all the original chaps were actually taken into account.

My guess, and its only a guess, is that when the Tread App syncs back from Explore to XT2, it takes only the waypoints from Explore, since that is all that is there, builds a route from those, and then adds some random shaping points to that new route.
Tread does seem to "know" how many shaping points belong between each waypoint pair, so it creates the original number of them, but in random locations of its own choice.
Of course, it could be the XT2 adding the random shaping points back in rather than the Tread App, or even Explore?

I (almost) agree with your thoughts, but to be honest, I still don't really understand what's happening there and why.

I'll try your example again, but only with the Tread app and only the device, without internet access, but I need time for that too.
Here's a preview:
gpx file imported offline into the Tread app.

ChathamLoopOriginal Tst3 2.jpg (219.67 KiB) Viewed 631 times

More to follow (soon?), it's interesting.

[jfheath]

Just for your information,
In newest Tread App i also saw this message today with the maximum of 10 "Route points" between destinations.
I don't know if it really is may a “new” restriction, as I often have more than 30 shaping points between the VIA points myself.

Route point is any point in a route according to the gpx standard. Destinations are what Garmin also calls ‘Stops’ - Via Points. Garmin are not very good at keeping to their own terminology or being consistent between all staff. I have a theory that the people who are programming are treating shaping points as they would the gpxx ghost points. Discardable if a route is recalculated.

So their comment doesn’t make sense. I believe that they mean ‘shaping points’.

The Tread app for creating routes was unusable. I told them so and sent them screen videos of it not working.

The gist of my comment was three specific issues.

1. Plot a route south to north. Add shaping point M mid way. Then add shaping point N between M and End, Add shaping point S between Start and M. The route looks going in order, south to north, Start, S, M, N, End.
Correctly navigating the shaping points in order - South, Mid, North.

But the route list doesn’t list them in this order. They are listed in the order in which they were placed
ie Start, Mid, North, South, End. This isn’t obvious because The Tread app shows them as ‘Shape’, but click on each one in turn, it highlights the corresponding point on the route.

—-

2. In order to correct this, you have to drag the points in the list to reorder them. This doesn’t work very well because the screen is slow to respond. i select a point, start to drag it, with my eye on where I want to drop it and move it into the correct position. But before I get there, the screen is redrawn without the point that I have picked up, so all of the points move up. They are all called ‘Shape’ and I have no idea where my new location is. You might think that it is obvious, but it isn’t because something else happens to make it awkward - the list scrolls. Invariably the selected point is dropped in the wrong position.

Garmin have done something about this - on one version of Tread, they had ,made it impossible to re-order shaping points. I don’t know if that is still the case. Edit - this is still the case on iPad . 3.00.03_

3. You can get round this by making every point a via point. They can be moved, they keep their name. Great! Get things in the correct order, set them back to shaping points. Except when I do this, the point is renamed ‘shape’ and invariably it is moved onto a faster road. If it doesn’t move then changing the next via will result in both points moving.

So back to the point I was going to make. Garmin may be trying to address issue 2. Part of the problem is that when you pick up a shaping point to drag it to a new position, the screen scrolls. Perhaps they are trying to fix this by presenting a fixed size list by restricting the number of shaping points between vias to 10. If that is fixed then the list has no need to be scrolled.

It’s curing the symptoms though. It would be better if the point was placed in the list in the correct order in the first place. Maybe they are working on that as well.

But there is another issue. Last time I checked, if I change a shaping point to a via point in that list - all other shaping points are removed. Edit. iPad 3.00.03 - no longer the case. Changing shaping to via does not remove shaping points, but moving a via point will delete any shaping point that it is moved past

[Regain]

@jfheath I’m really not sure if the 10 shaping points between stops thing is bogus or not. I’ve just made a route on Tread from near my house up into North Yorkshire. Once I got to 10 shaping points, I got the message, pressed ok but it let me carry on adding more shaping points. Whichever is your latest placed point becomes a temporary ‘stop’ until you place another shaping point.

I do not get any message if I import a MRA built route into Tread that has many shaping points. Bizarre.

Editing the route is where it gets difficult. It seems to be easier to delete shaping points working back along the route and replan. It’s not the easiest platform to work on and would be so much better if there was a web based version to use on a PC.

@proofresistant I’ve never had anything remotely like your instance happen. I may be thinking too simplistically but there would seem to be a lot of to and fros in your experiment with different devices and platforms used. When I get a chance sometime, I’ll have to plot your route points (whichever type) into MRA and have a go.

[proofresistant]

Just i tested also. With map City Navigator North America NT 2027.1, Tread App version 3.00.06 and Tread 2 (edit: i tested Tread 2 not zumo XT2 firmware 6.40. )

...

Anyway, here are my results step by step.

