California Surveyors Forums

It looks like the WAVE engine in TGO had a hard-coded limit of 1 billion seconds from 1980, and as a result will no longer process GPS data collected after 09/14 or so. I find it hard to believe that Trimble didn't see this coming, but I'm curious to see if they'll react. On the one hand it doesn't seem like it'd be hard to modify the code to accommodate the later dates, but on the other hand they have little financial incentive to invest time and money in a superseded product.

Absent a great deal on TBC, I guess I'll be using GNSS Solutions going forward.

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Jim

How long has it been since you updated a program?

20, 30 years?

BTW, I am no fan of "updates" every time you start another project, But it necessary sometime.

"How long has it been since you updated a program?"

When the upgrade costs $3k, the longer the better between upgrades. Especially when it requires learning an entirely different user interface.

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Upgrades and "no longer supported" is getting awfully expensive for small companies, even big companies that have to buy multiple licenses are not happy with all the "upgrades" that not only cost money but require learning time and many of these upgrades require more input by the user than the previous edition did.

land butcher wrote:Upgrades and "no longer supported" is getting awfully expensive for small companies, even big companies that have to buy multiple licenses are not happy with all the "upgrades" that not only cost money but require learning time and many of these upgrades require more input by the user than the previous edition did.

I agree. and many upgrades are nothing but a new bunch of problems with the
"new & improved" program.

I plead guilty to rumor-mongering. I've been unable to process CORS data in TGO, but I just downloaded 3 CACS (Canadian Active Control System) files for JD258, and the vectors processed normally. For what it's worth, these were very long vectors (between 400 and 1,000 km).

Something's definitely fishy, but for now I withdraw my claim that it's a Trimble problem. (However, I reserve the right to re-point my finger in that direction at a later time.)

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After reading this thread, I went out to measure a baseline and tried to process it. It wouldn't process. Some sort of coded error message:

Processor code = 101: Baseline estimation error
See C:\****\****\****\****\Baseline
Processing/wave.log for more information.

Attached is the wave.log file from this attept to process.

the attachment...

Unfortunatly TGO will no longer work. It was the Y2K story with TGO, it's done. Time to move on to TBC.

They killed GPSurvey too!!! Interesting how the date of termination corresponds with software thats release date was many, many years prior. Wonder how many seconds were 'calculated' into GPSurvey's engine. TBC is getting better but has its quirks and limitations.

I think the Wave Processor in TGO was the same one as GPSurvey and thats why they both conked-out at the same time.

But never fear, Trimble will gladly give you a temporary version of TBC...

"But never fear, Trimble will gladly give you a temporary version of TBC."

I saw a posting to that effect on SurveyConnect.com, in which an Oregon dealer is quoted as saying that a dongle-free temporary license for TBC will be provided as a download. I have an inquiry in to that dealer and also to CSDS (my local dealer) to see what's up.

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Contact your local Trimble dealer and they will provide a 19 digit code for use with a fully functioning 30-day trial version of TBC 2.5. After that, who knows?

Funny thing; I sent an email to Trimble's Sales/Support email address this morning and within 20 min. I had a phone call from them. Very surprising to me. I was assured that they were working on the problem. I asked him if a "fix" was in the works for TGO and he said "Well, the fix is a temporary license for now."

Very doubtful that a patch is in development, it's a sad day for the survey world.

Wonder where it would go if a few years from now a court case came up and a user of this program was required to repeat his work for the court?

Not sure this ever happened, more of a what if..

22 September 2011

Dear Trimble Survey customers,
On September 14, 2011, it was discovered that the WAVE baseline processor in Trimble Geomatics Office (TGO) and GPSurvey could not process GPS observations collected on or after that date. The failure in the WAVE processor was not anticipated due to the fact that both products had been discontinued (TGO was discontinued on December 31, 2010). The exact cause of the failure is unknown. The problem is limited to the WAVE baseline processor and does not affect TGO’s ability to import and process other data such as RTK vectors and optical measurements.

Trimble’s current GNSS processing software, Trimble Business Center, does not suffer from this failure.
At this time, we do not anticipate a fix for either TGO or GPSurvey.

All TGO and GPSurvey users with a current software maintenance agreement should contact their Trimble distributor to receive a copy of Trimble Business Center at no charge. We understand that many users are operating without a current maintenance agreement, and to assist with their urgent requirements we are offering 30-day licenses for the full version of Trimble Business Center. Please contact your Trimble distributor to request the temporary license.

We greatly appreciate your understanding and patience on this matter.

Thank you,
Trimble Survey
Trimble Engineering and Construction Group, 5475 Kellenburger Road, Dayton, OH 45424-1099, USA
© 2011, Trimble Navigation Limited. All rights reserved. Trimble and the Globe & Triangle logo are trademarks of Trimble Navigation Limited registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Long winded way of saying you are up the creek without a paddle, bring your platinum card.

