Oregon 400t, Ver. 2.96 Beta

[+BetaMan]

Yesterday, shortly after loading the update on my 400t, I restarted the unit and it worked like it always has only WITH new features. I navigated to a new cache and found quickly. I then turned the unit off for a little while due to work.

 

After work, I turned the unit back on and the map screen and had a beige background only. It was blank completely. Moving it around did nothing. Restarting it did nothing. Hard Resetting it did nothing. Taking the batteries out did nothing.

 

I turned off the unit for a while and when I turned it back on, the map showed back up! What gives???? This never happened with any other firmware for me...

[+Tequila]

Yesterday, shortly after loading the update on my 400t, I restarted the unit and it worked like it always has only WITH new features. I navigated to a new cache and found quickly. I then turned the unit off for a little while due to work.

 

After work, I turned the unit back on and the map screen and had a beige background only. It was blank completely. Moving it around did nothing. Restarting it did nothing. Hard Resetting it did nothing. Taking the batteries out did nothing.

 

I turned off the unit for a while and when I turned it back on, the map showed back up! What gives???? This never happened with any other firmware for me...

 

Make sure your microSD card is securely seated. I have seen a similar issue with the 60CSx.

[+BetaMan]

Thanks for the reply. I checked it and it waslocked down tight. It appears to be working now though. Just a momentary glitch that hasn't happened before on ANY ROM update. Thought it might be a new bug or something, but maybe not.

[+g-o-cashers]

With all due respect, the compasses are not good enough for sighting. Get a quality sighting compass if you want to do that.

 

That might be true but I find the Sight'N Go feature handy for identifying peaks when I hike. Sight the peak, project a 50 mile waypoint and scan across the map to see which peak you are looking at by following the navigation line.

[+BetaMan]

Well, it did it again! Today the map just disappeared! Very strange. I am using City Navigator 2009 NT and it has always worked perfectly until now. Never had this problem before.

 

Gonna flash back to 2.95 and then see if I have maps again. If so, I'll flash back to 2.96 and see if it was just a bad flash....

[+g-o-cashers]

BetaMan, I'm having the same issue. Seems to be caused by autorouting in CityNav. The map page freezes up if there are multiple back-to-back turns. I typically see it getting on and off exit ramps. See my post above.

[+mattalbr]

Used the new firmware today while riding my motorcycle, Cleveland, OH to Erie, PA and back. 6 hours riding, auto routing on, numerous automatic changes to the route as we took miscellaneous turns, no highways. Didn't have any shutdowns or problems.

 

After using a few times on the bike now, I have to say that this is a great unit for on the road use.

 

Oregon 400t v2.96, City Navigator NT 2009, default topo.

[+benh57]

The 'map disappearing' issue is not new in 2.96. I saw it in 2.95 as well.

 

Have to turn off/back on the unit to fix it.

[+BetaMan]

Well, I switched to 2.85 and let it aquire satelites. Then I reinstalled 2.96 and it worked fine until I started down the road. The map screen froze and I zoomed in and out and it just disappeared! I never got the map back!

 

I pulled off the interstate and installed 2.95 and all was well the rest of the way home (about 60 miles).

 

I quess 2.96 doesn't like my 400t for some reason...

I tried it 3 times with map locking up every time.

[freeday]

BUG - map freezes with new 2.96 Beta

5 times in only 3 hours

 

driving a car (80-140 km/h)

using map in 3D-Mode

4 data fields loaded

routing enabled

bug with autoadapter and with batteries

reboot not always solves the problem (up to 4 reboots necessary)

[+Catch43]

Well, it appears that this issue doesn't affect all devices otherwise we would presumably have had more complains by now.

I observed the same malfunction in 2.95 either. Oregon just stopped displaying the map while navigating on CN. The Topo Germany was displayed above the CN. The unit just stopped displaying the map even though the data fields were still working.

My opinion...we still have to wait for discribing this issue as a real bug. Nevertheless, a report to Garmin should be forwarded.

