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Support – Questions and Answers to Logbook Suite

Do you have any ques­tions about Logbook Suite or prob­lems? On this page we have col­lected some trou­bleshoot­ings.

If your ques­tions are not answered here, the sup­port of 2K Yacht­ing will help. You can reach our tech­ni­cal sup­port best if you send an email to: 

Important note about the update of the app LogbookNMEA connect (iPad)

Occa­sion­ally it can hap­pen that the App LogbookNMEA con­nect does not work cor­rectly after an update. The solu­tion is quite sim­ple:

  1. Write down your set­tings (sources) in LogbookNMEA con­nect.
  2. Delete the app com­pletely from your iPad.
  3. Reload the app from the App Store.
  4. Set up the sources again.

Now LogbookNMEA con­nect should work as usual.

Important note about the installation of Logbook Suite for Windows

Dur­ing the instal­la­tion of Logbook Suite for Win­dows all virus scan­ners must be com­pletely deac­ti­vated – even the inter­nal virus scan­ner of Win­dows 10. Virus scan­ners change the data­base files of Logbook Suite dur­ing the scan so that they become unus­able.

Important note for Logbook Suite on Mac

To use Logbook Suite on Mac it is impor­tant to avoid that the Logbook Suite data folder moved to iCloud Drive. Sav­ing the files auto­mat­i­cally in iCloud Drive can cause prob­lems with Logbook Suite – includ­ing file cor­rup­tion. This is because the auto­mat­i­cally writ­ing of opened files to the cloud col­lides with the way data­base-based appli­ca­tions auto­mat­i­cally save the entries.
MacOS Catalina by stan­dard copies the users Doc­u­ments folder to iCloud Drive. There­fore start­ing with Logbook Suite 2.1 the data folder “Logbook Suite” is located directly in the top level of the user folder and no more inside of the doc­u­ments folder.
With the update to Logbook Suite 2.1 your data folder is auto­mat­i­cally moved to the new loca­tion.

If you are still using an older ver­sion of Logbook Suite and have prob­lems (crashes, data loss, unwanted file dupli­cates), we rec­om­mend to move your data folder from Logbook Suite to the new loca­tion already now. Pro­ceed as fol­lows:

  1. Close Logbook Suite.
  2. Move (not copy!) your data folder “Logbook Suite” from the folder Doc­u­ments within your user folder one level up, so that it is directly in your user folder — i.e. on the same level as the folder Doc­u­ments.
  3. Hold down the shift key (cap­i­tal let­ter) and start Logbook Suite.
  4. A dia­log to define the data folder is dis­played. 
  5. Choose the but­ton “Choose” in the dia­log and then in the fol­low­ing file selec­tion dia­log select the folder “Logbook Suite” from your user folder.
  6. Now Logbook Suite starts per­ma­nently using the moved data folder.

Logbook Suite: Installation

Note for the installation of Logbook Suite for Windows

Please note that on Win­dows com­put­ers you only can make entries in data­base soft­ware from accounts with admin­is­tra­tor’s right. There­fore it is nec­es­sary that you install Logbook Suite with an account with all admin­is­tra­tor priv­i­leges. Nev­er­the­less, with some Win­dows instal­la­tions the admin­is­tra­tor account has­n’t got all rights that are required for the use of a data­base soft­ware. This is par­tic­u­larly the case for com­put­ers with addi­tional accounts. You may rec­og­nize that every time Logbook Suite is started, a mes­sage is shown, that an update of the data files has been exe­cuted, even when noth­ing has been updated. In this case there is a rather sim­ple solu­tion:
  • Start Logbook Suite using the con­text menu of the pro­gram and select “Run as admin­is­tra­tor”.
  • Alter­na­tively you can set up the link to the pro­gram Logbook Suite thus the soft­ware auto­mat­i­cally gets always the admin­is­tra­tor priv­i­leges. In the con­text menu choose the entry “Prop­er­ties”, click the “Short­cut” tab, then on “Advanced” and acti­vate the “Run as Admin­is­tra­tor” check box. To fin­ish click OK.
  • In some cases, in addi­tion to the step above the access rights of the data­bases con­tained in the pro­gram folder of Logbook Suite (the files with exten­sion fmp12) need to be man­u­ally changed to full access.
  • If the access rights of the data­base files in the pro­gram folder were not cor­rect, you should also check the access rights of the files in the data folder of Logbook Suite (the folder “Logbook Suite” is in the top level of your boot drive). Cor­rect the access rights of this files if nec­es­sary, too. Remove all backup files which have been cre­ated dur­ing your attemps to start Logbook Suite.