• 1 BC source

• 2 Tread 2 Imported (edit: i tested Tread 2 not zumo XT2)

• 3 Explore Cloude arrived an track created

• 4 Tread App arrived (and soon changed?)

• 5 Explore Cloude Resynchronized

I may have swapped the order of steps 5 and 6, but that's not very relevant, i belive.

• 6 Tread 2 Resynchronized (edit: i tested Tread 2 not zumo XT2)

ChathamLoopOriginal 1 BC s2.png
ChathamLoopOriginal 2 Tread 2 Imp s4.png
ChathamLoopOriginal 3 Explore Cloude.png
...
ChathamLoopOriginal 4 Tread App s1.png
ChathamLoopOriginal 5 Explore Cloude ReSync.png
ChathamLoopOriginal 6 Tread 2 ReSync s2.png

Sorry
it was probably too late for comments last night
I tested everything from this post with the Tread 2, not with the zumo XT2
I just noticed it and corrected it

[smfollen]

Trying to figure out why all this is happening, and exactly where the problem(s) are, is an interesting puzzle, but the bottom line is that we users have only a single choice - either let the Tread App sync or don't.

Only Garmin can fix the The Tread App's shortcomings and the issues it causes.
Over the past year and a half, they have not done so.
I have no reason to believe they ever will, but I continue my long running dialog with Product Support in the hope that, by continuing to press the issue, some progress can be made.

My case with Garmin has been escalated to the "Sr. Product Support Helpdesk Team Leader". In October of 2025, I was told that all issues sync related is one of their top priorities.

I have asked what Garmin is doing to address the fact that multiple long term issues remain unresolved and the associated negative customer sentiment expressed on this forum and various other media.

To be fair, answers to those questions are beyond Product Support's responsibility. While exchanging about 50 emails with them over the past year and a half, I have learned that Product Support's role within Garmin includes conveying issues to development teams. I am confident that they have done so. Product Support can not prevent Garmin from releasing flawed software, nor can they fix reported issues themselves.

Almost 3 weeks ago, on February 12th, of this year, I wrote to Garmin's Vice President of Software and Services to "... call [his] attention to the fact that a large number of Garmin zumo customers are frustrated with a multitude of software quality issues ... ". So far, I have received no reply.

[proofresistant]

I completely agree with you.
Until yesterday, I was still hoping that it might be the main problem is the communication between the device and the Tread app.
Unfortunately, my tests confirmed once again that the Tread app probably plays the most significant role.
And there have been no significant improvements in this regard with the Tread app for years.
What's more, I keep noticing that it's legitimate for Garmin SW to shift shaping points, so from Garmin's point of view, that's fine. In my opinion, that's bullshit.
I also don't think it will get any better with the zumo XT3 devices, although I had hoped it would. Let's see what the first reports say.

But anyway, I'm currently working on an Excel file with even more details using the method I tested yesterday. Maybe that will help us understand, or you can add it to your Garmin support case. Maybe the information will help: "same issue, different user, different procedure, and different device"

And by the way, the offline test, only Tread App and Tread 2, is also coming (asap).
Testing zumo XT2 is more difficult for me at the moment, as I'm still having problems getting North American maps onto my devices, and they are so large that it always takes me hours per device and then again for BC

[BasPost]

For me it did give this 10 shaping point message after a MRA import. However it still imports the route with all shaping points but off course they are shifted. Strangely enough it shifts the points again if different adventurous routing levels are selected. More strange to me is that adventurous level 1 is the least “straight” in this case. (Something also already mentioned somewhere here I believe)

Thanks for the explanation about CEP, this forum is a great help for owning and living with this device.

Also not saying this GPX1.2 would be ideal and I realize you will give up auto recalculation, but I understand there are also quite a few people using tracks and converting them in the XT2 to a route. Compared to that option this al least gives the option for viapoints. Off course I would like to use it in a normal way but find the shifting shaping points too frustrating while keeping the Tread app…

Also something I recently noticed is that swiping the tread app off doesn’t guarantee tread not syncing as mentioned before by someone. But if it was connected before and then swiping it off does shut down the connection between Tread App and XT2. When the XT2 is switched on and the tread app is off it somehow does reconnect to the app, showing the T symbol on the top screen on the XT2. When the app is then started on the phone and then swiped off again the connection breaks and the T symbol disappears from the XT2 while the Bluetooth connection for music/calls stays. Yes loosing traffic and other info given by tread, but blocking syncing while driving and seems to prevent the reboots then as well

[Regain]

@BasPost to be honest, I would be at all bothered if any of my shaping points are moved so long as they are actually on my planned track and the route follows it. I know that idea will be anathema to some but once I’ve checked that Tread (and my XT2) builds a route the same as MRA, I’m happy. I do use via points for competitions that I enter and they are always faithful.