 

...und Freeday, ich hoffe du kriegst wieder Luft :-)

 

Andraes

Edited April 26, 2009 by Catch43

[+Maingray]

Probably an off topic suggestion... I sometimes get corrupted profiles on the OR, regardless of the firmware. I can usually tell as the background reverts to good ole "pebbles". I'll often have map freezes using a corrupt profile. Make a new one, or do what I do...keep a couple of backup profiles using the same settings and just switch to that. no idea if that is the issue here, or not.

 

Used 2.96 for some interstae driving yesterday and quite intense routing, no freezes at all. I do have the "go to" , "POI" hourglass issue.

 

OR 300 2.96, CN NT 2010, Topo 2008, custom NC maps.

[+g-o-cashers]

It is very reproducible on my 400t and I've never seen it on 2.95. If you have City Nav NA NT 2009 do this:

 

- Create a waypoint W1 at 42 32.123 71 29.807 (495 S)

- Create a waypoint W2 at 42 30.768 71 30.599 (Taylor St.)

- Setup>System>GPS>Demo Mode

- WhereTo?>Waypoints>W1>Go>Move To Location

- WhereTo?>Waypoints>W2>Go>Yes

 

This will take a minute or so, but as you approach the off ramp on 495 (exit 29a) you will see distance to next go to zero and hear what is the beep for the next turn. At that point the map page will freeze, power cycle to recover.

 

Sent to OregonBeta@garmin.com

[+g-o-cashers]

I was out this morning geocaching for 4-5 hours and saw a number of issues:

 

- Autorouting map page freeze reported above

- All loaded maps became enabled in my automotive profile (normally I only have City Nav enabled). No idea what triggered this, it happened once

- Hangs during POI searches (also reported above)

- Hangs during profile switches, although it isn't truly a hang, the hour glass spins forever but if you "X" out of the page the profile has in fact changed

- Major GPS reception issue for the entire morning. I had a problem with all three units (60csx, CO and OR) around 7:30am eastern this morning because of a very nasty constellation. The 60csx never lost reception although it only had 4 satellites (I can't ever remember seeing a constellation this bad). The CO had a hard time acquiring but after 20 minutes it acquired and never lost signal after that. It always had about the same number of satellites as the 60csx. The OR wouldn't lock for over 30 minutes and when it did it lost signal on and off for about 2 hours. Finally it locked on about 4 satellites but the EPE was 50-100' for the rest of the morning. This issue felt like the problem many people saw when 2.95 came out. The OR listed satellites at the bottom of the satellite page but never locked and they weren't visible in the sky view. Both the 60csx and CO were able to lock to the same satellites without any issues. I wonder if after an upgrade the almanac gets rebuilt and there is a bug in that software which eventually gets worked out after several days of use.

 

Loving the new features but not really liking all of these stability issues. I'd stay away from 2.96 -- I haven't downgraded from a beta yet but I'm seriously thinking about ditching this one.

[+BetaMan]

I DID downgrade to 2.95 simply because I couldn't USE 2.96 due to the map freezing constantly. I hate that too because we FINALLY got waypoint averaging!

[+Tequila]

I was out this morning geocaching for 4-5 hours and saw a number of issues:

 

- Autorouting map page freeze reported above

- All loaded maps became enabled in my automotive profile (normally I only have City Nav enabled). No idea what triggered this, it happened once

- Hangs during POI searches (also reported above)

- Hangs during profile switches, although it isn't truly a hang, the hour glass spins forever but if you "X" out of the page the profile has in fact changed

- Major GPS reception issue for the entire morning. I had a problem with all three units (60csx, CO and OR) around 7:30am eastern this morning because of a very nasty constellation. The 60csx never lost reception although it only had 4 satellites (I can't ever remember seeing a constellation this bad). The CO had a hard time acquiring but after 20 minutes it acquired and never lost signal after that. It always had about the same number of satellites as the 60csx. The OR wouldn't lock for over 30 minutes and when it did it lost signal on and off for about 2 hours. Finally it locked on about 4 satellites but the EPE was 50-100' for the rest of the morning. This issue felt like the problem many people saw when 2.95 came out. The OR listed satellites at the bottom of the satellite page but never locked and they weren't visible in the sky view. Both the 60csx and CO were able to lock to the same satellites without any issues. I wonder if after an upgrade the almanac gets rebuilt and there is a bug in that software which eventually gets worked out after several days of use.

