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Garmin Oregon - odd behavior


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huh. really? i don't think it should do that, and at least my oregon 450 doesn't. when i delete a GPX containing a waypoint and boot it up, the waypoint gets wiped from the internal memory as well. the same as it does for caches.

You're right. My Colorado doesn't do it that way but the 62s does.

 

That would probably explain why they're writing new Waypoints to a seperate GPX file with the date in it. It used to be that they were exported into the current.gpx along with the tracks when you entered mass storage mode.

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does anyone of the affected people use vanilla PQ files? or at least GPXs with geocaches and waypoints seperated into different files?
FWIW, I haven't been loading the waypoints. Probably should, as some parking info is helpful at times, but I usually scout everything in advance. All I'm loading to my 450 is a very large and slightly GSAK massaged (name field tweaked for additional info) version of the *.gpx file without the -wpts.gpx file.

 

Another big (4200) load over the weekend, and no glitches.

I do the same - no waypoints, only GPX massaged by GSAK. A lot smaller, of course, since the 300 only supports 2000 geocaches (usually load in a GPX of 1900).

 

I've been observing recently. Connect, export, delete old current.gpx and geocache_visits.txt, and disconnect. No hangs in the last 4 transfers. It seems that leaving it connected for longer periods of time increases the likelihood of it hanging when powering up, but I don't have enough data to support that claim yet.

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Yes, but a darned interesting one. If I understand, you're postulating that a single *.gpx file that is a mixed bag of *.gpx data for caches and data from the *-wpts.gpx (the combined file generated by something like GSAK) might be part of the issue?

exactly.

the only explanation i could come up with as to why it's not possible to delete or edit loaded geocaches at all on the device itself is that they don't want to rewrite GPX files containing the Groundspeak extensions. for this to hold true, they'd have to presume that geocaches and waypoints are always located in seperate GPX files, as they are in PQs. so maybe this assumption is important during the GPX import phase as well.

To be fair, Geocache data an waypoint data are not always sent form Groundspeak in separate files. If you go to an individual cache page and download the GPS file there, you will get waypoints and geocaches mixed in that one GPX file. The same is true if you use the "Send to GPS" option on a cache page. Even then, waypoints and the geocache are mixed into a single GPX file. I remember the discussions back when the author of Cachemate first made the claim that they must be in separate files, and Clyde from GSAK corrected him on that.

 

In general, the only way to get the mixed content in a single GPX is to download individual GPX files from the cache pages, but not impossible from Groundspeak...

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Glad I found this thread. Haven't been at this for as long as some of you folks, but over several firmware upgrades to my Oregon 450, I've noticed no improvement with the way it sometimes acts.

 

I have less than 100 caches loaded into the main memory and as long as they are freshly loaded, they appear in the geocache list and are selectable. As I add more, older ones, though untouched, simply do not show up in the display anymore! This has been driving me nuts for weeks now. I'll try the touch method and see if it brings them all back. Likely, yes. Since it simulates a new load, which is what seems to work already. I hope there is a fix for this. I have old gpx files for caches all over that I mean to hit as targets of opportunity. This bug (?) stinks!

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the weirdest thing happened to me today. the 450 suddenly totally lost reception. not a single satellite in view according to the sat status screen. meanwhile the 550 had full reception. a reboot fixed things up again. never did that before, weird (and of course also totally unrelated to the thread's issue).

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I have less than 100 caches loaded into the main memory and as long as they are freshly loaded, they appear in the geocache list and are selectable. As I add more, older ones, though untouched, simply do not show up in the display anymore!

Did you exceed the 20 GPX file limit? There are probably tools that will combine your old GPX files into one GPX file so that you stay under the limit.

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I have less than 100 caches loaded into the main memory and as long as they are freshly loaded, they appear in the geocache list and are selectable. As I add more, older ones, though untouched, simply do not show up in the display anymore!

Did you exceed the 20 GPX file limit? There are probably tools that will combine your old GPX files into one GPX file so that you stay under the limit.

Heh.. Yes, I saw from the faq there is a limit and I made sure that isn't what knocked out older caches. Did a hard reset of the handheld lately and cleared the user memory. Hoping a fresh start fixes me up. Wiped all individual GPX files out and did a single PQ for the area I roam in. Happy to see caches everywhere on the gps once again.

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Did you exceed the 20 GPX file limit?
200. :anibad:

*cough* sorry for the misinformation :laughing:

 

To imagin0s :

 

Without exceeding the limit, I'm not sure what could have caused old geocaches to drop out, unless it is the proximity / # of geocaches shown issue (I'd give you the numbers, but apparently my memory is not entirely accurate :) ) So these geocaches don't show up even when you try to search by name?

