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Garmin Communicator Plugin


hawkeye81

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I had the plug-in working previously using IE7, WinXP, Garmin EtrexH and an RS232 cable on the end of a USB convertor.

 

Recently reinstalled my PC and decided just to plug the RS232 cable direct into my PC (ie not use the USB convertor). Other than that, same setup - WinXP, IE7 and Garmin EtrexH - all updated with latest versions/updates etc.

 

EasyGPS has no problem connecting to my eTrexH and Garmins Communicator test page says there are no problems either.

 

However when trying to send coordinates to the unit from the Cache Page, the plug-in errors with the message "Windows Error Code: 21 The device is not ready. Path: G:\Garmin/gpx/myData.gpx". I also get a drop down with four removable disks listed (G, H, J & K - these are all media card readers) and eTrexH on COM1.

 

Selecting the eTrexH on COM1 and rehitting "Send to GPS" doesn't work either - same error message.

 

Has anyone seen this before? Any hints as to how to resolve it?

 

TiA,

 

Pete

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psmaley,

 

For what it's worth I found this on another board. I am going to try it tonight.

 

My PC running MicroSoft Windows XP will not recognize and communicate with my GPS.

What could cause this?

Answer:

The following was sent by Ed Johnson who got the information from "Rick".

To summarize for others:

1. Boot the computer with the GPS receiver attached. The cursor will be jumping around and all sorts of unwanted stuff will be happening.

2. Disconnect the GPS. The computer will settle down.

3. Select Control Panel - System - Hardware - Device Manager.

4. Click on the "+" next to Mice and other pointing devices.

5. Click on "Microsoft Serial Ball Point" - This is what Windows XP thinks that your GPS receiver is.

6. Select "Actions" and then "disable".

7. Click "OK" to close each window

8. Reboot the computer with the GPS attached. All should be well.

The next time you boot the computer, it will tell itself to disable the "Serial Ball Point". If you boot the machine without the GPS attached, it will not even show the disabled device.

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I've got the same problem as the original poster.

I have a Sony laptop with a memory stick slot and a media slot.

If I disable both of these in Device Manager then it works fine.

I'm trying to find a work around for this, and will let you know if I can get anywhere - not sure that it's possible though unless Garmin rewrite the dll file to ignore removable media.

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I've got the same problem as the original poster.

I have a Sony laptop with a memory stick slot and a media slot.

If I disable both of these in Device Manager then it works fine.

I'm trying to find a work around for this, and will let you know if I can get anywhere - not sure that it's possible though unless Garmin rewrite the dll file to ignore removable media.

Welcome to the Forums! :D

 

The part I bolded is interesting . . . I have a DELL laptop with XP "Media Edition" and couldn't get the Windows Media Player to work. When I sent the error message to Microsoft, the answer was I had to take any removeable media out of the card reader . . . :rolleyes: When I took the XD Picture card out of the slot, the Media Player would work.

 

So . . . it might be more of an XP problem than the Garmin Communicator problem.

 

That said, I've never used that "Send To GPS" button. It only takes 30 seconds longer to save the .gpx file (a Premium Member feature) to my computer, open it in GSAK, and send it to my GPSr with the custom waypoint name I designate using the "smart name" codes. :(

 

Just a thought . . . :(

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Welcome to the Forums! :D

 

Cheers - nice to be here!

 

For your media center problem, have you come across thegreenbutton.com - they have a ton of resources related to MCE.

 

I've been having a mess around with registry settings for the plugin (located at HKCU\Software\Garmin) - funnily enough, I've managed to get it to ignore the serial ports, but I can't get it to ignore the removable media.

 

I assume that with some of the more advanced units, there is a media slot that allows you to transfer data between the device and PC via that method, and therefore the removable media drives are valid Garmin devices (technically speaking!).

 

I've also been having a look at the developer pages for the plug in, and it would appear that the plug in has not been utilised to it's full potential. From what I can tell, when clicking Send To GPS (on the popup window), the FindDevices function is called, and the data is then sent to the first device in the list. There doesn't seem to be any utilisation of the SetDeviceNumber function which would allow us to choose which device to send to.

 

I'm not sure whether this was by design, or whether it was a bug that was overlooked due to the fact that it probably only affects a very small number of people.

 

However, I'm with you on the saving to .gpx option - unfortunately, my premium membership seems to have gone belly up.

 

I bought a subscription last night, activated it, checked out all the new features for a couple of hours, and now I'm a basic member again :D . On the member features page it says I am a premium member, I purchased my membership 4th Jan 2008, and that my membership will auto renew on 4th Jan 2008 :(. I've emailed Groundspeak, so hopefully they'll fix my account shortly - in the meantime, I'll have to make do with the not so good methods of getting data out :D

 

The annoying thing is that I'd planned to do a members only cache this weekend, and now can't get the details :( .

 

I'm very new to Geocaching, but absolutely loving it! In fact, I would say that I am currently obsessed with it - hopefully that will wear off shortly :rolleyes:

 

Regards,

 

Chad

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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.

Edited by Frosty_Flake
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Frosty - and all the above - thanks for the info - have managed to sort out my new Etrex H with your info above. Had the problems described on both garmin.com and geocaching.com.

 

My PC has a built-in card reader so it picks up drives H,I, J and K.

 

Garmin.com found only my 'first' garmin device on drive H and so I couldnt download.

 

Geocaching.com although did list my COM port at the bottom of a list including the 4 drive options, it still would not download and gave an error about it not being connected.

 

So, via Control Panel / System / Hardware / Device Manager....

 

I disabled each of the 4 'Storage Volumes' and BINGO, I can now download geocaches from BOTH websites.

 

Thanks again from a geocaching newbie.

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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.

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