 

Loving the new features but not really liking all of these stability issues. I'd stay away from 2.96 -- I haven't downgraded from a beta yet but I'm seriously thinking about ditching this one.

 

I had the constellation problem in the Greater Toronto Area between 0930 and 1130 Eastern time. But everyone in my group (Magellan, 60CSx, Legend HCx) had the exact same problem. So I don't blame that on 2.96. At one point, driving up a highway, I lost satellite reception.

[freeday]

....

- Hangs during profile switches, although it isn't truly a hang, the hour glass spins forever but if you "X" out of the page the profile has in fact changed...

Yes, also with my unit. - But power off/on solves the problem.

Map freeze cannot be solved with 1x power off/on

 

@Andraes: wo hatte ich ein Luftproblem?

[+Tequila]

It is very reproducible on my 400t and I've never seen it on 2.95. If you have City Nav NA NT 2009 do this:

 

- Create a waypoint W1 at 42 32.123 71 29.807 (495 S)

- Create a waypoint W2 at 42 30.768 71 30.599 (Taylor St.)

- Setup>System>GPS>Demo Mode

- WhereTo?>Waypoints>W1>Go>Move To Location

- WhereTo?>Waypoints>W2>Go>Yes

 

This will take a minute or so, but as you approach the off ramp on 495 (exit 29a) you will see distance to next go to zero and hear what is the beep for the next turn. At that point the map page will freeze, power cycle to recover.

 

Sent to OregonBeta@garmin.com

 

I tried this. As I got close to W2, I heard the beep. The location arrow moved off the road and as it moved "down" the bottom of the map screen was blank. When it got to 0 it stopped.

 

However, my unit was not frozen. I was able to back out and go into Setup and turn the GPS back on without a power cycle.

[+mattalbr]

Garmin must have hired a bunch of old Windows programmers when they got laid off.

[+julianh]

With all due respect, the compasses are not good enough for sighting. Get a quality sighting compass if you want to do that.

With all due respect, Garmin's electronic compasses CAN be good enough for taking navigation sightings, IF you take care to calibrate your compass, and use it properly. (I'm not saying that they are "survey quaility"; nor am I arguing that they are necessarily the equal or better than a quality compass with a good paper topo map; just that they are good enough for navigating in the field if you use them properly.)

 

I get repeatable sighting accuracy of about 1 - 2 degrees with my Summit HC , which has the sighting marks engraved into the case. (I know this, because I take multiple sightings when I am actually using Sight'n'Go to navigate to a particular visible feature.) Using the Course pointer mode (rather than Bearing pointer mode), I can easily navigate back on to the straight sighting line from where I took the initial sighting.

[rrtsb]

First decent walk with 2.96. Not so good. It took over 20 minutes to get a lock (this was after letting it sit outside for some time yesterday to rebuild it's almanac). After it did get a lock it was with minimal satellites and accuracy was never better than 90 feet. After some time it did get a good lock of about 8 birds (constellation was good with birds nicely spread out), and indicated good accuracy, however while watching the trip computer the speed jumped all over the place. We were walking at a steady pace and while walking the speed would constantly jump from 0.0kmh to as high as 12kmh and anywhere in between. Not sure if there is still an issue with bird 01, but it was a part of the constellation, however the gps never locked onto 01. Results sent to Garmin.

[+Vegas Gamblers]

If I need to down grade to 2.95 how is this done? I looked at the wiki page and when I click on the lower beta it takes me to 2.96 on web updater.

[+Tequila]

With all due respect, the compasses are not good enough for sighting. Get a quality sighting compass if you want to do that.

With all due respect, Garmin's electronic compasses CAN be good enough for taking navigation sightings, IF you take care to calibrate your compass, and use it properly. (I'm not saying that they are "survey quaility"; nor am I arguing that they are necessarily the equal or better than a quality compass with a good paper topo map; just that they are good enough for navigating in the field if you use them properly.)

