Navionics Login Process

[dje67]

On Saturday, I took the boat up the Clyde and anchored in Holy Lock for the night. I use Navionics on my iPad, with SH CP180 fixed plotter as my backup. All fine on that journey. However, on Sunday when I left the anchorage, I opened Navionics and it was demanding that I signed-in before it would let me do or see anything. Ipad hadn’t been shutdown overnight and had been on charge all night.

On the Clyde, with full mobile coverage that was not a problem (just a bit of a pain to connect to my hotspot on the phone, login, then restore the ipad wifi connection to my onboard GPS).

It got me thinking a bit about what might have happened if I’d been in an area with no 4G coverage, as I was for much of the summer. If I couldn’t get 4G connection I wouldn’t have been able to login to Navionics and would have ended up with no primary chart plotter. I don’t think this is safe as this issue could have occurred in a remote place where it would be rather useful to have a plotter!

So, anyone else found themselves ‘locked out’ of Navionics since they changed their policy of requiring you to have a login.

 

[Andrew_Trayfoot]

My Android version has asked me once for this. It does not normally have internet access at sea, but asked as soon as I turned it on one day.

 

[dje67]

I can't remember being asked to log in before now. I chose to log in ages ago so that I can share data between devices, but this was the first time it has lobbed me out then expected me to be on the internet in order to get it working again.

 

[KAM]

It's happened to me a few times. It seemed to be that if I ignored it two or three times it restarted normally and the issue went away. I like the Navionics android app but wouldn't want to rely on it. You're never quite sure what's going to change next and stop you using it. Too much peripheral rubbish as well.

 

[pandos]

Have you the maps/charts of the area you were in downloaded to the device...?

It asked me to log in last week to update but I ignored this as I was trying not to runaground...

 

[KAM]

I have all the areas downloaded. I've been using Navionics on android since it started having paid a fee at the beginning which gave permanent use of charts. Conditions seem to change every now and again and there seem to be assorted warnings that it may stop working or may stop updating but it still seems to be working so I wouldn't rely on it as my sole means of navigation and usually use it on a device which is off line. The cartography is pretty good but been finding it quite vaugue in some of the less travelled parts of the coast.

 

[dje67]

Yup - charts and maps all downloaded. I tried to ignore its request too login several times, then restarted the program. No joy. All the screen would show was a very highlevel, basic outline of the coast, no detail.

 

[Andrew_Trayfoot]

Just log in and it will work off line from then on. It's not much of an ask really.

 

[[2068]]

How happy would you be if you saw the pilot of your aircraft facing a navigation screen that said "Please Login" with no option to bypass it?

The trouble is, I am randomly logged out every now and again.

I've raised this with Navionics tech support, no sensible answer back yet.

 

[Daverw]

I’ve not had to log back in to Navionics for the last 3 years since I change my iPad, are you sure it’s the app loggin you out not your device? Which app version are you using?

 

[Yngmar]

I've had problems with the app login briefly, but it eventually calmed down - perhaps it relents after a few failures to connect or I did manage to log in and it never bothered me again since - it's been a while.

We do however as of the last couple months have regular problems with the app freezing when the network connection is poor. Apparently it tries to "phone home" for no particular reason and then when there is no reliable internet, it hangs for several minutes until the connection attempt times out. This means on screen the map cannot be scrolled and your GPS location does not update. Very dangerous, so cannot be used as primary navigation tool.

Now I have to remember to put the phone in "airplane" mode (all radios off and thus definitely no internet, rather than unreliable internet). Then Navionics works fine as its connections fail immediately rather than getting stuck waiting for a timeout that hangs the whole chart. Typical consumer rubbish though.

We still keep using Navionics as the Sonarcharts coverage of anchorages is unmatched, but our primary navigation tool remains OpenCPN (which crashes about once per season and never hangs).

 

[Andrew_Trayfoot]

How happy would you be if you saw the pilot of your aircraft facing a navigation screen that "Please Login" with no option to bypass it?

