NC AVN2 Satnav comatose woes

Technical Area Electrics & ICE
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I attempted to update the satnav on the AVN2 unit which appears to be a rebadged Alpine to the latest available map for a friend Richard @Woody in his 2014 NC Sport Venture, as his usual garage was not inclined to do it with the explanation that it needed a PC for this operation. The Mazda website listed a Europe map as being available for download but it also warned that his unit would need to have its firmware transferred to a micro-SD card as the new map wouldn’t otherwise fit in the onboard memory.

I had previously read, and reread, the post Alpine 6.1 fitted to new models “Buyer Beware”, noting that loss of the virtual keyboard was a reoccurring problem when trying to bypass Mazda’s “customisation” with the stock Alpine INE-W920 functionality. By the way, it was not our intention to perform this - just to purchase and upgrade the on-board out-of-date map.

So with trepidation we copied the Mazda G500_SD-card_Tool files utility to a 64 Gb SD card and started the process running. Immediately after this had finished I copied the card contents to the computer’s hard drive before running Mazda’s Naviextras Toolbox software which told us that there were no updates available to purchase!! However, there was a free update which we applied and once again backed up the SD card contents again. A comparison of differences between the original and the update appears to consist of mainly image and icon files.

“OK, fair enough” we thought. The SD card would stay in the radio/sat-nav unit with no changes to the user experience. However, that’s when we found out the virtual keyboard for the navigation facility was missing!! We managed to locate and select the French keyboard from the tools menu which only solved half the problem. The on-screen keys were very small and the top line of the keyboard completely obscured the entry field. This effect was the same on both the original card backup from the G500 utility and the upgrade backup from the Naviextras utility. We tried various fixes which eventually lost the french keyboard and with no means to select another.
In an air of desperation with nothing to lose, we tried the firmware update as described in the “Buyer Beware” thread, but this only resulted in a bricked Sat-nav screen (the radio, bluetooth, etc functionality was unchanged though). The software reset from both the toolbox menu and the reset button above the SD card had no effect.

The size of both card backups taken is about 5.76 Gb that includes various internal unexpanded zipped files. In contrast, the backup from Naviextras is ony 88 Mb. I assume that only the map and other customisation files are included.

Has anyone else experienced this problem, and if so do they have a procedure to revert the unit back to having the original firmware on-board. I won’t be able to report immediately back on any replies as Richard and I will have to schedule meet-ups to follow-up on any suggestions.

If you’ve got to the end of this long, rambling text then my “thank you” for doing so.
Laurie

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Have you read the long (17 pages / 339 entries) thread in German - although Google Translate seems to do a good job with it - which can be found here?

In there was the suggestion that copying ALPINNAVI.exe (and, possibly, the DATA.zip and BRANDING.zip) from the backup should restore the keyboard. I seem to remember that this worked for me.

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I read this a few evenings ago thanks (as you say, it is a very long thread), but even with restoring the SD card from the original backup image the unit does not want to play ball. From what I remember, the screen had a single message along the lines of “Insert SD card” even though the the original image was copied onto the card in an effort to bypass this.

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Hmm, you mentioned using a 64GB SD card.

Be aware that quite a few systems can only handle 32GB SD cards, or smaller, and may well ignore the rest of the 64GB card, and there is no guarantee where the data lives. The way the SD card is formatted can also be significant, often only FAT32 is guaranteed to work.

I don’t know if either of these is the case with that Alpine, but if the data chunk is small, then always use a 32GB or less SD card. The other bonus is that they are often faster, again because of the simpler addressing.

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I performed the flash from the original software to the Alpine version successfully using the usb in the centre console. I used a FAT32 formatted 4gb usb drive. Might be worth having a go using this approach. FYI, I never touched the SD Card, and retained full maps, keyboard, Bluetooth functionality. Hope you solve your issue :crossed_fingers:t2:

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Thanks Nick and Richard for both of your very useful replies. The reason why I used a 64 Gb card was because I had one spare and that the G500 install instructions specified a 16 Gb micro-SD card with no maximum capacity limitation. Point taken about the exFAT and FAT32 differences and I will order a 32 Gb card over the weekend just for safety and one less potential incompatibility to worry about.

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Good luck, I hope you sort it.
I was so fed up with the Alpine unit, the most difficult sat nav and radio system I have ever encountered I chose to upgrade the whole unit to a Pioneer Apple Car Play DAB unit. I’m so pleased I did.

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Thanks Steeve for the heads-up on the Pioneer unit. The Alpine is a challenge as much as anything else.