Receiving GPS data on iPad

In order for Logbook will be able to receive GPS data on the iPad, you need to have acti­vated the Loca­tion Ser­vices for Logbook Suite and for LogbookNMEA con­nect in the Set­tings app of the iOS.

To trans­fer nav­i­ga­tion data from the iPad’s built-in GPS or from an NMEA data source, you need our free iPad app LogbookNMEA con­nect. This app estab­lishes the con­nec­tion between Logbook and the GPS or the instru­ments.

Please note, before you can receive data, you need to setup the appro­pri­ate data source in LogbookNMEA con­nect. For more infor­ma­tion, read the Logbook man­ual.

System preferences

Mac: macOS 10.13 and newer
Win­dows: Win­dow 7 SP1 Professional/Ultimate, 8.1 Standard/Pro, 10 Pro/Enterprise
iPad: iOS 11.2 and newer, min­i­mum 1.5 GB free mem­ory

Current version numbers of Logbook and the Add-ons

If you are using an older ver­sion and have prob­lems with the file, you can down­load the new ver­sion from our web­site into Logbook Suite by click­ing the Update but­ton in the Logbook Suite Man­ager and update your cur­rent file auto­mat­i­cally. The Update dia­log will always show you the ver­sions you are using and the lat­est avail­able ver­sions.

ModulVersionChange
Logbook5.1.1Fixed display error when entering serial numbers
5.1.2• Ship data: new field Length of hull
• iPad: tab Engine, error fixed when retrieving log value using button
• During the update, the day counter is reset chronologically if necessary
5.1.3Fine tuning to some printing layouts
Crew2.1.1Fixed a problem with SYNC complete file
Logbook NMEA connect1.9.3PC: Fixed a bug where only test data was loaded instead of real data.

Update to Logbook Suite 2.1

Download the update for existing Logbook licenses

If you already own a PC license for Logbook for Mac or Win­dows, you can sim­ply down­load the new ver­sion Logbook Suite 2.1 for your oper­at­ing sys­tem from your 2K Yacht­ing Shop account with­out fill­ing out the down­load form again.

To down­load the installer from your shop account select at “Instant down­loads” the down­load but­ton that is dis­played next to your Logbook PC license. All other down­load but­tons do not have an installer because they are valid for all plat­forms.
Just ignore the ver­sion num­ber that is dis­played in your account! For all ver­sions of Logbook the down­load but­ton is linked to the installer of Logbook Suite 2.1. All updates are for free.

The update for iPad can be loaded from the Apple App Store as usal.

Update existing data files to Logbook Suite 2.1

When installing Logbook Suite 2.1 your data files from older ver­sions of Logbook Suite are auto­mat­i­cally updated. How­ever, the auto­matic update affects only files with default file names in the default data folder, other files need to be updated man­u­ally to ver­sion 2.1.

If you have already used an older ver­sion of Logbook (ver­sion 2.0 or newer) or Logbook Suite, you can open your files from Logbook and the Add-ons cre­ated in the older ver­sion of the soft­ware also with Logbook Suite 2.1. But the file will only pro­vide the func­tions of the orig­i­nal ver­sion of the pro­gram.

After installing Log­bok Suite 2.1 you can import your old data files into Logbook Suite so all the new fea­tures will be avail­able. 

The fol­low­ing instruc­tions explain all the nec­es­sary steps on the PC or the iPad.

Automatic update of older data files on PC

If you want to update older data files (Logbook min­i­mum ver­sion 2.0, Add-ons all ver­sions) to Logbook Suite 2.1, you can do this very eas­ily using the auto­matic updat­ing func­tion.

  • Copy your data files from older ver­sions into a folder. All files need to use the stan­dard file names and the exten­sion .fmp12. If nec­es­sary, you should edit the file names using the Finder or the Explorer before start­ing the func­tion. Please note that all files need to be closed when per­form­ing the update.
  • In Logbook Suite Man­ager choose the but­ton More… and then the but­ton Import data from 3.7 or older.
  • When you have sele­ceted your folder the update process is started. After a few secu­rity mes­sages, the data from the old ver­sions are imported into the files of Logbook Suite 2.1.

A step-by-step instruc­tion for a man­ual updat­ing is pro­vided in User Man­ual Logbook Suite Basics.