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I always use "Safely remove hardware" before unplugging, and I believe most, if not all, of the folks here do that.

yep, every time, and even with that, i've had the field notes file (and i believe even other deleted files) reappear on me. weird!

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I'm interested if anyone ever finds a solution to this stuff! I have a 550t and I HATE it because of these issues! I use GSAK to load it and frequently turn it on after to have it freeze before getting the whole file loaded or it lets me think it's loaded, but really it's missing a lot, or it freezes when I look at cache descriptions. I like all the other things about it (aside from the screen quality). But I'll be watching here to see if anyone figures out what the issue is. It's just so frustrating because it takes so long to boot up and check to see if the caches made it, and then if they didn't, you have to start all over! :anitongue:

I actually had it freeze on me in the field one day after working fine, only to take the batteries out to reboot to get it to work again, and I found that all my caches were gone. (WPs were still there though!)

And I was hours away from home :D

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OK, that's a new one. Do you think it will be useful to run a chkdsk (or equivalent) on it?

i do that occasionally. so far it's always been fine, except for the fact that the two FATs (primary and backup) never match. not sure if that's the oregon's fault though, but in any case it shouldn't make a difference.

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I actually had it freeze on me in the field one day after working fine, only to take the batteries out to reboot to get it to work again, and I found that all my caches were gone. (WPs were still there though!)

And I was hours away from home :D

I think the "load GPX onto micro SD card" suggested early in this thread is probably the best work-around so far. In case of trouble, remove SD card, reboot, insert SD card, reboot again, and the caches should be loaded.

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Yes loading it on the SD card works. The vast majority of times I load a new set of caches from GSAK, it locks up. Since I moved the gpx to the card, it saved me in the field. A few times the GPX file has mysteriously disappeared-the card trick does not fix that.

 

One thing is BaseCamp does not recognize the caches (or any GPX file) on your card.

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I always use "Safely remove hardware" before unplugging, and I believe most, if not all, of the folks here do that.

yep, every time, and even with that, i've had the field notes file (and i believe even other deleted files) reappear on me. weird!

happened again today. field notes file AND two previously deleted GPX files reappeared.

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Did you exceed the 20 GPX file limit?
200. :rolleyes:

Without exceeding the limit, I'm not sure what could have caused old geocaches to drop out, unless it is the proximity / # of geocaches shown issue (I'd give you the numbers, but apparently my memory is not entirely accurate :lol: ) So these geocaches don't show up even when you try to search by name?

Made sure it wasn't the # of files limit that did me in. And nope, even a search by name wouldn't let me see the caches on my handheld. Only the most recently loaded ones appeared in the list.

I hard reset the unit days ago now. Added PQs and a few single caches over the past few days. No noticable problems since. We'll keep trying to reproduce the bug though.

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I have not done it enough yet to determine a patern for sure, but it seems like if I go to reset and delete all waypoints before I load a new PQ via GSAK, it does not lock up. If I load a new PQ from GSAK without deleteing the waypoints it almost always locks up at about 50%.
What happens if you click the box in GSAK ("Clear GPS before sending") that wipes all previous before loading new? I've had that selected since the beginning, and still no lock-ups.
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The mystry of why it is locking up may have been solved!

 

I have always used the export as gpx function to load it on my GPS. That function does not have the clear GPS option.

 

I tried it your way twice and it did not lock up. So for me when I clear the waypoints via the Clear GPS before sending function or clering them with the resect on the GPS, it has never locked up on me. Everytime i send without clearing the waypoints, it always locks up.

 

I was a bit concerned with the send to GPS function but it appears to add user notes as the first log and use corrected cords. What I do not like is there does not appear to be a way to send the file to the card instead of the GPS. I would rather have it on the card in case something happens in the field and to stop BaseCamp from importing all of the caches.

 

I guess one issue is it deletes your waypoints. Its no big deal deleting the waypoints GSAK sends, but it could be a problem if you want other waypoints on your GPS.

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I guess one issue is it deletes your waypoints. Its no big deal deleting the waypoints GSAK sends, but it could be a problem if you want other waypoints on your GPS.

Never trusting anything running a processor, I always have my private waypoint collection stored on my PC in one *.gpx, and it takes only a moment to copy it to the gpx directory on my Oregon when I need it.

 

Note what I've done to the "Name" field in the illustration above. I have my unit display "by name", and you should see what a wealth of info I get from that when looking at the cache list (size, difficulty, terrain and status of last 4 logs) or individual pages on my 450.

 

What you see in the lists below are the GC code (minus the redundant "GC"), container size (R = regular, S = small, M = micro, etc), difficulty (1=1, A = 1.5, 2 = 2, B = 2.5, etc.) and terrain, last 4 logs (F = found, N = not found, O = note, etc.) and sometimes the first letter of the cache name. There are lots of ways to fiddle this to suit your own style.