Great economical time for this to happen.

Boy, you would think a California company would not be so cavalier about those that don't have a maintenance agreement.

There are California laws, such as the Unfair Business Practice laws, that might be implicated here. They wrote software that they knew had a limited timespan. They then sold this software to unsuspecting customers. I'm guessing that if they had told many of those customers that the software would cease working at some later date many might have negotiated a lower price. Some customers would have looked harder at alternatives. Pressure might have been put on them to remove the software time bomb. Instead they happily took the customers money knowing that those same customers would have to purchase replacement software at a future date. The unsuspecting customer is left having purchased software that on one day worked fine for what they needed it to do and then the next day, through no fault of their own, ceases to work. And Trimble's only solution to software they wrote that stops working after a particular date is to buy more of their software??? Not so nice. Software time bombs are generally frowned upon.

Other software time bomb cases have been brought under federal law, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. A quick Google search on software time bombs brings up many links. Seems to me they ought to be doing more about this than offering a 30-day trial until you can get your money together to buy the software.

"They wrote software that they knew had a limited timespan."

Going from "it broke" to "they knew had a limited timespan" is a mighty big leap, even for a skeptic like me. The Kiwis who coded the WAVE processor -- in, what, 1990? -- probably had no idea it would be around as long as it has been, and by the time it got incorporated into TGO there probably wasn't anyone left who knew there was a time limitation. Proving otherwise would be a pretty tall order.

I won't be looking for regulatory or tort relief on this one. A little customer service would go a long way, but I don't really expect that to happen, either. I haven't even gotten a response to the email I sent to my dealer that basically says, "Hey, I'm thinking about buying a copy of full-blown TBC, can you send me an evaluation copy?"

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I wouldn't be too quick to make excuses for Trimble. If you bought a car and it suddenly stopped running, I don't think you would care where the part was made that failed. You would go back to the dealer and have them fix it. Now imagine that some part of the car had a built in lifespan of 10 years and no one at the car company told any consumer about the lifespan. How happy would the customers be when they all went out one morning to go to work only to discover that their car no longer operated. And the reason it no longer operated was that some critical component had a built-in lifespan of 10 years for no good reason other than that's how it was created. And that the only solution that the car company offered was that they would sell you a new car. I would guess you wouldn't be so quick to say that it wasn't the car company's fault.

Trimble sold the TGO software complete. If Trimble wants to go after the creators of the WAVE processor, then that is their business. The buyers of the TGO software had nothing to do with the creators of the WAVE processor. The buyers have only one recourse and that is through Trimble.

Sorry, I don't think Trimble should be let off the hook so easily.

"I wouldn't be too quick to make excuses for Trimble."

No excuses, just practical observations. Take a look at your TGO warranty; it's good for 90 days from date of delivery, and excludes such esoterica as "merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose." Good luck getting a court to recognize standing to sue -- let alone finding damages -- as a result of failure of the software beyond the warranty period.

If you think you have a case, by all means go for it. I'm just saying that I don't think there's any likelihood of succeeding in court. Consumer pressure and public relations, maybe; but not in an adversarial legal proceeding.

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I would not let Trimble off the hook either. Of course, the little one can do is not use their services. At some point I will get a new GPS system, and have had my issues with Trimble in the past when it came to something like this, and this new situation solidifies my old bias quite nicely.

I see no legal reason why any company can have software with a limited use just because they want to make more money. You have the right to be able to use it as long as you need. If not, then what is to stop them from doing this every year or two?

It costs Trimble very, very little - essentially nothing really - to assist Mr. Frame with this. What costs them more is if he chooses another product when he upgrades. It is stupid business practice.

"Good luck getting a court to recognize standing to sue -- let alone finding damages -- as a result of failure of the software beyond the warranty period."

No problem getting standing to sue. The TGO software is licensed from Trimble. The software doesn't work because of a software time bomb that was included in the TGO software. Who else would we sue? I would assume that Trimble would tell us that the license they sold us years ago was still in force.

We aren't, well at least I'm not, interested in getting this resolved under the warranty period. That's a non-issue. This is equivalent to a product liability claim.

Now damages is another issue. While my damages may end up being just the upgrade price, which may mean that it is small claims court fodder, a number of similarly situated firms that all bought the TGO software with the same expectations that it would continue working as long as there was hardware and an OS to run it on, collectively may bring the total damages to something that would get Trimble's attention.

Just saying.

An emergency solution:

Transform raw data files to Rinex format.
Edit Rinex files and change:

1) Substract year by 6. Example: 2011 by 2005.
2) Substract GPS week by 313. Example: 1654 by 1341
3) Save and process with GPSurvey or TGO.
4) Edit baseline report ascii file and change again 2005 by 2011.
5) Dont send me to go to hell. It´s works.