Automatic update to Logbook Suite on iPad

Using the but­ton Import data from 3.7 and older from the menu of the but­ton More… of the Logbook Suite Man­ager you can per­form an auto­mated update of your data from older ver­sions (Logbook min­i­mum ver­sion 2.0, Add-ons all ver­sions) to Logbook Suite 2.1. Please note that all files should not use the stan­dard file name and should be closed while per­form­ing the update.

  1. Copy the old data file to Logbook Suite 2.1.
  2. In the Logbook Suite Man­ager tap the but­ton More… and then the but­ton Import data from 3.7 and older.
  3. In the popover choose from the first list which mod­ule you want to update.
  4. Then select from the sec­ond list the file con­tain­ing the data to be imported from. The list con­tains all files stored in Logbook Suite except the default files.
  5. Tap­ping the but­ton Update starts the import process of the data.

Because of the file sys­tem on the iPad, the update must be exe­cuted one by one for each file. 
A step-by-step instruc­tion for a man­ual updat­ing is pro­vided in User Man­ual Logbook Suite Basics.

Update of Logbook version 1.x to Logbook Suite

Since ver­sion 2.0 Logbook uses a file for­mat which is not com­pat­i­ble with older ver­sions of Logbook, all logbook files which had been cre­ated with ver­sions before 2.0 can’t be opened and edited in Logbook 3.7. Please con­tact us if you are inter­ested in a data con­ver­sion.

Logbook: NMEA function

Test your NMEA connection with Logbook on PC

While Logbook is in demo mode and there are less then five days in the logbook, you can test the NMEA fea­ture for PC and iPad. We strongly rec­om­mend to test the NMEA con­nec­tion between Logbook and your equip­ment before pur­chas­ing the PC NMEA License.

The con­nec­tion should work with all NMEA and GPS devices that are con­nected to the PC using USB, Blue­tooth or WiFi. Nev­er­the­less there could be some devices on the mar­ket that are not com­pat­i­ble with Logbook.

We are very grate­ful for any feed­back – regard­less of whether the con­nec­tion is work­ing or not!

Test your NMEA connection with Logbook on the iPad

While Logbook is in demo mode and there are less then five days in the logbook, you can also test the Logbook NMEA func­tion for iPad. Once you have cre­ated more than five days, the fea­ture is only avail­able if you have entered a NMEA ser­ial num­ber for iPad.
The fol­low­ing list shows the hard­ware, for which the app pro­vides pre­set con­fig­u­ra­tions.
If you want to use a hard­ware that is not listed, please con­tact our sup­port.

List of Devices supported in NMEA function for iPad

Our NMEA func­tion for iPad uses the app LogbookNMEA con­nect, which has been devel­oped exclu­sively for Logbook, to con­nect Logbook to NMEA data sources. LogbookNMEA con­nect offers pre con­fig­ured set­tings for the fol­low­ing devices or con­nec­tions. Inter­nal
  • iPad Barom­e­ter
  • iPad GPS

WiFi

  • AstraY­acht
  • Bon­jour
  • comar i300W/i320W
  • comar NMEA-2-Wifi
  • Dig­i­tal Yacht NavLink 2
  • DMK Box (NMEA 0183 & NMEA 2000)
  • DY: iAIS / WLN10
  • EKI-1351
  • ezTCP CSW-H80
  • GMM (NMEA 0183)
  • GoFree™ und GoFree™ Bon­jour
  • iMux (AdHoc) & iMux / eMux (DHCP)
  • nke NMEA Wifi Inter­face
  • NMEA over IP
  • NMEA­con­nect Server
  • NMEAre­mote Server
  • Pilot­Tech — AIS Pilot Plug WiFi
  • Quark-elec
  • Red­Box
  • Sail­mon
  • Sea­Mate Ch.1, Sea­Mate Ch.2
  • SeaSmart.NET (NMEA 0183)
  • SeaSmart.NET (NMEA 2000)
  • Ship­Modul Mini­Plex-2Wi
  • Ship­Modul MiniPlex-3Wi(-N2K)
  • Sig­nalK
  • vYacht
  • XB 8000 / Watch Mate Vision
  • Yacht Devices
  • Yacht Devices — YDWG-02 (N2k)
  • Yakker

You can also con­nect other devices via LogbookNMEA con­nect with Logbook, if you know the con­fig­u­ra­tion set­tings which are used to con­nect your iPad to your GPS/NMEA device.

