Quote from Guido on 28.04.2025, 19:00

Hi @elric42,

This is not normal behaviour. What is your routing mode set to? Curvy or Beauty by any chance? If so, try to change it to another routing mode. Curvy and Beauty add additional via points which can cause this behaviour.

Also,

1) If there are roads with a road separator involved )like highways), make sure your waypoints are at the correct side of the road. If not, it could send you around to reach the waypoint form “the other side”

2) Make sure the via points are in the right order. Scenic will calculate the route from 1 to 2 to 3 etc. even if that might not be the “logical” order.

If this doesn’t help, could you perhaps post some screenshots and or a screen capture video so I can see what’s going on?

Best regards,

Guido

Quote from Elric42 on 28.04.2025, 19:11

Guido,

 

First, thank you for your amazingly fast reply. I was extremely frustrated by my experience, cause in the past, I have been able to crank out a full route in 30 minutes or less.

I checked my routing, and darn it.. it was set to curvy! I will try that and post back tomorrow how it goes.

On another note, when I have use routes I have built in the past and try to re-use them, the live navigation would do the same thing... try to send me off onto driveways and such. How can I address that?

Again, thanks Guido. I really love Scenic, but I was losing my mind at this. I will post the result soon.

 

Elric42

 

Quote from Guido on 28.04.2025, 19:30

What happens when you edit such an older route? Are those loops also added? If not, then it could be the detour behaviour trying to turn you around to a waypoint that you missed. Have a look here at the detour behaviour settings. They changed a bit between Scenic 3 and Scenic 4: https://scenic.app/help/detour-behaviour-scenic/

Quote from MjK on 28.04.2025, 23:35

Hi @elric42,

just as a small side note regarding old v3.x routes, as it happened to me as well.

due to the shift of the maps from HERE to OSM some not all older set VIAs or STOPs where either a bit off road or just on the other side of road. These slightly „different“ placement causes scenic v4.x to route unfortunately correctly quite some weird routings. For my most important routes or simply every time I use an old or somewhere imported route and check those VIA or STOP placements.
quite a significant difference I have recognized in placement of mountain passes - they where close but not at the right spot and caused very similar craziness you described

but that’s nothing scenic can handle by itself it’s simply consequence of what’s the data like.

Making sure correct routing mode while planning, especially checking on highway or toll road use and same while riding sorted a ton of those issues for me. Also the awareness that same settings but different vehicles cause also different routings e.g. bike vs car vs camper.

cheers, Markus

Quote from Elric42 on 29.04.2025, 01:24

Quote from Guido on 28.04.2025, 19:30

What happens when you edit such an older route? Are those loops also added? If not, then it could be the detour behaviour trying to turn you around to a waypoint that you missed. Have a look here at the detour behaviour settings. They changed a bit between Scenic 3 and Scenic 4: https://scenic.app/help/detour-behaviour-scenic/

The route I experienced this with was made in 4.XX and with the new maps. I had it set to "Guide me to the first unreached via." But, the route, which had worked fine when I originally ran it, would tell me to turn up driveways and into parking lots.

Quote from Elric42 on 29.04.2025, 13:32

@guidomm

Thank you. That's exactly what the issue was when planning, I was set to curvy.

 

Now if I could just figure out why Scenic sends me up random driveways when navigating...

 

I am very grateful for your work on Scenic. It really is a wonderful app. While I do not love the glitches. I know you are working towards making the app even better. What is even better is how quickly you respond here to help those of us out that are frustrated at our own mistakes.

Elric42

 

 

Quote from Guido on 29.04.2025, 13:48

Thank you for the kind words Elric. Happy to help!

If this happens while navigating it’s possible that you missed a waypoint and Scenic is sending you back to get to that waypoint, maybe sending you on a driveway to turn you around.

Here is a help article on detour behaviour that should give you more insight on that, including options on how to change the behaviour: https://scenic.app/help/detour-behaviour-scenic/

If you don’t think that’s the reason, then please let me know. In that case, could you share the link to one of those routes with me? (Select route from your route list > 3-dots button top right > share link).

Quote from Elric42 on 01.05.2025, 07:16

Will do, sir.

 

Thank you.

 

Elric42

Quote from Elric42 on 01.05.2025, 08:22

Quote from Guido on 29.04.2025, 13:48

Thank you for the kind words Elric. Happy to help!

If this happens while navigating it’s possible that you missed a waypoint and Scenic is sending you back to get to that waypoint, maybe sending you on a driveway to turn you around.

