MSN Direct works dead-on in my area on my Garmin, but sucks royal on the Pioneer F90BT

I have MSN on a Garmin 780 portable GPS and it works very well and is about 85% accurate which is pretty good.

So I was expecting the same function and performance on the F90BT with MSN.

The data does load in a fairly timely manner but nothing comes up on the main screen when traffic issues are uploaded to the unit. On my Garmin unit when you have entered a route and then some delays in that route come up it pops up and tells you.

On the F90BT it says in the manual that it computes your original route based on the current traffic at that time. If you have the option configured to automatically re-route if problems are detected it does that but does not give the option to re-route like the Garmin does.

Also on the Garmin it has a battery in it's power adapter to receive MSN data even when the power to the GPS is off so when you turn on your gps it has the current information.

Yes the F90BT MSN could be better, but it does work in my area and has proved useful but it is not as user friendly as the Garmin version is.

I think Pioneer could take a few good pointers from Garmin on how MSN should work.

My F90BT works fine with traffic in LA and I am willing to go as far as 90% on the traffic. I have my car parked all day in the parking garage and parked in my garage at night and I never had a problem not getting the info from MSN, although I sometime don't have bars I always get the traffic. The biggest issue is the weather... I sometimes get No Local Weather Available but world wide comes in right away. After about 5-10 min weather comes comes in. Gas prices and movies work pretty much all the time. That's saying a lot because in LA there are mountains all over the place and I still receive coverage.

My MSN Direct worked fine for a few. After that it says “Connecting to MSN Direct†and nothing happens. I contacted MSN, they blame Pioneer. The MSN rep actually said that Pioneer Engineers are aware of the situation. I call Pioneer and get put on hold for 20 min and transferred three times for them to blame MSN’s signal strength. No knowledge of the issue and no patch or other solution was offered by Pioneer. All they can suggest is that I return the unit. I live in the Greater Seattle Washington area, MSN’s home. I have never seen more than three bars of signal strength. My FM Reception works fine in comparison. If MSN can’t maintain a signal in their home turf then what is up? IMOP it is a software glitch or a communication/protocol error. Based on the fact that resetting the unit always brings back the MSN service but looses all of my EQ and other settings, and previous experience with Microsoft authentication, it would seem a software or protocol problem indeed. Has anyone else had similar misfortune?

since the beginning i couldnt trying to connect to msn service. i let it leave out for 24 hours straight, but it didnt work. im in the LA area.

I"m in the same boat with the MSN function. I'm just trying to get teh activation code off of my unit, however when I press the status button to connect to get that info off of my headunit, i just get the trying to connect message. I live in a strong MSN coverage area too, so I don't know what's going on! I'd at least try to take advantage of the 3 free months!

same probelm here. i'm in LA where i shouold get a good signal!!!

Does the signal bar actually have a color to it? Mine is all white but shows full strength and never moves so I am guessing its not working. I have signed up for my trial and tried activating several times. I have reset the unit still no luck. I live in Novi Michigan which is covered in green but still can not get it to work. Has anyone had any luck in the area? Or know if the status bars actually have a color? I have a f900bt.

Thanks,

Adam