Hardware tip for NMEA connection of Logbook

We have tested some WiFi mul­ti­plex­ers in prac­tice and can give you a very spe­cial rec­om­men­da­tion here:

Small, easy to install and fully com­pat­i­ble with Logbook:
the NMEA 2000 WiFi Gate­way YDWG-02 von Yacht Devices.
The device is less than 6 cm long and has a diam­e­ter of only 20 mm. Tech­ni­cal infor­ma­tion can be found here:
http://www.yachtd.com/products/wifi_gateway.html.

From now on you can also buy this gate­way directly from us in our online shop:
https://shop.2k-yachting.de/hardware/yacht-devices/yacht-devices-nmea2000-wifi-gateway-ydwg-02.
The sell­ing price is 189,00 €. We deliver free of ship­ping costs.

YDWG Gateway

We also have had great expe­ri­ences with the GoFree Wifi‑1 Modul from Nav­ico (Sim­rad, B&G, Lowrance) dur­ing our tests. This is avail­able in nearly every well sorted ship sup­ply store.

Please also note the tip on set­ting up the GoFree con­nec­tion. 

Troubleshooting: NMEA data retrieval does not work or is too slow

Incor­rect set­tings in dia­log Default, GPS/NMEA can cause that no data trans­fer is pos­si­ble or that it takes a long time until the data are entered in Logbook.

There­fore in the dia­log Default, GPS/NMEA only the options for the data that really can be received should be enabled. Oth­er­wise Logbook will wait for unavail­able data until the time­out.

This applies par­tic­ullary to the option iPad Pres­sure, which should be acti­vated only if the iPad has an inte­grated barom­e­ter. In the app LogbookNMEA con­nect, which is used for the data retrieval, you also need to setup and acti­vated the source iPad barom­e­ter in addi­tion to the source for receiv­ing the nav­i­ga­tion data.
We rec­om­mend to use the option Use time from iPad only if the NMEA data source of the ship net­work does not pro­vide a reli­able UTC value.

Troubleshooting: Aborts of NMEA data recording via Auto NMEA (iPad)

The Logbook Suite com­mu­ni­ca­tion app LogbookNMEA con­nect from ver­sion 2.3 on can detect and ignore errors in the NMEA data so that the data is passed to Logbook with­out errors. This is espe­cially help­ful when using the Auto NMEA func­tion, because NMEA data errors could lead to aborts of the data trans­fer to Logbook.

If there are still aborts dur­ing the data record­ing with LogbookNMEA con­nect 2.3, you can use the option Val­i­date (in the set­tings of your source) to acti­vate a sec­ond step of error cor­rec­tion.

Tip: Setting up the GoFree connection in the app LogbookNMEA connect

With the lat­est iOS updates, the Bon­jour pro­to­col, which is used for the auto­matic detec­tion of GoFree, has been updated sev­eral times. How­ever, since GoFree still uses an old ver­sion of the pro­to­col, the inter­face is no longer rec­og­nized cor­rectly.

This can be reme­died by man­u­ally set­ting up the source. Pro­ceed as fol­lows:

  1. On your plot­ter go to the plot­ter con­fig­u­ra­tion page. Look for the IP of the plot­ter, which is also dis­played here. Write this down.
  2. Open the app LogbookNMEA con­nect and choose Source, Edit, Add source.
  3. Choose NMEA over IP.
  4. Make the fol­low­ing set­tings.
    • Pro­to­col: TCP
    • Host: IP of your plot­ter (it is shown on the info screen of your plot­ter)
    • Port: 10110
  5. In the top you can give this source a name, for exam­ple GoFree man­u­ally.
  6. If you now acti­vate the source, data should be dis­played in the blue field.

Important note for owners of chartplotters with WiFi

Unfor­tu­nately, the plot­ters from Ray­ma­rine, Furuno and Garmin don’t stream the stan­dard NMEA data via the inte­grated WiFi. The WiFi only sends spe­cially pre­pared infor­ma­tion for the own-brand apps in a ven­dor-pro­pri­etary, non-pub­lic data for­mat. Unfor­tu­nately the man­u­fac­tur­eres are not inter­ested in releas­ing the inter­face for use by third-party soft­ware.

This is why you need to have installed a NMEA mul­ti­plexer with WiFi func­tion in your ship net­work to access the NMEA data from any other device or application—even if you use a plot­ter with wire­less LAN func­tion.

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