Here is a help article on detour behaviour that should give you more insight on that, including options on how to change the behaviour: https://scenic.app/help/detour-behaviour-scenic/

If you don’t think that’s the reason, then please let me know. In that case, could you share the link to one of those routes with me? (Select route from your route list > 3-dots button top right > share link).

@guidomm I didn't miss any waypoints as the nav was directing me to turn right into a driveway and then turn right leaving that driveway. This is the route: https://scenicapp.space/route/ONEHoYoW

The first two times I used the route, there were no issues.

Thanks

 

Elric42

Quote from Guido on 01.05.2025, 10:12

Hi @elric42,

I went through your route. In planning mode there are no detours onto a driveway. So they must have been added during navigation. To be honest, I am not certain why. It could be due to GPS inaccuracies, thinking you went off route, and recalculating. You could try to set the threshold distance to 35 or 40 meters. (Settings > Finetuning > Route recalculation parameters).

Then a few tips for planning, that in the end might also help with this.

1. Don't use curvy or beauty mode when you are designing the route yourself from scratch. I recommend to use the most simple mode (like standard). As you are designing the route yourself anyway by dropping waypoints, the routing mode won't make much difference.
2. Only use the necessary via points. For example... I noticed you placed via points before and after a junction. That's typically not necessary. Only one after the juntion is sufficient mostly. Sometimes, not even that, as the routing engine would choose that road anyway to get to the next via point. Below an example screenshot. I understand that this might have been necessary because you used curvy routing mode, but if you use a standard routing mode you'll find that not that many via points are required.
3. Typically I recommend to set out the rough route by just dropping a few key points (in case of this route maybe 4 or 5). And then start placing vias in between until you get the route you want. You'll find that you don't need this many via points. (again, not using curvy mode).
4. Be careful with your via point placement. It's OK if they are not exactly on the road, but if there is a side street, it might send you down that small side street.  (I didn't see that in this case, but just for the future).

Here are some screenshots.

Quote from TheDriver79 on 01.05.2025, 23:48

As I am experiencing similar issues with the latest releases of Scenic and already wrote emails to Guido directly as well as receiving the link to this topic from him, I'd like to share my experiences here, too.

However, before I start with critics I'd like to say again that Scenic was and is still my favorite app for planning road trips and using it for navigation.

The issue with the weird side road navigations appeared yesterday on a trip over 195km multiple times. While driving I took screenshots and sent these to Guido. His answer was, as described here, too, please do not use "curvy" mode. That being said and back home I changed the route to "standard" and for this track it seem to work - at least I checked some sections where I remember and was still able to see that the route used side roads instead of the direct way.

However, planning a road trip in Wales still isn't working properly. The route generation directs me side to side roads where it absolutely doesn't make sense.

As you can see in the attached sceenshot the settings are "standard" and even close to "faster" but the example shows, that Scenic isn't using the roundabout to stay on the A40 but directs beside and comes back to the A40 only because I placed another waypoint on the A40. It seems like Scenic identifies the A40 as "Autobahn", which is wrong.

Because of that I even reached the max amount of 148 waypoints for one route but wasn't able to finish it, because of all the unnecessary side road directions I have to fix.

Another issue while navigating yesterday was to be directed to bike roads which are only for bikes and not cars but Scenic tried to force me to use these. Another wrong identification of roads as it happens with the A40.

I did not use offline maps, which could have been a reason for wrong route calculation, too, as long as the offline maps are not updated, but in my case there are no offline maps in use.

 

Alex

Quote from Dae on 02.05.2025, 01:45

I’ve just come back from doing 700 miles around Wales last week with no issues.

I have offline maps (wise, as many areas of Wales have no mobile signal).  You can see that with the routing preferences that I use I am told to stay on the A40 if I travel in either direction

Quote from TheDriver79 on 02.05.2025, 04:01

That's interesting. The biggest difference in your screen compared to mine is the use of "Motorbike" instead of "Car" and the available options to avoid or allow specific road or transportation types.

Might this be a problem -> car vs. motorbike?

Quote from mattsz on 02.05.2025, 04:05

Alex and Dae - language issues aside, why do your route preference settings have different options, and different button and slider colors?  Are you both using the same version of Scenic?

Quote from Dae on 02.05.2025, 04:33

Quote from mattsz on 02.05.2025, 04:05

Alex and Dae - language issues aside, why do your route preference settings have different options, and different button and slider colors?  Are you both using the same version of Scenic?