 

I get repeatable sighting accuracy of about 1 - 2 degrees with my Summit HC , which has the sighting marks engraved into the case. (I know this, because I take multiple sightings when I am actually using Sight'n'Go to navigate to a particular visible feature.) Using the Course pointer mode (rather than Bearing pointer mode), I can easily navigate back on to the straight sighting line from where I took the initial sighting.

 

I think Red90's point, which I agree with, is that the bearing you get with sighting marks will not be that much better than a bearing without the sighting marks. There is going to be a margin of error regardless. And a good compass will beat either one. No one is saying the GPS compass is useless; just that accuracy is limited but not to the point of being inaccurate.

[+Tequila]

Did anyone else see lousy satellite reception today, regardless of their GPS unit??? I was at a geocaching event at noon and everyone experienced lousy reception.

[+g-o-cashers]

I tried this. As I got close to W2, I heard the beep. The location arrow moved off the road and as it moved "down" the bottom of the map screen was blank. When it got to 0 it stopped.

 

However, my unit was not frozen. I was able to back out and go into Setup and turn the GPS back on without a power cycle.

 

Were you ever able to see the map again without power cycling? I can also zoom and exit the map but nothing will display again on the map page until I power cycle.

 

edit: fixed messed up quote

Edited April 27, 2009 by g-o-cashers

[+g-o-cashers]

If I need to down grade to 2.95 how is this done? I looked at the wiki page and when I click on the lower beta it takes me to 2.96 on web updater.

 

http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/file/vi...300_295Beta.exe

[+Tequila]

It is very reproducible on my 400t and I've never seen it on 2.95. If you have City Nav NA NT 2009 do this:

 

- Create a waypoint W1 at 42 32.123 71 29.807 (495 S)

- Create a waypoint W2 at 42 30.768 71 30.599 (Taylor St.)

- Setup>System>GPS>Demo Mode

- WhereTo?>Waypoints>W1>Go>Move To Location

- WhereTo?>Waypoints>W2>Go>Yes

 

This will take a minute or so, but as you approach the off ramp on 495 (exit 29a) you will see distance to next go to zero and hear what is the beep for the next turn. At that point the map page will freeze, power cycle to recover.

 

Sent to OregonBeta@garmin.com

 

Were you ever able to see the map again without power cycling? I can also zoom and exit the map but nothing will display again on the map page until I power cycle.

 

I tried this. As I got close to W2, I heard the beep. The location arrow moved off the road and as it moved "down" the bottom of the map screen was blank. When it got to 0 it stopped.

 

However, my unit was not frozen. I was able to back out and go into Setup and turn the GPS back on without a power cycle.

 

You are correct. The map does not reappear. And when I switch back to GPS mode, I cannot acquire satellites without a power cycle.

[+Tequila]

Not only did I need a power cycle, but I had to pull the batteries to achieve the power cycle.

[+Vegas Gamblers]

If I need to down grade to 2.95 how is this done? I looked at the wiki page and when I click on the lower beta it takes me to 2.96 on web updater.

 

http://garminoregon.wikispaces.com/file/vi...300_295Beta.exe

 

Thank you!

[+GeekBoy.from.Illinois]

Did anyone else see lousy satellite reception today, regardless of their GPS unit??? I was at a geocaching event at noon and everyone experienced lousy reception.

 

I did not get a chance to go caching today (or even turn my GPSr on for that matter) but I did notice that my satellite constellation was all in a narrow band from east to west yesterday. Nothing was showing in the far north or south areas. In conjunction with this, I was also seeing "GPS Accuracy" ratings in the 11-17 feet range in comparison to the 8-12 feet range I normally see.

[+Vegas Gamblers]

Did anyone else see lousy satellite reception today, regardless of their GPS unit??? I was at a geocaching event at noon and everyone experienced lousy reception.

