JoNanB

This response is why I avoid forums!. Topic misunderstood and incorrect answer. Surprise they have taken "Found By" out of search.

How can nothing be gone if they have to put it back in the future? GSAK sales will probably sky rocket.

OK! So I finally stumble my way through the less than intuitive new search feature and came up with my desired list. First thing I notice is the pretty new tabulation format, however after a few seconds I realize how little I see on my screen. OH MY! it now takes at least four pages to see what you used to in one, but it sure is pretty. So I scroll to the bottom of the list and to my surprise there is no longer a button to SELECT ALL or a button to DOWNLOAD SELECTED. But it sure is pretty. Nowhere on the page with my search list is there any indication of how I download this list to a GPS unit or a GPX File. The only thing I can find to do is call the caches up one at a time and send them to either my GPS or GPX. But it sure is pretty. What am I Missing?

Al my computers were working good and all worked with all my GPS receivers. Not being happy with this I recently purchased a new ASUS desktop and a SURFACE Pro 3. Both are running Windows 8.1, the Surface communicates with all my GPS receivers just fine. The ASUS however only intermittently connects to my Montana 650. When I plug in the 650 into the ASUS, the computer beeps and device manager shows USB Mass Storage Device for a few seconds, it beeps again and device manager now says "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)". The difference between my Surface and the ASUS is that the ASUS is about 4 times faster. When a USB device is plugged into a computer, the computer notices there is a new device attached. At this point the computer sends the device a command to identify itself (This process is called enumeration) If the device responds too slowly or improperly "Unknown USB Device (Device Descriptor Request Failed)" is displayed in device manager. To make matters worse Microsoft decided to help us again. Prior to Windows 8 Microsoft had been allowing much more time for the enumeration process than was required by the USB 2.0 specification. So to get faster start times for windows 8 Microsoft back the time of to just slightly more than the spec required. Problem is Microsoft forgot about all the USB devices made to work with windows under the longer enumeration time. I spent about 8 hours researching and trying to get the Montana 650 to connect consistently to no avail. I was tired and it was after midnight and I was ready to give up. I look over and noticed the 4-port USB hub I purchased to expand the ports on the Surface and thought "What The HELL I've tried everything else!" So I plugged a DYNEX 4 PORT USB 2.0 HUB into my ASUS and the Montana into it. To my surprise the Montana is recognized and connects every time now. I hope the helps somebody

My quick answer to this is: If Groundspeak and the Reviewers do nothing about it then is is beyond your ability to fix. Groundspeak is way to busy worrying about ways they might be sued to deal with these problems that won't get them sued. This is one of those things where you determine what the spirit of the game is for yourself, play the game for fun and don't worrying about things out of your control. We don't need any more cache police, I have 611 caches placed it you wouldn't believe how many cache police have something to say about them. This problem has roots a group of topics: 1. In my area it sometimes takes over a year to get the reviewer to archive missing caches. 2. Many cachers, especially new, won't DNF, fewer Will do NM and even fewer will do NA. Lack of DNF's can hide a problem for a long time. 3. Before I log DNF's I look at the CO's profile, if they haven't logged on in over a year I automatically log NA. Puts it on reviewers required to look at list. 4. The bottle swapping mentality caused by power trails has amplified the cache dropping. If you can't spot it immediately drop a new one and claim it. January 2014 in Quartzsite, AZ we pulled up to find cache for first time and there were a bunch of cachers from Canada. They ask our user name then immediately gave us a bunch of crap about dropping a new cache when when we couldn't find to original. I got the pill bottle from them and looked at the log. It clearly stated, by cache name, that I had replaced a broken container several miles away, two days before. We have found as many as 6 containers at one location on the ET highway. We cache to enjoy our time together outdoors and because it gets us off our butts. We play the game the way we think it should be played and we don't worry about what anybody else does as that diminishes our FUN!!!

