Help 2.3.5 broke Car Mode

[st230]

A few days back I updated my HTC Desire HD (non-branded) to 2.3.5 and after that I cannot use Car Mode as before. For a long time I've used Tasker to call Car Mode from IG88 to activate car mode and to launch Car Dock Home v3, also from IG88 on the Market (excellent app by the way!). After the update, Car Mode now brings up an "Attention" panel with the following text and options:

You need the following navigation license to accomplish this trip
Spain
- Buy
- Voucher
- Sync license
- Cancel

The way things used to work was that when going into car mode a prompt would appear allowing you to select the application to launch and optionally make it the default. I can no longer make this happen. I've reinstalled Car Dock Home v3 but that didn't help. I've checked through all the 250+ apps for a Default setting but there are none except for Dialer. My question is: has anyone else installed 2.3.5 without running into trouble with car mode? Any feedback appreciated!

PS. There also used to be a "standard" Car Mode app that could be displayed and activated from Tasker, but this app is no longer there, so something has definitely changed.

 

[El Presidente]

There's not many that have the update unfortunately, so I'm not sure who'll be able to comment. Have you tried heading to Settings -> Applications -> Manage Applications -> All -> Car Mode -> Clear Defaults?

If anyone else mentions this, I'll point them in this direction.

 

[st230]

There is no Car Mode among the list of applications. I can't remember for sure if there was one in 2.3.3....

 

[st230]

I contacted HTC support about this problem and wish to share the conversation with you:

Q:
After updating to Android 2.3.5, Car Mode no longer works correctly. When the phone enters Car Mode, the following screen is displayed:
Attention
You need the following navigation license to accomplish this trip
Spain
- Buy
- Voucher
- Sync license
- Cancel
I have no intention of buying a navigation license as I don't use this application. Please give guidelines how to prevent this screen from appearing every time the phone enters Car Mode. Thanks.

A:
Thank you for contacting our Customer Support Center. With regards to your inquiry, in this case you should make sure that you have internet connection to be able to use the preinstalled navegation application on your device to be able to use with your kit For more support information, you can contact us by phone or website HTC - Mobile Phones, Smartphones, Cell Phones, PDAs Thank you once again for your continued patronage.

Q:
I have NOT bought any navigation license in the past and I will not buy any now either. I simply want Car Mode to work as before without prompting me to buy a license. I should be able to put the phone in Car Mode without using navigation.

A:
Thank you for contacting our Customer Support Center.
With regards to your inquiry, in this case you should make sure that you have internet connection to be able to use the preinstalled navegation application on your device to be able to use with your kit

????? What a waste of time
Having spent hours trying to find more information on this it now looks like rooting the device after the 2.3.5 update and disabling the HTC Location app is the only way to get Car Mode working again. IMO this way of crippling device is surely illegal. Google provides free navigation software that HTC prevents us to use the way we want and forces us to buy a license for their crappy Location software.

My advice: if you are using Car Mode in connection with 3rd-party programs like Car Dock Home v3, DON'T INSTALL THE 2.3.5 OTA, UNLESS YOU ARE WILLING TO ROOT YOUR DEVICE AFTERWARDS. I'm reluctant to do this considering the risks involved, so don't know what to do now.

 

[El Presidente]

Moved all the root conversation here: http://androidforums.com/desire-hd-all-things-root/467828-update-broke-car-panel-should-i-root.html

Sorry, I'm looking to make a sticky with all the issues folk have been having with the update and I'm gonna move all the multiple threads for the same issue into one thread.

 

[uggig30]

I too have had the exact same problem with the car panel. It would appear that HTC have pulled a fast one here & are extorting a licence for the navigation nobody wants. The only solution as has been mentioned is to root the phone. I would hope someone can come up with a less drastic solution before I go down that road. I feel pretty hard done by as I bought the car kit that is now useless unless I spend more money on a licence.

 

[eoxaal]

Also noticed that there is no "Car Panel" app listed any more after the last update.

However, the Car Panel isn't totally gone:
Starting the "Locations" app and pressing the Car icon near the top right does bring up the old car panel application.

Pressing "menu" -> "get more" (the shopping basket icon) brings up the "My licenses and contents" screen, where my previously purchased navigation license is shown. (I did initially after the update get a message that my 30 day trial had expired and needed to purchase a license, but that was apparently a false warning).

Annoyingly, I still get a status message about needing to update my maps every time "Locations" is started. Don't know how many times I've downloaded these maps now, but still get the same alert. Go figure ...

Even stranger, I just updated maps for Canada and Germany, and the Canada map version number went from 5.755 down to 5.676, the german version from 5.757 to 5.676. Lower version numbers after update!?

 

[st230]

Just to let you know that I just installed an update released by HTC to the Locations application. I was very excited as I thought that the issues reported in this thread had been solved. But no, car mode still doesn't work and the prompt for a license remains. How disappointing! Root still the only option after which the first action will be to disable HTC Locations. HTC - I hope you are listening and understand that this is a poor way of making business.

 

[El Presidente]

If it is an issue with the license and not the app itself, I'm not even sure rooting would sort it. From what I recall, they use IMEI to check the license and your IMEI doesn't change when rooted.

 

[st230]

To me this is not a license issue, as I never had a map license and don't want or need one either. The issue is that going into car mode only gives you one option, namely to buy a license, in effect forcing everyone with a car dock to buy a map license.