 

I did not get a chance to go caching today (or even turn my GPSr on for that matter) but I did notice that my satellite constellation was all in a narrow band from east to west yesterday. Nothing was showing in the far north or south areas. In conjunction with this, I was also seeing "GPS Accuracy" ratings in the 11-17 feet range in comparison to the 8-12 feet range I normally see.

 

It looks good now, I have 8 feet range.

[+Catch43]

 

The location arrow moved off the road and as it moved "down" the bottom of the map screen was blank. When it got to 0 it stopped.

 

However, my unit was not frozen. I was able to back out and go into Setup and turn the GPS back on without a power cycle.

 

Exactly this behavior I observed in 2.95 a few days ago while using the unit on my motorcycle but I had to powercycle it to get back on map screen.

 

EDIT:

 

I observed that the unit hangs up while searching (go to) for tide and different other points. This fact has been posted in a qualified German forum, too. The hour glass keeps turning and the back button stays blue as soon as it is touched. The only way to get out of this malfunction is battery removing.

It seems like the 2.96 might have an issue with certain data base searches, especially in data bases with bigger contents.

 

I think this change causes the Problem.

 

Changes made from version 2.95 to 2.96:

* Increased the number of waypoints viewable from the Waypoint Manager and Where To?>Waypoints

 

In my understanding this change could also be responsible for the blank map screen. The Oregon does show all points on the map while navigating. When there is an issue regarding the point/destination search I presume the Oregon has contemporary the problem to display and find the destination points on/for the map.

Edited April 27, 2009 by Catch43

[+Map Monkey]

Anyone having problems accessing tide data with their 400c? Mine has the hourglass spinning and locks up the return button and ABC button, together with a full lock of the power button everytime......need to pull batteries to reset.

 

Good satellite coverage, tide station nearby, using Australian tidal data though.

 

mm

[+Catch43]

Anyone having problems accessing tide data with their 400c? Mine has the hourglass spinning and locks up the return button and ABC button, together with a full lock of the power button everytime......need to pull batteries to reset.

 

Good satellite coverage, tide station nearby, using Australian tidal data though.

 

mm

 

Hehe, we sent our posts at the same time

[+splashy]

Where to > food and drink > (My last from the list is) British Isles

 

1 name shows up and the Oregon 300 hangs showing the hourclass.

 

Power cycle and the gps works again, it's minor, but a bug.

[+Zero Montana]

I knew there was a reason I stayed at 2.94

 

Maybe one day they'll move something out of beta. I'll make another upgradge then

[+splashy]

The advantage of the beta's 95 and 96 are huge and I see no reason why not to update, at the end it's working ok and brings the Oregon at a very high level.

Backup your gps data and if you have a nasty crash you can use the backup.

[+Maingray]

Agree, sent my bug reports to Oregon Beta. Haven't yet seen a navigation crash, just the "go to" hourglass errors. Bouncy compass as with 2.95. Love the new features.

[dug-it]

Looks like they fixed the Oregon 300 version of the download.

[+julianh]

... No one is saying the GPS compass is useless; just that accuracy is limited but not to the point of being inaccurate.

I may get a bit touchy about the value of Garmin's compasses, but there have been many, many people who have claimed in various threads that the compass is useless (perhaps not in THIS thread), that I feel obliged to jump to the defence of the compass whenever I feel it is being maligned, so that people can make up their own mind.

 

In theory, you could sight along any straight edge of the Oregon (e.g. the side of the screen) to sight a bearing - however, the slightly "organic" body shape of the housing may restrict your sighting options. For my money, the engraved notches in bodies of the "lesser" models are a better option, and probably help improve sighting accuracy by a degree or two. (Are there any quality hiking compasses which don't have some sort of sighting aids? Are there any target-shooting guns which don't incorporate some sort of sights? After all, you could just look along the barrel and pull the trigger! ) It just seems to me to be a backward design step to enable the electronic compass, but not incorporate the sighting aids into the design. (A case of marketing form over technical function.)

 

Just to reiterate - when used properly, the Garmin compass is capable of being a useful navigation aid. Whether you need it / see any value in it is really a matter of your own uses and preferences.

