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Julien Plotaroute Thursday 22 Jan 2026 12:22:40
Hi John,
Two questions:
1. Did you go to the end of the "Snap route to map" process?
I'm asking because when I'm looking at your NorthernLoop150km, it still has no directions.
When I copied the route and used Snap route to map, directions were added correctly.2. How did you plot the route initially? Website/web app? Did you use any specific feature? Did you use auto-plotting?
I'm asking because I have just plotted the start of your route with auto-plot on the browser version of Plotaroute and right away it adds directions.Looking forward to your answer to get to the bottom of this issue.
All the best,
Julien -
John Abell Thursday 22 Jan 2026 10:46:00
Hi Julien
I was quite hopeful for a while, as the "Snap to Map" started to make sense to me, particularly as the button title says:"SNAP route to map * Fix GPS errors and generate directions"
But it then didn't make sense, because I'd already created the path within Plotaroute, so by definition it was already "snapped to map".
But I ran it anyway because of the "Fix GPS errors and generate directions" promise, expecting to see some option to "Generate Directions".
There wasn't.
So I exported the route again, with directions, for a 150km path, and here is the output:--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Route created on plotaroute.com NorthernLoop150km 438 FINISH FINISH FINISH Flag, Blue -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As you can see, there's not much to it, just a single co-ordinate for the destination, the 150km of path ignored.
Now presumably I'm not the only person who gets a result like this, as any path when exported as a route has the same outcome, just a single final co-ordinate.
This brings me back to the beginning, that what does downloading a complex route achieve?
I'm quite mystified, and very keen to see if I'm doing something fundamentally wrong.
Regards
John -
Julien Plotaroute Wednesday 21 Jan 2026 14:14:28
Hi John,
Sorry for the late reply. For some reason, your post was flagged as spam, and I unblocked it today.
First of all, I do agree that the download procedure could be described better. I have said so in the discussion with the breakdown and I have added this to the list of improvements I share with the devs.
I have looked at your NorthernLoop150km route and the reason why the "route" download is of no use is that there are no directions and no labels on the route.
For example, if you use the "Snap route to map" feature on this route, it will generate directions for it and the GPX > Route > Directions file will now include those points. So your GPS device will only plot the route between those points.From what I can see, the random set of coordinates (-35.033341,138.849827) is the end of the route.
I hope this helps a bit. Maybe using the "Snap route to map" feature and generating directions is what is missing for your route export to be useful.
Best regards,
Julien -
John Abell Thursday 15 Jan 2026 06:00:00
I looked at the discussion on the download outputs, and it reinforces my thoughts that the whole download procedure is at best poorly described.
For instance I can design a winding path of 150km that takes me all over the place, so if I download this as a route, it ignores everything I've done, and lists the final destination coordinate. So what was the point of using Plotaroute at all for a route?
(see my example below).
Outputting the same path as a track gives me a long set of coordinates, as expected, something the GPS can display.
Doing the same but with directions, gives me the same set of coordinates, plus some random location up in the header.
So what I'm seeing is the that the only useful thing Plotaroute can do for me is a track, displayed as a static line on my GPS, which is okay, as that generally is what I want, but it's pretty basic. I can import that same Track GPX into Osmand for example, and it will make it a detailed route with navigation tips. It would be nice if the route would actually export in a way that a Garmin GPS will follow the chosen path and give nigation directions.=====================================================================================================================================================================
Route created on plotaroute.com NorthernLoop150km 438 FINISH FINISH FINISH Flag, Blue -
Julien Plotaroute Wednesday 14 Jan 2026 05:17:21
Hi John,
Check out this topic, in which Peter Höglund and I tested all the possible outcomes.
I hope this helps.
Julien
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John Abell Tuesday 13 Jan 2026 22:27:07
I downloaded a track I made a few days ago in two forms, both tracks, and one with directions, and the other, without.
I did this so I could read the content of the GPX files to see what the difference was, and was surprised to see that they were almost identical, except that the 'Directions' version included a single random coordinate in the first section near the top.
So I copied that coordinate and pasted it into Google Maps to see what the significance of that point was, and nothing, it was just a point in a paddock somewhere, that it doesn't seem to me to be able to have any relevance at all.
Anyone know what the point of Directions' is if all it's doing is what I explained above?
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