 

[st230]

Update: Yesterday I took the bull by the horn and rooted my DHD and am now running Android Revolution HD 6.3.1, which is based on Android HTC 2.3.5. The first thing I did after that was to disable HTC Location using guidelines that I found from googling. The situation now is that if I use the Car Mode application from IG88 on the Market, nothing seems to happen, even though the phone is placed in car mode (I assume so because I've set Car Dock Home v3 to turn the screen off after leaving car mode, which it does but only after I've first run Car Mode). I've tried to solve this by using Default App Manager to force Car Dock Home v3 to be the default application to be invoked when going into car mode, but still nothing visual happens when I run Car Mode. What I've achieved with all this is to be able to get into car mode WITHOUT being prompted to buy a HTC Location license. The fact that I need to run both Car Mode and Car Dock Home v3 in order to emulate the pre-2.3.5 environment I plan to solve using Tasker. l hope this helps all those who have bought a car dock and upgraded to 2.3.5 and are not using HTC's car mode solution.

 

[El Presidente]

Glad you sorted it in the end!

 

[mwille64]

Cannot yet post links, so please copy and paste URL into your browser...

flexdomino.blogspot.com/2011/12/htc-car-panel-app-lost-since-ota.html

 

[D-U-R-X]

Cannot yet post links, so please copy and paste URL into your browser...

flexdomino.blogspot.com/2011/12/htc-car-panel-app-lost-since-ota.html

That does look intresting... as I am not using HTC Sense, could someone have a go and advise on whether this works, so we can add the solution to the main sticky on knows issues with the Sense 3.0 update?

Cheers!!

 

[lucids]

Here's the instructions from that link

HTC Car Panel app lost since OTA upgrade to Android 2.3.5


Today I received an over the air (OTA) upgrade notification for my HTC Desire HD and naturally I immediately upgraded. First thing I noticed are a number of nice UI improvements and in general performance seems to have been improved. After this first joy I however realized that my top most important app (after mail that is), the Car Panel app is missing.

A quick research showed that I was not the only one facing the issue. Basically every HTC whatever owner had the same problem. I called HTC support or I started a live chat respectively and I got to know that the Car Panel app (or is it just the icon) has been removed from Android 2.3.5 for HTC devices.

Before you flip backwards over, the Car Panel navigation is still there, its just a little hidden. And you might have lost access to your currently downloaded maps as your license expired. The following steps need to be done to fix the problem and to get back your 3D premium navigation:

1) Connect the phone to the computer via the USB cable. When prompted on the Phone, select Disk drive, then tap OK.

2) On the PC, open the new removeable drive. Browse to .data\navigator\Data\Res\Extras
and move the .navd file from the SD card. If you like to take backups just save them somewhere on your PC, but you can as well simply delete them; they are no longer useful.

3) Disconnect the phone from the PC. Open the Locations application on the phone and synchronise the license keys. To do this, select Menu and select Get more. In the My licenses & content screen select again Menu and then Sync license.

4) Now delete all installed maps and download them again.

After you followed the above steps, your premium navigation should work again. However, the nice quick access through the Car Panel icon is not coming back. To start your navigation, launch the Locations application and click on the Car icon in the header bar named "Nearby". Once in "Car Mode" you can select Menu to get the options menu pop up you are used to from the Car Panel.

 

[Chronologic]

Ron from Toronto, Canada here. Stock un-rooted HTC desire HD running Android 2.3.5 w/ HTC Sense 3.0 on Telus network (upgraded from 2.3.3 & sense 2.1 on Friday, Jan 20, 2012)

My problem is that I use a 3rd party car dock app (Car Home Ultra). It's an awesome app for several reasons, but the major advantage is that when you start the app, it switches the phone into "Car Mode". When you're in Car Mode, a Car icon appears in the notification bar. Certain phone behaviours change when in car mode - the phone dialer screen converts from portrait to landscape, in keeping with the horizontal phone position. This is critical because if the phone isn't in car mode, the phone dialer always appears in portrait orientation. My phone is mounted in landscape mode when in my car, not using a car dock, just a plain ol' mounting bracket, so having the phone dialer appear in portrait mode is a pain in the you-know-what. Another useful Car Mode feature is that it forces phone call audio into speakerphone mode, which makes sense because when I drive, I'm not holding the phone - it's mounted.

FYI - the old factory-equipped HTC Car Panel app, which disappeared / was integrated with Locations in Sense 3.0, is the default car mode app. That is, with Sense 2.1, when you started HTC Car Panel, the phone automatically went into car mode. When starting the Car Home Ultra 3rd party app, you were presented with a dialog box which allows you to specify your default Car Mode app, overwriting Car Panel if desired. This indicates beyond a shadow of a doubt that Car Mode used to be a "real" mode, with its own notification icon and everything.

Now onto Sense 3.0 - Not only is the HTC Car Panel app missing, but Car Mode doesn't even appear to be a real mode anymore. I was able to verify this in two ways: first, Running Car Home Ultra doesn't place the car mode notification icon in the notification bar, nor does the phone's behaviour change as described above. Second, there's an app on Android Market called CAR MODE CONTROL which is nothing but a toggle switch which turns on/off car mode. I wanted to see if I could toggle car mode without actually running an app such as Car Panel, so I downloaded that app and ran it, but nothing happened. This all leads me to believe that Car Mode isn't even a supported feature anymore. I called HTC support and they were useless. Finally, I thought I might be able to bypass the issue by installing an old version of Car Panel directly from an APK. I was able to install Car Panel, but as with Car Mode Control, running the app does nothing - no apps open, nor is car mode activated.

Just an FYI for anyone trying to diagnose this problem. Hope it helps. Looking forward to your feedback.