Author Topic: Helix10 Meg SI Zero Line Card mapping issues and bottom reading downrigger depth  (Read 8033 times)

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Offline Mark Saikaley

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I had the following problem occur twice under the same situation. The end resulting problem is that my Zero line Card is no longer being written to or updated with anything from the Heliz 10 unit since the problem occurred. ie mapping Data, SI recording, Snap shots, nada. However the Helix is giving all the same messages that it is storing data to the Zero lines card and that its the default.

An error occurs while using the zero lines card and then there is no way to recover after the error. I only have the data that was store on the card prior to that fatal outing.

Both occasions with a new Zero lines card I had been creating and adding to data on one river with no other mapping card inserted.  I had a few iterations of returning to the same river and then updating the zero lines card and also successfully creating the map and updating it on my lakemaster Pro software.

Then I went to lake B and was using the zero lines card and it was the default for storage. I had the great lake navionics  platinum Card in slot two as this lake is covered by that map. I recorded mapping Data and periodically saved the Track and also periodically took screen captures. Then after some iterations of this my unit accidentally powered off . After that the unit was freezing and seemed confused, also all the mapping Data was gone. When the unit freezes the only way to recover is to cut the power to the unit as its completely unresponsive.

I was able to finally recover and have the unit appear to be stable but again as the first time I encountered this problem on the initial Zero lines Card  No new data is ever written or stored to the Zero lines card by the unit.

The first time I encountered this problem the unit had not been powered off but rather the unit seemed to encounter an error when saving and the data was lost and the card could no longer be updated..

Even going  back to the initial body of water I was not able to update that river either.

the first time I encountered this with the 1st card, I had tried resetting the unit to defaults and reformatting the nav directories and different variations but wasn't ever able to get things to work,

The only thing that resolved it was to exchange the zero lines card for a new one.

I don't want to have to keep doing this plus I have lost many hours of choice mapping and other imagery . To add to the frustration is the unit does not indicate any problem while Im recording any data. ITs just when I am finished on the water and go home and plug the card into my computer that I see nothing was actually saved or updated

I finally had some good weather to go out last weekend to try things out and see if I had this problem and now that I do see the same thing Im writing this. As today is July 4th I will not be able to talk to HB support until later this week.

In the meantime if anyone has any info please let me know


The other issue I am having is that the Helix 10 is reading my down rigger balls as bottom. for exampls while trolling in 100 to 200 ft of water with the DR at 40-50 ft and the other at 50 to 80.  I am getting my depth set at one or the other DR depth. Usually it read the deeper ball, but when I removed the deeper one it would lock bottom on the shallower ball.  I have my 997 SI also installed on the boat and when I used that unit, it never locked on either ball and In the last 8 yrs that issue never occurred with another unit.

My new helix 10 transducer is in the same location that my oriingal 997 xducer was and I also have a high speed xducer for the 2d . I got the same result/problem when I used the built in 2d soar or the high speed on the helix 10. I tried changing locations of the Dr's on the boat tracks and also tried extending the DR arms fully but it still picked up the Dr depths as bottom vs the bottom

Again the problems never occurred on my 997 and I was able to compare the results alternating between the two sonars and the problem only exists on the Helix and on two different xducers


Offline Bob B

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I haven't seen reports of the zero lines cards being corrupted in the forums I follow.
The most common cause of a corrupt recording is not stopping the recording before shutting the unit down ....or not shutting the unit down with it's power buttong.
**Looking for the one that makes it all worthwhile**

Offline Bob B

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I haven't seen reports of the zero lines cards being corrupted in the forums I follow.
The most common cause of a corrupt recording is not stopping the recording before shutting the unit down or removing the card from the unit ....or not shutting the unit down with it's power buttong.
**Looking for the one that makes it all worthwhile**

Offline Mark Saikaley

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Consider yourself having heard of it now.

I spent the entire day yesterday with the zero lines card inserted recording waypoints, recording side imagine and with autochart on. exported all waypoints to slot 1 with zero lines inserted in  slot one. Stopped recording normally and only ever used the power button to shut down except one time when the unit froze and no buttons responded.  I saved tracks etc. All the same as other occasions but now the latest date of any file on the chart is June 20th. Nothing from June 24 or July 3rd.