I changed the tint colour of the app as I dislike orange

 

Quote from Charlie J on 02.05.2025, 04:38

I live only a few miles away from the location of the example given of detouring away from the A40 so decided to take a closer look at the issue and think the problem is related to language/interpretation issues.

When in transportation mode "car", if  avoid higways is switched on, the route detours onto the A4066. When avoid highways is switched off, the route remains on the A4o.

The German and English versions use Autobahn and Highways respectively. Whilst the A40 is not what  could be regarded as an Autobahn, in this part of the World it is certainly regarded as a Highway. This stretch of the A40 is a dual carriageway and one of the few "major" roads in this part of Wales.

Regarding the question from mattsz, the differing route preference settings may be down to the different options that are available for car mode and motorcycle mode so the options available are different depending on which mode is selected.

Hope this helps

Regards

Charlie

Quote from mattsz on 02.05.2025, 05:06

Quote from Charlie J on 02.05.2025, 04:38

Regarding the question from mattsz, the differing route preference settings may be down to the different options that are available for car mode and motorcycle mode so the options available are different depending on which mode is selected.

Thanks Dae and Charlie.  Yes, I see now that the things I asked about have nothing to do with this issue.  Don't worry, I'll see myself out...

Quote from Guido on 02.05.2025, 05:07

Thanks for all the involvement guys, and even checking out the situation!

I did some more desk research and @Charlie J is right. This is more of a translation issue.

The A40 is marked as a “trunk” in OSM.  (a lvl2 road in the map customizer). https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Tag:highway%3Dtrunk

With the avoid highway switch enabled Scenic avoids motorways (lvl1) and also trunks (lvl2).

@TheDriver79
I will look into the bicycle lanes. Do you have a coordinate where this happened and maybe screenshot of the map there?

Regarding reaching the waypoint max…. only on very rare occasions and very long routes should you reach this max. If you find yourself placing many via points to force the routing away from the route it calculated, then try another routing mode to see if that fits your route better. Also be mindful of where you are placing the via points and how many you are using. Often times just 1 via point on the road that the auto-routing is not taking, is enough. No need to place via points after each junction.

I realize this is a bit vague, and probably this all would have made more sense if you had known that “autobahn meiden” also mean avoiding these A40 roads.

What would be a better German translation for “avoid highways”, knowing now that these “trunk” roads (which are considered highways in many parts of the world), are also avoided with this switch?

Quote from MjK on 02.05.2025, 05:22

The challenge is not necessarily the language or translation - its actually the way how OSM categorizes - from my point of view.

@charlie-j you are absolutely correct 'highway' is not necessarily an 'Autobahn', but as OSM also sums various types from 'motorways' and several other higher class roads together it comes down how far you swipe the slider - I know pretty tricky so, as it then comes down how the local OSM admin has marked a respective street how it is handled by the category, more details here https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:highway  or  https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/DE:Key:highway.

The English 'highways' at the slider is rather the key not the class (OSM value) being symbolic to swipe from adventurous = off-road to highways - as fast as its possible  - hence the German abenteuerlich - Autobahn slider is pretty matching for me. The car setting has a similar slider, but as less cars are going off-road its the classical schneller (faster) - kürzer (shorter) slider - works fine for me along those lines as well.

as @charlie-j pointed out, as there are potential OSM differences for bikes and cars, its essential to be aware what mode is selected, as sometimes with exact same config but switching between bike or car results in a different route, based on the OSM tags associated to relevant streets.- nothing scenic can change, as its map tag specific.

If my view is totally off, happy to learn something new - best Markus

 

 

 

Quote from Elric42 on 02.05.2025, 05:43

Quote from Guido on 01.05.2025, 10:12

Hi @elric42,

I went through your route. In planning mode there are no detours onto a driveway. So they must have been added during navigation. To be honest, I am not certain why. It could be due to GPS inaccuracies, thinking you went off route, and recalculating. You could try to set the threshold distance to 35 or 40 meters. (Settings > Finetuning > Route recalculation parameters).

Then a few tips for planning, that in the end might also help with this.

