GPS roll over date BE AWARE !

[Spaniard_King]

From the Hull Truth website

The Hull truth.
GPS date rollover affects older GPS units
BY BEN STEIN · PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 22, 2019 · UPDATED FEBRUARY 22, 2019
On April 6th, 2019 older GPS units may experience a range of problems because of a limitation in how they handle dates. Those problems could include not being able to receive location data. It turns out the way dates are stored in older GPS units has a rollover event every roughly 20 years and we are about to experience the second one since the GPS constellations came online. The rollover last happened in 1999, but in the last 20 years the use and dependence on GPS has increased dramatically.
The Department of Homeland Security has published a bulletin on the upcoming rollover, as has the Coast Guard. Both bulletins make reference to a new GPS spec (IS-GPS-200) that deals with these rollovers gracefully. Unfortunately, the bulletins also warn that not all implementations of the new specification work properly and some GPS units might be prone to trouble either at the 4/6/19 rollover or later.
The underlying problem stems from the way GPS units store dates. The original specification for GPS had dates stored by week in a 10-bit field (2^10 or 2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2x2) which is 1,024 weeks. 1,024 weeks is 19 years, 36 weeks. Dates for the GPS constellation start at midnight on January 5th, 1980, so the first rollover occurred on August 21, 1999. Now, 19 years and 36 weeks later the same thing will happen again on April 6th, 2019.
Furuno has stated their units will experience the rollover on March 17th, 2019, almost three weeks earlier than the published date in the notices. Furuno has a list of affected units as well as information on how to cold start the units to restore location information. It appears the date will remain wrong but the location services should function correctly. The affected units appear to all have been introduced in the early 2000s and ended sale around a decade ago.
Raymarine has posted to their forum that they are confident most of their recent hardware (Axiom, a/c/e/eS-Series MFDs and Raystar 130 & 150 GPS receivers) are unaffected.
Garmin has published a support article indicating they don’t expect trouble for their units as long as they are running current software.
No comment from Navico.

[Lovey80]

Thanks. “No comment from Navico”. Typical.

[TheRealAndy]

Thanks. “No comment from Navico”. Typical.

To be fair, its pretty rare for a Navico GPS to last long enough for it to be a problem.

[daveo17]

i think my old garmin gps 60 might be effected bugger

[Moonlighter]

Re Navico units.

A recognised Navico expert on THT forum said:

I have now tested NSS Evo2 for the GPS week rollover happening by midnight April 6th 2019, no issues detected.

Based on this we can conclude date and time for NSS Evo2, NSS Evo3, GOxse and XSR, Elite (all), HDS Gen3, HDS Carbon, HDS Live, GS25 and Point-1 all will be fine also after 6th of April next year.

[joffo81]

What does this mean in laymans terms! I have a gen 1 HDS 10. Software is up to date. If problems occur how are they likely to show?!

[Spaniard_King]

What does this mean in laymans terms! I have a gen 1 HDS 10. Software is up to date. If problems occur how are they likely to show?!

Unfortunately no one really knows, it basically is going to come down to it will either work or not

[swof63]

Y2K all over again..............


Sent from my iPad using Ausfish forums

[Moonlighter]

If your unit s afected, and as noted many wont be, the main thing that could happen is that your GPS unit will not show the correct date in future.

The main implication for your GPS not showing the correct date is that tidal information will be wrong.

I am making inquiries with my sources about whether the recently released “legacy GPS patch” that Navico made available for earlier HDS and Elite and earlier Simrad models will resolve this issue. I think it might. I will report back.

If the meantime it would still be a good idea to check the Lowrance software updates page and see if there is a “GPS legacy” patch available for your unit. But, if your unit is still showing the correct date when locked onto satellites, it probably doesnt need the patch .... yet. I do know some people that have HDS gen 1 who did not have date issues and didnt need to upload the patch.

Link to HDS gen 1 GPS legacy patch download page
https://downloads.lowrance.com/softw...ex.html?r=1755

[Moonlighter]

Great news from Navico!

I have it confirmed that the GPS legacy patch released earlier this year by Navico for various earlier models (Simrad and Lowrance) fixes all GPS rollover issues. Including the date and the follow on effect on tide information.

And that the later models as I listed earlier have been tested and are not expected to be affected.

So, if you have any concerns about your Lowrance or Simrad unit and the GPS rollover, the thing to do is to go to the Simrad or Lowrance website and to their software updates page, check if there is a GPS legacy patch available, and if there is, download it, copy to a SD card of less than 32 GB capacity, put it into your unit and upload it. Its pretty easy to do.

Links to Lowrance and Simrad software download pages:

https://downloads.lowrance.com/

http://downloads.simrad-yachting.com/

Be good if all the other manufacturers would make similar efforts to support their customers.

[Spaniard_King]

Great news from Navico!

I have it confirmed that the GPS legacy patch released earlier this year by Navico for various earlier models (Simrad and Lowrance) fixes all GPS rollover issues. Including the date and the follow on effect on tide information.

And that the later models as I listed earlier have been tested and are not expected to be affected.

So, if you have any concerns about your Lowrance or Simrad unit and the GPS rollover, the thing to do is to go to the Simrad or Lowrance website and to their software updates page, check if there is a GPS legacy patch available, and if there is, download it, copy to a SD card of less than 32 GB capacity, put it into your unit and upload it. Its pretty easy to do.

Links to Lowrance and Simrad software download pages:

https://downloads.lowrance.com/

http://downloads.simrad-yachting.com/

Be good if all the other manufacturers would make similar efforts to support their customers.

Garmin has published a support article indicating they don’t expect trouble for their units as long as they are running current software.

[joffo81]

Hi brainstrust! I downloded the legacy patch for my unit and during the install, my HDS froze with the following error.

ERROR: no or unsupported GPS detected.

Any ideas how to proceed from here?

The only way to get the HDS to reboot was to cut power and remove the SD card. At the moment, the only option I can think of is to remove the file from the SD card and forget about the software install.

[patrol50]

deja vu joffo - have a read of this ( and beware after i tried to load that legacy patch to my gen 1 (7) it has since had diabolical problems locking onto satellites whereas before i tried to upgrade it no real issues) - fortunately i use it on a network usually with a lgc 3000 antenna or a gen 2 t

http://www.ausfish.com.au/vforum/sho...Touch-and-Gen2

[Moonlighter]

Patrol - I really dont see how you can in all fairness say that Lowrance dont support older units when they have gone back to create the patch for this issue, which is really due to the GPS chip supplied by a third party.

HDS gen 1 is now at least 5 generations old!

Download the patch on a different computer. It appears that some PC’s are corrupting the update file, I dont know why, but possibly windows security settings or your anti virus settings.

The very few reports I have seen with Gen 1 patch loading issues, this solved the problem. Very few such reports are happening, and there would be many more if the issue was widespread. Forums such as BBC in the US with tens of thousands of acive members would be bombarded - and there have been 2 reports, one from someone who used SD card which was too big, other one who downloaded on a different PC and problem solved.

You should save your waypoints to a SD card before doing any software changes, and after its loaded, do a hard reset. Hard reset wipes everything so make sure backed up!!

This should solve the other issues.

[Moonlighter]

Make sure you downloaded the correct patch.

Then do as I suggested above. Download the patch using a different PC.

Make sure your SD card is small capacity, the current HDS max size is 32GB, the older ones you are safer using something closer to 8GB.

backup waypoints etc first. Then after the update is done, do a hard reset. You will then have to upload waypoints etc from the card.