The reason: base time in GPS architecture is GPS week and GPS second.
01/Jan/2011 and 01/01/2011 were Saturday.
Processing software do the same time differences.
ASHTECH raw data files (B*.* and E*.*) has only week number and seconds. Year only appear in filename and is not used.
Therefore Result are correct.

Example: GPS rinex file in date 24/Sep/2011, GPS week 1654
Change in Rinex observation files:

replace "11 9 24" by "05 9 24"
and 2011 by 2005 in Rinex record Time of First obs and Time of last obs

Change in Rinex navigation file:
replace "0.156400000000D+04" by "0.134100000000D+04"
replace "11 9 24" by "05 9 24"

Avoid change columns position of the data to avoid corrupt file.

SAVE AND PROCESS. Excuse my (bad) english.

Dario Canosa
Buenos Aires, Argentina

Of course is an emergency solution but it works.
I tested this procedure many years ago when Y2K and tested now again with actual data processing with GPSurvey and TBC 2.40.
You dont have to do by hand. You can do with a replace command with a text editor.
I use Kedit.exe (mansfied software)for example.

But You can edit Rinex observation files with MS Word and
replace the string "yy mm dd" for the new year zz "zz mm dd".
Doing this way avoid to wrong replace other records.

Example:
*** top of original file ***
2.11 OBSERVATION DATA GPS(GPS) RINEX VERSION / TYPE
cnvtToRINEX 2.11.0 convertToRINEX OPR 26-Sep-11 01:42 UTC PGM / RUN BY / DATE
----------------------------------------------------------- COMMENT
pf05 MARKER NAME
pf05 MARKER NUMBER
GNSS Observer Trimble OBSERVER / AGENCY
0220394038 5700 2.30 REC # / TYPE / VERS
TRM39105.00 ANT # / TYPE
2269096.2347 -4707251.6902 -3645061.1470 APPROX POSITION XYZ
-0.0460 0.0000 0.0000 ANTENNA: DELTA H/E/N
1 1 0 WAVELENGTH FACT L1/2
4 C1 L1 L2 P2 # / TYPES OF OBSERV

2011 9 24 17 53 20.0000000 GPS TIME OF FIRST OBS
2011 9 24 21 41 40.0000000 GPS TIME OF LAST OBS
0 RCV CLOCK OFFS APPL
15 LEAP SECONDS
14 # OF SATELLITES
G02 1608 1608 1608 1608 PRN / # OF OBS
G04 1320 1320 1320 1320 PRN / # OF OBS
G05 1991 1991 1991 1991 PRN / # OF OBS
G07 2741 2741 2741 2741 PRN / # OF OBS
G08 2741 2741 2741 2741 PRN / # OF OBS
G10 2741 2741 2741 2741 PRN / # OF OBS
G13 2316 2316 2316 2316 PRN / # OF OBS
G15 71 71 71 71 PRN / # OF OBS
G16 966 966 966 966 PRN / # OF OBS
G17 17 17 17 17 PRN / # OF OBS
G20 672 672 672 672 PRN / # OF OBS
G23 1398 1398 1398 1398 PRN / # OF OBS
G26 1283 1283 1283 1283 PRN / # OF OBS
G28 1751 1751 1743 1743 PRN / # OF OBS
CARRIER PHASE MEASUREMENTS: PHASE SHIFTS REMOVED COMMENT
END OF HEADER
11 9 24 17 53 20.0000000 0 9G02G04G07G08G10G13G16G20G23
23718707.88316 -128282.81616 -86635.43456 23718707.46156
21783243.82017 -59758.25417 -40257.66058 21783244.89158
20663161.58617 -142830.97717 -94665.37159 20663160.85959
22355029.60216 -205132.28516 -136702.35557 22355032.02357
22172453.64817 -180603.31317 -119245.63758 22172454.06658
20814699.96117 -43334.47717 -28570.57058 20814698.83658
23459459.08616 -81225.22716 -53644.24257 23459459.13757
22290204.85216 38346.38716 24992.47357 22290205.37157
11 9 24 17 53 25.0000000 0 9G02G04G07G08G10G13G16G20G23
......