Well we have all been less than happy with V2.15. I had to send my Oregon 550 in to be replaced so I am stuck with the GC for Memorial Day Weekend. So I have been doing a bunch of testing and fine tuning. I found the new program uses none of the defaults of the previous versions. The following make it work more like we were used to on V1.7(1.8). From main menu select TOOLS Select SETTINGS Select MAP OPTIONS Set ORIENTATION to: Track Up Set QUICK INFO to: Distance/Bearing direction. Until I changed the above settings I was ready to throw the GC away. You will also notice a track of where you have been on screen. This can be turned off for each search but track turns on again automatically for next search. I have made the following changes to APP/atlas.ini which shut off tracking. ;ActiveTrackFile = Tracks\Magellan_ActiveTrack.dat (added ; at beginning of line) ;ActiveTrackMediaListFile = Tracks\ActiveTrackMediaList.xml (added ; at beginning of line) ;ActiveTrackTemporaryFile = Tracks\Magellan_ActiveTrack.gpx (added ; at beginning of line) MaxWaypointsCount = 5000 (Increased from 500) MaxGeocachesCount = 5000 (Decreased from 10000) MaxTracksCount = 0 MaxTrackPointsCount = 0 Delete all files in folder Tracks Explorist GC search mode works much faster with the tracking disabled. If you place caches the coordinates are saved in Magellan_New_Geocaches.gpx. V2.15 has screwed up this file so it won’t correctly read into GSAK. The work around is to read it into BASECAMP export the GPX to your hard disk then read it into GSAK. You only need it in GSAK to copy and paste coordinates into your new listing.

I started this thread. After multiple attempts to use my explorist GC for finding caches with software version 2.15 I have concluded that 2.15 has turned my GPS into a brick as far as locating caches. With Version 1.7(1.8) you had two search modes, both appeared erratic however if you kept moving they worked quite well. Garmin decided to do something about the erratic complaints by having only one search mode and dampening the response way down so things no longer jumped around the screen, now instead of responding to your heading in seconds it sometimes takes minutes. Yesterday I walked 20 feet from a cache then circled it very slowly at that radius, in four trips around the cache the arrow in the middle supposedly indicating my heading NEVER MOVED. So I stopped and it took the GC almost 2 minutes to finally turn the arrow to the direction I was heading. I will probably buy a new GC that has the 1.8 system, then find somebody I hate and give them the one with the 2.15 system. V2.15 is what happens when the programmers aren't Geocachers and the company tries to appease all the whiners.

Installed 2.15 in my GC. First screen was simplified, but I was disappointed Geocaching is no longer the default item on first screen. The spinning cache in the navigate mode is fixed and it is much easier know which way to go when standing still (you had to be moving to get a good fix before. The desk jockey non-geocaching programmers screwed up field notes!! They replaced the easy to mass edit "" for comments with "Time To Find xx Minutes", since xx changes with each find it is much harder now to do a mass replace of the comments. It is much easier to place caches as the menu item is first instead of a page and a half down the list. Most *.ini files gone. I can no longer find where the placed cache count is kept.

There is no version 2.3. I am using latest 2.15 and any time I log a cache as found the newlogs.txt file is created or added to.

This topic only exists because Groundspeak dropped the ball on it by making the number of hides a side note. The most under appreciated group of people in geocaching are the volunteer reviewers the second most under appreciated group are those who hide caches. Before you get the wrong idea, as of this writing we have placed 89 hides and we do not log “hides” as “finds”. We don’t log hides as finds because we don’t believe it is” In The Spirit Of The Game”. That being said, this topic exists because you get less, openly displayed, credit for going to the trouble and expense to hide a cache than those who go find your hard work. Ground speak has enabled this problem to exist by showing up front the number of finds and making you dig into the bowels of your statistics to see how many hides you have. We believe you should get equal displayed credit for hiding and finding caches. This could be easily accomplished if Groundspeak were to report “Total Caches” (Finds + Hides). This becomes a Win-Win if a CO wants to hide a thousand caches to pad his stats , then the rest of us get a thousand caches to pad our stats. With this method hides stay hides, finds stay finds, and for most of us any need to log a hide as a find is removed (No matter what you do there will always be some who considered themselves more special than the rest of us). Groundspeak has almost no ability to enforce the rules they already have!!! Why, is there such a large crowd that thinks more rules are the answer? Being over 65, we long ago realized that no matter what you do, join, or participate in, there will always be the crowd that tries to control you with undocumented rules i.e. “Bad Taste”, “Etiquette”, “That’s how we always did it”. In the end each of us will determine for ourselves what we consider to be “The Spirit of the Game” and play according to that determination. As you hike to a new find, enjoy the view and enjoy each other’s company, one realizes that all of the posts on the forum have nothing to do with your enjoyment of the hobby!!!

Have recently upgraded to Windows 8. When I plug my Explorist GC into usb port I get associate chimes, however device never shows up on file manager and won’t communicate with Geocaching.com or GSAK. If I restart the computer with the Exporist GC on and connected to USB everything comes up and works fine. I think Microsoft has done something to hose communicator I need a fix this is annoying. Sent email to Magellan