 

Cheers!

[+Tequila]

The Oregon is the first GPS that actually has a compass that works IMHO. I used to have a 60CSx and kept the compass turned off. With the OR it is always on.

[+JetSkier]

I just got a chance to "test" drive the new 2.96 beta software and it's pretty bad! I experienced the routing map bug thats been reported earlier. The map stopped responding about 20 minutes into the route. I routed from Orlando, FL to Lake Mary FL and both ways it locked up after about 20 minutes. I ran into another bug that's easily reproducible by following these steps:

 

1) Mark a Waypoint @ N28°47.000, W081°21.000 (Lake Mary, FL)

2) Where To?

3) Search Near and choose the above Waypoint.

4) Food & Drink

5) Italian

6) Choose the ABC icon and type in CAFFE ... It usually locks when the first F is chosen.

 

I've sent an email to OregonBeta ...

 

JetSkier

[+JetSkier]

2.95 does not have the above bug. I think I'll stay on 2.95 until the next beta release. It's pretty bad when your GPS can't route you to a location! Don't get me wrong here, I think Garmin is doing a top-notch job with these beta releases ... keep 'em coming!

 

JetSkier

[+WHO-DEY]

it amazes me on these posts how there are all these problems listed. I have not had one of any of these. And if I had any kind of a quirk that I noticed, it was nothing that would make me revert to a previous version. I just wonder if I am alone..? I am happy. And to me, that is all that counts.

[+Tequila]

it amazes me on these posts how there are all these problems listed. I have not had one of any of these. And if I had any kind of a quirk that I noticed, it was nothing that would make me revert to a previous version. I just wonder if I am alone..? I am happy. And to me, that is all that counts.

 

I can reproduce some of the problems reported. Fortunately, I haven't needed that functionality.

 

On Sunday, I had severe reception problems but other GPS units were experiencing the same thing.

 

Tomorrow, I am doing a 6 km hike to find 8 or 9 caches. That will be a better test for me.

 

In the meantime, I am staying on 2.96. I suspect we will see 2.97 before long.

 

Garmin only has 97, 98 & 99 left to get it right.

[+2Wheel'in]

it amazes me on these posts how there are all these problems listed. I have not had one of any of these. And if I had any kind of a quirk that I noticed, it was nothing that would make me revert to a previous version. I just wonder if I am alone..? I am happy. And to me, that is all that counts.

 

I hesitate to say anything....I loaded Ver 2.95b shortly after it was released, and it worked just fine for 4 or 5 days - and then I experienced the much discussed "Sat 01" induced inaccuracy problems. Reverted to Ver 2.93b and had no problems. Ever the adventurer...I loaded Ver 2.96b the day after it was released, and (so far) have experienced no problems whatsoever with it. Accuracy is excellent, no troubles with AutoRouting (although I use MetroGuide not CN), no freezes, nothing...just great performance. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

Bill

[+Catch43]

Is there anybody with problems (blank screen, hour glass) who is using a modified typ file?

 

It's suspected in a German forum, that this might cause problems especially when driving on highways.

 

By the way, I discovered that the new German Topo Version 3 doesn't show any street names in my 300! The Version 2 does even though I am using a modified typ file in both versions.

 

Other users reported, they see street names on 80meter zoom. when they zoom in and back out to 80 meter the names are gone and don't show up again.

[+PokerManUK]

Purely out of interest ... everyone's very quick to post their problems on this forum, but is anyone emailing them to Garmin as well? That is, after all, the point of a beta. It's almost inevitably going to have problems, and if everyone uses it without reporting them, Garmin won't know what they are. I personally am steering clear of the betas and waiting for the final release candidate as I don't fancy running into random issues that are obviously present.

[+JetSkier]

A couple of things:

 

1) Yes, most everyone reporting a bug here is reporting to Garmin. I believe that Garmin monitors some of these forums as well.

 

2) The current beta release is 2.98. Why would you dig up this topic (2 beta releases ago) out of the back pages and post here? Why not post in the most recent beta release topic?

 

JetSkier