I can understand that if the unit is powered off without the power button that data could be lost that has not yet been saved, but the issue is that no data is being saved to the card no matter what is done now. This is exactly the same thing which occurred with the previous card

Offline Mark Saikaley

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I just went out to the laneway and powered up the unit with no cards in the slots and then inserted only the zero lines card.  I recorded an itrak and an si recording. I took several snapshots . The unit had said all data would be saved on the inserted card BTW. I saved a track and I selected and exported all tracks . Receiving the successfully saved message.


I renamed a recording which is currently missing from any SD cards but shows up as existing on my unit and then selected and exported all to the card again and again received the success message. I powered down the unit with the power button and then removed the zero lines card to check on my pc if there are any new files. Yet there are ZERO new files in any of the folders. you could say there were ZERO NEW lines in the file explorer display

Offline Bob B

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It's possible you have a problem with a card reader.   Is it the same regardless of which you use?

Maybe you could verify both slots by exporting waypoint using a blank SD card.....to each slot independently.
**Looking for the one that makes it all worthwhile**

Offline Mark Saikaley

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I spoke with Humminbird today they suggested I try a few things one of them being to create a folder on the zero lines card to test:

I tried this first and then tried copying a .ACU file to it. Look at what this newly created folder looks like!
I dont think this is what the folder is supposed to look like.

When I insert the card into my sd slot on my computer a window comes up saying " Theres a problem with this drive. Scan it now to fix it?".

So far I have been skipping the scan because I dont want to void any warranty but wondering if I should now that I see there really does appear to be a problem. Something I have suspected as the issue. But my concern is that my Helix 10 is the cause of the corruption as its the second time.
« Last Edit: July 05, 2017, 06:22:22 PM by marknfish »

Offline rnvinc

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Call HB again and ask for a CR person's direct email that you can send that ScreenShot to  ...

Rickie
« Last Edit: July 05, 2017, 09:40:54 PM by rnvinc »

Offline Mark Saikaley

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ok thanks will do

I tried the other two things

saving wp's to an sd card in slots 1 and 2 - both successful successful
saving wp's to zero lines card in slots 1 and 2 - both unsuccessful

Window 10 wants to scan and repair the Zero lines SD card everytime I insert. Im really tempted to let it try but Im refraining so HB can  have the chance to analyze the apparently corrupt card.  As I mentioned a few time before for the recond. The corruption occured if there is corruption while it was under normal use in the Helix zero line card in slot one and the navionics card in slot 2.
I have a feeling its  a software issue and something related to having both those cards inserted at the same time that can cause the glitch

Offline Mark Saikaley

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Call HB again and ask for a CR person's direct email that you can send that ScreenShot to  ...

Rickie
FYI. I called Humminbird and updated them with my results. I asked for an email address to send the screen print and also told them it was on this site but they did not agree to give me an email and said the screen print would be useless, refusing the screen capture. They  instead set up a reference code forme to send the SD card to their Support at Humminbird Lane Alabama. They want me to back up then delete all the data files and folders except for the lakemaster folder/files and the try saving Data with the unit first however. They said this is the only way they can confirm if the card is corrupted.

BTW I did essentially perform this step on my original zero lines card (there was only one folder (ACDATA) at the time except I had not deleted the folder itself and  the test had failed.
I do believe that my Helix 10 did re-write the exact same files previous stored but no new ones, but that seems strange so I might not have interpreted those results correctly

My guess is since it was a corrupted card I cant be sure what was actually on the card compared to what windows file explorer showed me
My guess is the files that were being recorded at the time of the failure are corrupted in some way such that the Helix is getting lost trying to read them and doesn't recognize that they are corrupted.for example, when I power up my unit without any cards, there is no data on the recording and images screen. When I insert the zero lines card it shows the existence of sonar recording files which exist on my zero line card prior to the error and I can verify their existence on file explorer. However heliz also shows R013 recording which I made either the day of or after the error but it does not appear on the Zero lines. So Helix seems to see the file that was corrupted but its not readable byt my PC and not readable by Lakemaster pro. 