The trouble is, I am randomly logged out every now and again.

I've raised this with Navionics tech support, no sensible answer back yet.

Am aircraft goes through a checklist before he backs of the gate:
1. Is the chart plotter working. If no log in....

On my boat I run up Navionics on my WiFi only android plotter and on the odd occasion it has asked me to log in I have fired up the hot spot on my phone. And connected to that. All sorted in 2 minutes. No big issue.

 

[dje67]

Am aircraft goes through a checklist before he backs of the gate:
1. Is the chart plotter working. If no log in....

On my boat I run up Navionics on my WiFi only android plotter and on the odd occasion it has asked me to log in I have fired up the hot spot on my phone. And connected to that. All sorted in 2 minutes. No big issue.

Back to my original point - using my hotspot on the phone wasn't a big deal (and I've not been logged out since). But 3 weeks ago I was 3 days with NO mobile or wifi access in waters unknown to me. Yup, I had paper charts and my fixed plotter, but I was a bit concerned that Navionics decided that I had to log in when I couldn't, and it wan't prepared to compromise! It worked the day before it chucked me out and hadn't been shutdown overnight.

 

[[2068]]

I’ve not had to log back in to Navionics for the last 3 years since I change my iPad, are you sure it’s the app loggin you out not your device? Which app version are you using?

I have no idea whether it’s a device issue or an app issue.
That’s not the point.

The point is, that an app with a mandatory login requirement cannot be relied upon for navigation if you don’t know when you are going to get logged out.

 

[Daverw]

I’ve just done a log out and still have all function with downloaded maps apart from sync and updates, so still a little confused

 

[Andrew_Trayfoot]

Back to my original point - using my hotspot on the phone wasn't a big deal (and I've not been logged out since). But 3 weeks ago I was 3 days with NO mobile or wifi access in waters unknown to me. Yup, I had paper charts and my fixed plotter, but I was a bit concerned that Navionics decided that I had to log in when I couldn't, and it wan't prepared to compromise! It worked the day before it chucked me out and hadn't been shutdown overnight.

That is not good I agree.
I do have a copy on my phone as a backup and also have paper charts. Plus 3 other di

Back to my original point - using my hotspot on the phone wasn't a big deal (and I've not been logged out since). But 3 weeks ago I was 3 days with NO mobile or wifi access in waters unknown to me. Yup, I had paper charts and my fixed plotter, but I was a bit concerned that Navionics decided that I had to log in when I couldn't, and it wan't prepared to compromise! It worked the day before it chucked me out and hadn't been shutdown overnight.

I agree that is not good - worth perusing Navionics : They do look at the reviews on the Play Store as they have replied to me in the past.


I suppose it comes back to not relying on one source of data for navigation.

I have
3 GPS's (Garmin 126 fixed GPS, Matsutec AIS transceiver, ICOM DSC VHF)
A phone that also has Navioinics installed
Plus paper charts.

The only common denominator is GPS, but the Matsutec and my phone will also work on the Russian system.

On passage I would always log my position once an hour.

So hopefully I have covered most bases...

 

[[2068]]

I’ve just done a log out and still have all function with downloaded maps apart from sync and updates, so still a little confused

Do you have the latest version of the app?
Old versions of the app work the way you describe.

 

[Daverw]

Yes latest version 15.3, just had a trawl through settings etc, is it possible that some of the sharing settings can cause problems when not logged in as I would expect these to need this but again I’ve never had a problem with IPad or iPhone and sync all with plotter

 

[Andrew_Trayfoot]

Yes latest version 15.3, just had a trawl through settings etc, is it possible that some of the sharing settings can cause problems when not logged in as I would expect these to need this but again I’ve never had a problem with IPad or iPhone and sync all with plotter

I wonder if this is an Android issue.

 

[[2068]]

I wonder if this is an Android issue.

I'm on iOS