1. Don't use curvy or beauty mode when you are designing the route yourself from scratch. I recommend to use the most simple mode (like standard). As you are designing the route yourself anyway by dropping waypoints, the routing mode won't make much difference.
2. Only use the necessary via points. For example... I noticed you placed via points before and after a junction. That's typically not necessary. Only one after the juntion is sufficient mostly. Sometimes, not even that, as the routing engine would choose that road anyway to get to the next via point. Below an example screenshot. I understand that this might have been necessary because you used curvy routing mode, but if you use a standard routing mode you'll find that not that many via points are required.
3. Typically I recommend to set out the rough route by just dropping a few key points (in case of this route maybe 4 or 5). And then start placing vias in between until you get the route you want. You'll find that you don't need this many via points. (again, not using curvy mode).
4. Be careful with your via point placement. It's OK if they are not exactly on the road, but if there is a side street, it might send you down that small side street.  (I didn't see that in this case, but just for the future).

Here are some screenshots.

Thank you for this. I started putting waypoints just before and just after turns because it stopped the route from randomly changing my route. Since we follow pre-made routes usually with written instructions, it was frustrating to have Scenic change the route. Adding those extra waypoints helped.

In longer stretches of roads, I also try to put a waypoint or two to anchor that route.

When I build the routes, I am using the written directions to do so. Let me explain:

1. Plan route using Scenic (planning file)
2. Create written directions from that route
3. Drive the route using the route in Scenic and the written instructions
4. Make any needed changes to either Scenic or the written instructions
5. Manually build the route to share with the other drivers (sharing file)
6. Drive said route with the group

It's been my experience that when I share the planning file, other users have glitches where Scenic wants to randomly change the route along the way. But when I send the sharing file, these glitches happen far less, and in many cases, there are no glitches.

I've tried a few nav apps, Scenic, by FAR, has the best planning methodology, and always comes up with great routes.

Elric42

When actually navigating a route, does it matter what mode you have Scenic set to?

 

Quote from Dae on 02.05.2025, 06:14

The term “highway” is somewhat confusing for UK users too.  In the UK the highway is technically the road, not a specific class of road.

We have the following classifications of road (there are more than this), neither of which fall nicely into the “highway” generic term in most navigation apps:

Motorway
These typically have a name beginning with “M”, such as “M62” (although there are some roads such as the A58(M) which also uses motorway regulations.
These roads have gentle bends/curves, no traffic lights, roundabouts, shops, houses etc.  Pedestrians, horses and cyclists are prohibited.  The opposing traffic directions are physically separated, usually with 3 lanes in each direction but some do have fewer. The national speed limit for these, unless indicated otherwise, is 70mph.

Dual Carriageway
These also have a 70mph speed limit and traffic is physically separated in each direction, but the limits about who can use them are not the same as motorways.  They also have traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, juntions etc.  The names normally start with an A, e.g. A64.

However, the A designation just means primary/major road, so an A road doesn’t necessarily have to be a dual carriageway. In fact some A roads (with a 60mph limit) are quite twisty and fun on the bike.

In the UK it would be normal to expect “Avoid highways” to avoid motorways, by the above definition, but not Dual Carriageways.  However, based on what Guido has said that isn’t actually the case.

This is understandable, as it will be impossible to make all the world’s road systems, each with their own nuances, fit neatly into the same categories.

@Guido - what you said about lvl1/lvl2 is really helpful as it will help me understand the decisions that Scenic is making. Without it I would have assumed that highway just mapped to lvl1

Quote from Elric42 on 02.05.2025, 06:24

In another mapping anomaly:

In the US State of West Virginia, if a road is more than 1.5 miles long, is graded at least once a year, and the first and last 1/4 mile or more is paved, West Virginia reports that as a "paved" road, even though the vast majority of the road is a gravel. I think the new map provider has adjusted for this. but it's worth it to double check.

Elric42

Quote from Guido on 02.05.2025, 06:39

@Dae,

That makes sense. I could add a small text referencing lvl1 and lvl2 to the "Avoid Highways" switch, but I'm afraid it will cause confusion (in other words... more emails and questions for me to answer) for people that have not seen or used the map customizer (yet).

@elric42

The map provider probably does not follow the West Virginia rules. Rather, the map data is maintained by a community of map editors. If you find that a route is marked paved while it's unpaved, you can report this, or even correct this if you like: https://scenic.app/help/reporting-map-errors/

Quote from TheDriver79 on 02.05.2025, 08:10

Quote from Guido on 02.05.2025, 05:07

[…]

@TheDriver79
I will look into the bicycle lanes. Do you have a coordinate where this happened and maybe screenshot of the map there?