Im just going to try the step HB gave me and then send them the card and copy of my receipt as directed.  Im just putting this info up here so people have an idea of the procedures and the debugging steps they gave. Of course if anyone expereinces the same issues I would like to know
Since this has occurred twice within weeks of each new Zero lines card just from using the sonar while fishing and not touching anything (other than perhaps a powerloss) Im concerned its going to happen just as easily again.  The first time I lost the card there was no power down just an error occurred after a few hours of recording autochart live and then lost all that data and unable to write new data. So its not just powerloss that can corrupt the card data

Offline Mark Saikaley

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I tried the last test HB asked me to perform on the Zero Lines card which is to delete all folders on the card except for lakemaster  ( I backed up the files on the PC first)

I then inserted the Zero Lines card containing only the lakemaster files into slot 1 of the Heliz 10 Mega.  I created a few wave points , experoted all wave points and also made a sonar recording.

I then exmapoined the Zero lines card on my PC card reader and all of the deleted  folders and files were restored on the Card but none of the newly created way points or sonar recordings were saved.

So nothing since the data corruption has been stored/visible on the card.

This is the same thing I experienced with my 1st zero lines card. 

Offline Bob B

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Definitely sounds like the file allocation table is corrupted ..... the mystery is what caused it.  It seems like it is something unique to your unit, installation or something you are doing different since others aren't reporting the problem.....not saying it's your fault, just that there may be some unique combination of things going on.
If I hear of any other people having the issue, I will post over here .....please keep us informed what HB has to say.
**Looking for the one that makes it all worthwhile**

Offline Mark Saikaley

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Yes I agree Bob although Im a computer guy I have not researched specifically how the file directory system table works but I know the concepts. 

I believe the problem is just with the SD file structure .  IT seems that the Helix sees the files independant of the OS file structure since the files reappeared on the SD card along with the way points and images even though none were showing on the unit until I inserted the card which had been deleted of all such files and subfolders.

Prior to the deletion of the Zero lines (ZL) card files I used to see one of the recorded tracks in the Helix snapshot and recordings screen, however that one is gone since the deletion. At least its no longer showing up  (it never was visible in windows file explorer but apparently its there)  I am guessing that the files that were being written at the time of the powerloss didnt get updated in the file structure or improperly and the file directory or humminbirds file directory method , probably a proprietary file directory structure is corrupted. Because the Helix is obviously not using the same OS or file directory structure to obtain a file directory as its showing files that windows is not.

I wish I had tried the windows scan before the delete because more and more Im believing that could have fixed it and I think the files are now lost which were not visible. On the other hand if humminbird has hidden files and its own file directory structure as well then probably windows 10 scan would not have resolved that .
A humminbird tech is going to contact me and will do some analysis on the ZL card next week as we have an appointment/phone/connect
 scheduled

Offline Mark Saikaley

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Update.

Tech support  connected to my computer and replicated all the tests with the same outcomes.
I sent them the card as requested and they verified the card problems at their site and are going to load the data i had onto a new card and ensure the card is worning properly and send it back.

They have not had this problem reported  before yet ive encountered it twice.

Ive been using my helix 10 since then withiur a zero lines card and its been working as expected and ive filled up my i hrs storage and created several hours of sonar data as well via record without any issues. Im waiting for my zero lines card so i can update it with whats in memory and on ad card and move forward.

I asked HB To test the scenario i was usig when i enciuntered the problem... zero lines card slot 1 platinum navionics card slot 2.  Both cards not write protected.
Turn on autochart live record   and chart data for a couple  hohourse while taking snap shots and way points.  Then start a sonar recording while autochart luve on as well and agter a half hr or more cut the power source or drop the power voltage so unit shuts off or encounter some other error. At that point the data recorded via autochart is lost and no more data of any kind appears on the card when placed in a windows computer and examined in file explorer.   Alhough helix 10 still says its successduly storing and recordi g. You may even see the recordings and snapshots in the helix 10 recordig and snapshots view but not on any other computer. You can still see all files creates on zero lines in windows prior to that recording session. Juat the files open or nit saved at the time of the error and anyhing after that are a problem.
Have not received new card yet and have not heard if hb harls teied to reproduce the scenarios that i had when problems occured


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