*** end of original file ****


*** top of modified file***
....
2005 9 24 17 53 20.0000000 GPS TIME OF FIRST OBS
2005 9 24 21 41 40.0000000 GPS TIME OF LAST OBS
....
05 9 24 17 53 20.0000000 0 9G02G04G07G08G10G13G16G20G23
23718707.88316 -128282.81616 -86635.43456 23718707.46156
21783243.82017 -59758.25417 -40257.66058 21783244.89158
20663161.58617 -142830.97717 -94665.37159 20663160.85959
22355029.60216 -205132.28516 -136702.35557 22355032.02357
22172453.64817 -180603.31317 -119245.63758 22172454.06658
20814699.96117 -43334.47717 -28570.57058 20814698.83658
23459459.08616 -81225.22716 -53644.24257 23459459.13757
22290204.85216 38346.38716 24992.47357 22290205.37157
05 9 24 17 53 25.0000000 0 9G02G04G07G08G10G13G16G20G23
.....
***end of modified file ***
Save as text without format.

Rinex navigation file is a little more complicated:

*** top of original file ****
2.10 NAVIGATION DATA GPS(GPS) RINEX VERSION / TYPE
cnvtToRINEX 2.11.0 convertToRINEX OPR 26-Sep-11 01:42 UTC PGM / RUN BY / DATE
----------------------------------------------------------- COMMENT
0.2235D-07 0.1490D-07 -0.1192D-06 -0.1192D-06 ION ALPHA
0.1290D+06 0.0000D+00 -0.2621D+06 0.2621D+06 ION BETA
0.186264514923D-08 0.888178419700D-14 147456 119 DELTA-UTC: A0,A1,T,W
15 LEAP SECONDS
END OF HEADER
4 11 9 24 17 59 44.0 0.240915920585D-03 0.111413100967D-10 0.000000000000D+00
0.130000000000D+02 0.535312500000D+02 0.501806616545D-08-0.126826539319D+01
0.280328094959D-05 0.982764875516D-02 0.106766819954D-04 0.515371054268D+04
0.583184000000D+06 0.290572643280D-06-0.300198193401D+01 0.391155481339D-07
0.938435309575D+00 0.160062500000D+03 0.768060242026D+00-0.823105714228D-08
0.431089385175D-09 0.100000000000D+01 0.165400000000D+04 0.000000000000D+00
0.240000000000D+01 0.000000000000D+00-0.651925802231D-08 0.130000000000D+02
0.582792000000D+06 0.400000000000D+01 0.000000000000D+00 0.000000000000D+00
7 11 9 24 18 0 0.0 0.283662229776D-04 0.193267624127D-11 0.000000000000D+00
....
*** end of original file ****

In red is the GPS week number.
You have to replace week number 1654 by 1341, that is substract 313 to actual gps week number.
so edit with MS Word and do two replace:
1) Replace "0.165400000000D+04" by ""0.134100000000d+04"
2) Replace "11 9 24" by "05 9 24"
Doing this way avoid do other incorrect replacements.

*** top of modified file ***
2.10 NAVIGATION DATA GPS(GPS) RINEX VERSION / TYPE
cnvtToRINEX 2.11.0 convertToRINEX OPR 26-Sep-11 01:42 UTC PGM / RUN BY / DATE
----------------------------------------------------------- COMMENT
0.2235D-07 0.1490D-07 -0.1192D-06 -0.1192D-06 ION ALPHA
0.1290D+06 0.0000D+00 -0.2621D+06 0.2621D+06 ION BETA
0.186264514923D-08 0.888178419700D-14 147456 119 DELTA-UTC: A0,A1,T,W
15 LEAP SECONDS
END OF HEADER
4 05 9 24 17 59 44.0 0.240915920585D-03 0.111413100967D-10 0.000000000000D+00
0.130000000000D+02 0.535312500000D+02 0.501806616545D-08-0.126826539319D+01
0.280328094959D-05 0.982764875516D-02 0.106766819954D-04 0.515371054268D+04
0.583184000000D+06 0.290572643280D-06-0.300198193401D+01 0.391155481339D-07
0.938435309575D+00 0.160062500000D+03 0.768060242026D+00-0.823105714228D-08
0.431089385175D-09 0.100000000000D+01 0.134100000000D+04 0.000000000000D+00
0.240000000000D+01 0.000000000000D+00-0.651925802231D-08 0.130000000000D+02
0.582792000000D+06 0.400000000000D+01 0.000000000000D+00 0.000000000000D+00
7 05 9 24 18 0 0.0 0.283662229776D-04 0.193267624127D-11 0.000000000000D+00
.....
***end of modified file ***

Save the file as text without format.

Avoid moving data position. Rinex is a formatted file. This cause corrupt file.

You have to be careful with this solution after 29Feb2012, a leap-year, because you have to choose 2007 instead of 2006 and you have to substract 261 to GPS week number instead of 313 now.

March, 01, 2007 (week 1677) and March, 01, 2012 (week 1416). both are thursday, that is day of week 4. GPS second into their week are equals.

Obviously, if you try to process this GPS data with real 2005 GPS data, you will get an explosion.

Regards.
Dario,
Buenos Aires.