Frosty_Flake

Both Garmin and Groundspeak Tech support have told me that their programmers have been notified of the problem and what is going wrong. Both sites indicated that their people are looking at correcting their software so that users will not have to disable all of their storage devices. I hope that at least one of them will make the necessary changes to allow Garmin Communicator to work correctly without the users having to jump through hoops.

See :http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=178974

I have an answer to the problem with using Garmin Communicator to transfer waypoints to the GPS. I have tested this on two machines and the problem (and solution) are consistent. The problem is that, the implementations of the API to use Garmin Communicator are incorrect. Garmin Communicator scans the USB string and identifies STORAGE devices along with GPS devices. It does not find my printer or scanner which are also USB attached. When the scan is completed the results are ALWAYS the same. From the Communicator Test Page, all STORAGE devices are listed first by drive letter, followed by the GPS. From the GeoCaching.com site, the initial download is automatically to the first device, the lowest lettered STORAGE device. The pulldown shows all of the devices listed but, selecting the GPS, doesn't help, the implementation at GeoCaching.com does another scan of the USB string and again picks the first device, a STORAGE device. From the MyGarmin site, the GeoCaching download only chooses the first STORAGE device even though the page says that other devices are available. You don't get the choice to pick which one. There are two way to overcome this problem. 1: As the user, with the GPS, you must NOT have any USB attached STORAGE devices so that the GPS is the first (only) device found by Garmin Communicator. This works with the Garmin Communicator Test Page, the GeoCaching.com site, and the MyGarmin GeoCaching download site. 2: The proper fix, for ALL users must be done by someone at GeoCaching.com to resolve the GeoCaching.com problem and at Garmin to rexolve the MyGarmin GeoCaching problem. a: At GeoCaching.com, the implementation should respect the selection of the device by the user and NOT redo the scan for devices after a device is selected. This actually corrects TWO problems in that it allows the user to select a STORAGE device other thatn the first one and it allows the user to directly download the cache information to the GPS. b: At the MyGarmin site, the fix appears to be more complex. Since they have not implemented the device selection function (which I believe is a mistake), they have to do a more detailed scan of the returned string/message from the USB devices and look for "GARMIN" to determint which device to send the information to. I have spoken to Garmin Tech Support and passed this information on to the. I will also include this text as my final response to them. I have not been able to identify anyone at GeoCaching.com or Grounspeak.com that admits to knowing anything about any of the implementations that are available at the two websites. Maybe this message will be passed on to someone or seen by someone that can address the problem at their end.

I downloaded and installed (twice) the latest version of Garmin Communicator (2.3.1.0). Rebooted and all that stuff between runs. I have multiple USB attached storage devices. When Garmin Communicator runs their test page, the GPS is listed LAST of all the devices. It is NOT an option to disable/remove all of the storage devices. When I try to download a .gpx file directly from a geocache using Garmin Communicator, the program scans ALL devices. In the pulldown, it lists them all, including my GPS. The download then starts and stores the .gpx file on the FIRST storage device. I then selected the GPS and told it to go again. BUT, Garmin Communicator rescanned the USB chain and tried the download to the FIRST device. Since this is exactly where it installed on the previous download, I got the replacement message. No matter what I try, it ALWAYS goes to the first device. When I tried from MyGarmin to down load geocaches, the message that comes up from their site says: ***** Start message > Garmin Plugin > > Garmin Plugin Version: 2.3.1.0 > > Garmin Device: SMARTMEDIA (M:\)* > > *More than one Garmin device was found connected to your computer. Only the first one found was selected. ***** End message and it does NOT give you the option of changing the "Gamin Device" (SMARTMEDIA is obviously NOT a Garmin Device). Anyway, I have been communicating with Garmin and they don't (thus far) seem to be able to help. Has anyone used Garmin Communicator with USB attached storage devices? If you got it to find the GPS, what did you do? As a test, try a Thumb drive in a USB port and see what happens when you try to download to your GPS,

OK, off to GPS Units and Software - I did some searches and other stuff but didn't find anythin that addresses what I'm seeing with Garmin Communicator. I'll start a new thread.

Where does one go to find a discussion about a particular topic? The topic I am interested in right now is Garmin Communicator.