Wednesday, October 17, 2012

XM Will Sirius-ly Mess You Up!

Last Friday, while on the way to Pittsburgh, a curious thing happened with the built-in touch screen navigation in my Jeep.  See, when I left home, I put in the address where I was heading, let the directions load, selected a playlist from my iPhone that I connected, and set out on my way.  Because we were making a stop at Paul's Chrome in Evans City, Shane and I were driving separately, and because I'm not as familiar with getting to Pittsburgh via Evans City as I am by going my regular way, having the GPS on was for more than just seeing how close (or how much sooner) I could get to my destination than the little ETA in the upper right corner said.

We stopped and got gas at Sheetz in Emporium.  Easy, easy.  But when I started the Jeep up again, the boot-up screen in the Media Center appeared.  That's weird.  It only does that if I use the on/off radio button to turn the whole works off.  I didn't do that when I cut the engine to get gas.  But electronics are prone to glitchiness, I figured, and there was no time to reflect on it, because I saw Shane in the Liberty already turning out of Sheetz. 

By the time I got to the bridge at the end of town, I saw that instead of my NAV screen, with its wonderful map, I had a white screen with plain black Arial Bold letters telling me that the NAV database was unavailable and some disc was needed to install it.  It annoyed me, but didn't alarm me.  After all, hadn't I JUST used the database?  I did the most logical thing people do when a gauge or a screen goes effectively blank: I tapped on it, hoping to wake it up.  Nothing.  I went to the NAV menu, hoping to find the list of addresses I've collected in the GPS over the last year, so I could just pick a different one to wake the system back up.  That didn't work either- the addresses were GONE, or hiding behind the White Screen of Nothingness.  I turned the Media Center off and on a few times, at the many temporary stoplights between Emporium and Clarion, thinking it just needed a [re]boot to the butt, and things would be fine, my map would pick up where it left off, and I wouldn't have to worry, all the while wondering what Sheetz is putting in their gas these days, to give the NAV centers in dashboards amnesia.

I was too optimistic.  So when we got to Eat'n'Park in Clarion, I mentioned to Shane that the GPS in the Media Center in the Cherokee appeared to have suffered a stroke, and he off-the-cuff answered that I'd "just take it to the dealership and let them fix it, because it's under warranty."

That pissed me off.  See, usually Shane's all about trying to fix something himself, and I was sure that there must be SOME magic thing we could do to get the map back, and stop this nonsense about the NAV database being unavailable. And I was sure he knew what to do and just didn't want to bother taking the time with it just then, because he wanted to get to Evans City and pick up his precious chrome.  I was resenting that chrome.

While we waited for our food at Eat'n'Park, I looked on my iPhone on the Jeep Forums for any help whatsoever, while I gave Zoe lunch.  The best I could find was "take it to a dealership" and that nobody who'd posted on the forum knew why the Media Center was acting like that, but it was not an uncommon problem. 

I was still hoping for a miracle when we got back to the vehicles.  I hoped I'd start up the engine, and my map would come back on the screen.  It didn't, so I made sure I stuck to the Liberty's bumper like glue between Clarion and Evans City, since Shane had the only working GPS on this trip, and we were going a way that was unfamiliar to me.  And at least my iPhone would still connect to the Jeep, so I could control my own music. 

While we were stopped at Paul's Chrome, I got Zoe squared away with a couple essentials to make the last half-hour of our trip more comfortable, and then right back to the Owner's Manual and my white-screened NAV screen.  As a side note, I feel like the Owner's Manual is little more than a PR brochure these days.  There's nothing in it about troubleshooting anything. 

But it dawned on me to check out what the Sirius/XM was up to.  Just the night before, I got a call from them, telling me my 12-month trial subscription was up, and which package would I like to renew.  I didn't want to renew.  I've used the satellite radio in the Jeep a grand total of thrice since last October, and even then, it was just to show that we had it.  When I'm in the car, I'm awfully short-fused when it comes to music.  I don't like to leave it to chance that I'm going to get stuck listening to a bunch of songs I don't like.  Satellite radio makes it a little better, but I prefer to have a playlist all loaded up, and then not have to think about trying to find a better station than the one I'm listening to.

Sure enough, all I got was a screen telling me a number and website to use to activate my subscription to Sirius/XM.  At least now I knew that I didn't fill the Jeep up with Stupid Juice back in Emporium, to wipe out its hard-drivey brain.  Shane was taking A While in the chromer's so I went back to the Jeep forums and found that these hard drives in the Media Centers are Touchy.  One guy got the same disappearing NAV database after he'd tried to put addresses into his media center with a thumb drive. 

Even though this sucked, because I'd be without GPS the entire weekend and until I could get to my dealership, I felt better, knowing that at least it wasn't only MY media center that's a spazz.  So when we got to my sister's, I called my dealership, back in Corning, and made my appointment to have them fix my media center.  I head that way this morning.  I'm sure it'll just amount to them putting in whatever disc they need to, in order to load up the NAV database, and also to fix the UConnect, that has the car paired with my phone, so I can talk hands-free on the rare occasion anybody calls me and I'm driving.  I will have spent more time worrying about all this not working than it will take them to fix it. 

It really irritates me that just letting go of a satellite radio subscription that I never used and that has no bearing on the navigation system or the bluetooth phone pairing can seriously mess up both those things when XM/Sirius cut me off.  I'm not sorry to see the satellite radio go in the car.  I'm not a fan of paying for things I don't use.  But I make liberal use of the GPS, which does not require a subscription, even when I know where I'm going.  It's really handy to know what time the Jeep thinks we're going to get to our destination.  It'll be good to get that NAV screen back, and to have everything working properly. I don't even mind having to input by hand all my addresses again, even though it's kind of a pain in the butt.

I think that as far as the Jeep is concerned, I've broken up with XM/Sirius.  I won't be going back.  Mostly, from all of this, I hope that I won't ever have to make a trip back to the dealership to have my media center re-booted.  This is the kind of trip to the dealership that I feel is a stupid waste of time.  I should have a disc I can pop in and reload the NAV database when things crash.  I'm at least smart enough to do that.  Things that strike me as appropriate to need to return to the dealership to be fixed are things like air conditioners that quit working or mapping sensors that go on the fritz, or brakes that are cherry-red and smoking.  Not so much just putting in a disc and reloading a GPS database.

One thing's for sure: XM will Sirius-ly mess you up!

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