Regarding reaching the waypoint max…. only on very rare occasions and very long routes should you reach this max. If you find yourself placing many via points to force the routing away from the route it calculated, then try another routing mode to see if that fits your route better. Also be mindful of where you are placing the via points and how many you are using. Often times just 1 via point on the road that the auto-routing is not taking, is enough. No need to place via points after each junction.

I realize this is a bit vague, and probably this all would have made more sense if you had known that “autobahn meiden” also mean avoiding these A40 roads.

What would be a better German translation for “avoid highways”, knowing now that these “trunk” roads (which are considered highways in many parts of the world), are also avoided with this switch?

Unfortunately I was not able to take a screenshot when Scenic was going to direct me on a bicycle lane.
However, even roads that are only for agriculture or forestry got used by Scenic as regular roads and the route was going straight into such roads.

The max number of waypoint got reached only because of the misleading directions. I will take a closer look at this with disabled „avoid Autobahn“ setting.

Quote from Dae on 02.05.2025, 08:12

@guidomm
I think you’ll be fine to leave it as is. At least if people search this forum our posts may help them. Most people though would just see lvl1/lvl2 in the app and get confused.

Quote from TheDriver79 on 25.05.2025, 01:00

We made another tour yesterday and experienced some very strange route suggestions as there were some road work ahead and our planned route needed to be recalculated on the fly by Scenic.

Unfortunately I wasn‘t able to take a screenshot. However, two times the newly calculated route tried to direct me either onto a track for bicycles only or directly into the forest.
Both roads used the traffic sign that cars and motorbikes are not allowed.

Beside the wrong route calculation it takes sometimes very long until the new route is getting calculated since the new map provider is in use.

 

Alex

Quote from Guido on 26.05.2025, 08:52

Hi Alex,

I will investigate. Could you:

1. Send me the link to the route in question (select route from your route list > 3 dots button top right > share link)
2. Send me the coordinates of one or two of the (forest/bicycle) roads it was trying to send you into? (Long press on map at that location > select "copy coordinates" in the callout bubble > select the DEC option).

Regarding the recalculation taking long... do you have the offline maps installed for the region? If not, Scenic needs to go online for the route recalculation, which can take longer depending on the quality of your signal. With offline maps, the recalculation should be very fast.

Best regards,
Guido

Quote from TheDriver79 on 26.05.2025, 11:41

Hello Guido, my Mail with detailled information was sent some minutes ago.

According the recalculation time: I used Online-Maps, so maybe it takes longer because of this. However I‘m a bit afraid of using offline maps, because in the past there were sometimes issues with not updated maps and outdated track/street information when I forgot to check for updates.

Alex

Quote from Guido on 26.05.2025, 12:32

Hi Alex,

This can still be an issue. Whenever an offline map update is available, the online map is updated, too. So, if you run an old version of offline maps, those will be used. Only if offline maps are not installed will it use online maps.

Maps are updated about once every 1-2 months.

So I guess it's a trade-off. Risk of not having the most updated maps vs slow recalculations.

Best regards,
Guido

I'll take a look at your route and coordinates a bit later and report back. Thank you!

Quote from Guido on 26.05.2025, 16:17

Hi Alex,

I took a look at your route. I think the detours are caused by the curvy routing mode. I'll try to make some adjustments so that this doesn't happen as quickly anymore. What you could do in the meantime is increase the threshold distance to 35 or 40 meters under Settings > Finetuning > Route recalculation parameters. This is basically the distance you need to be away from the route to trigger a recalculation. If there are GPS inaccuracies or map inaccuracies then this could also be triggered. Increasing this distance will decrease the chance of an unnecessary recalculation (and thus the original route will be kept).

Regarding the dirt road / bicycle road... the road where you sent the coordinates for is marked as a paved (asphalt) road without any vehicle exceptions. Here is the direct link to OpenStreetMap for this road (OSM is the source for Scenic): https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/623883346

If this is not correct, then this is an error in the map data. You can either report this error, or, if you want to get more involved, you could even correct it. Here is info on how to report/correct: https://scenic.app/help/reporting-map-errors/

Best regards,
Guido

Quote from TheDriver79 on 08.06.2025, 23:11

The settings in Scenic are updated an it seems to work better.

However, there were again two really strange situations on our trip yesterday.

1. Scenic tried to route me onto the oncoming lane when leaving a village and passing a small traffic island. Unfortunately I wasn‘t able to take a screenshot.

2. When passing the borders between Switzerland and Italy Scenic tried to route me a side road to bypass the official route through the border control.

 

Alex