 

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Edited by ecanderson
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Unfortunately, it has now locked up on me twice using this method. Going back to sending to the card so I can pull hte card in case of a problem. I still have not had it lock up on me if I clear the waypoints before loading a new gpx file.

i've had it lock up on me after only deleting some GPX files. i didn't delete all of them though, and it's only happened to me once (probably because i don't usually do that).

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Add one more twist to this puzzle: since I updated to the 4.00 version I've also had the occasional hang, but it would normally come right after removing the batteries.

 

However, there's also now a problem when using the car power cord and then ignition turned off. If I touch the 'TURN OFF NOW' everything is fine. If I leave it the 30 seconds to auto power off it then hangs on restart (progress bar gets about 70% through). Battery removal is required to restart, but after that it reports NO CACHES loaded. Last time this happened in the field (day 1 of a multiday trip - arrrgh!), by manually adding a waypoint then power cycling it seemed to force a re-read of the gpx files into memory and all was right again. Most odd.

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Add one more twist to this puzzle: since I updated to the 4.00 version I've also had the occasional hang, but it would normally come right after removing the batteries.

Be very careful about this one. Twice, when this happened and I did not reload again, I found a bunch of caches missing while out geocaching.

 

However, there's also now a problem when using the car power cord and then ignition turned off. If I touch the 'TURN OFF NOW' everything is fine. If I leave it the 30 seconds to auto power off it then hangs on restart (progress bar gets about 70% through). Battery removal is required to restart, but after that it reports NO CACHES loaded. Last time this happened in the field (day 1 of a multiday trip - arrrgh!), by manually adding a waypoint then power cycling it seemed to force a re-read of the gpx files into memory and all was right again. Most odd.

Yeah, that's a strange one - especially your workaround! Thanks.

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Don't over think it just make it a habit to load, check that it works and if not reload and you will never be caught short in the field.

 

Or, if it makes you happy continue to beat a dead horse :)

Thats exactly what I have learned to do. One question for all those having problems, are you exporting child waypoints as POIs or waypoints in the GPX. I had been doing POIs but have been trying to do them as waypoints and so far (only a few tries) no issues.

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One question for all those having problems, are you exporting child waypoints as POIs or waypoints in the GPX. I had been doing POIs but have been trying to do them as waypoints and so far (only a few tries) no issues.

I've been trying to simplify to see if I can make the problem go away. I've stopped exporting child waypoints altogether. It seems to have reduced the number of startup hangs, but not eliminate it altogether.

 

Before that I was exporting child waypoints as waypoints.

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Don't over think it just make it a habit to load, check that it works and if not reload and you will never be caught short in the field.

That was the really odd thing - the initial load was fine and had worked.

Sequence:

  • Loaded GPX file from GSAK using the Oregon macro, with child waypoints: everything seemed to be ok
    - first power on showed 'Loading' progress bar
    - subsequent power on came up quickly, no progress bar
  • Left it to auto-power off after power removed in the car
  • Had to pull batteries to get it to restart
  • On restart, the OLD set of caches from the previous load (for a different area) showed up, NOT the currently loaded gpx, no progress bar
  • Manually added waypoint, then power-cycled. Showed 'Loading' progress bar this time and current gpx file of caches appeared (thankfully)

 

No dead horses flogged, but I do NOT let it auto-power-off in the car now!

Edited by GSVNoFixedAbode
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Don't over think it just make it a habit to load, check that it works and if not reload and you will never be caught short in the field.

 

Or, if it makes you happy continue to beat a dead horse :)

 

it's not a dead horse, it's a bug. a workaround doesn't fix a bug. garmin could fix the bug, but so far they haven't.

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Don't over think it just make it a habit to load, check that it works and if not reload and you will never be caught short in the field.

 

Or, if it makes you happy continue to beat a dead horse :)

 

it's not a dead horse, it's a bug. a workaround doesn't fix a bug. garmin could fix the bug, but so far they haven't.

 

I don't think they intend to.

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I'd hoped the hang problem would have gone away with the 4.20 load but I still get the unit hanging (requiring a battery-pull to fix) then no caches appearing on restart. 3 or more power cycle restarts and the unit then seems to realise that there are caches to load and reads the current file. Very annoying. :angry:

 

To avoid this

1: Delete the .gpx files on your Oregon. I also delete the poi's that the macro creates

2: Disconnect then power on. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP

3: Reconnect, reload.

4: Disconnect and boot.

 

Since I have been doing this I have not had a problem.

 

DO NOT SKIP STEP 2!

 

ETA, the reboot with nothing on seems to clear the internal memory bank or something. Sure it takes another step instead of just loading over the old but it works and you don't have to think will it work or not this time. Worth it to me.

Edited by hallycat
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I'd hoped the hang problem would have gone away with the 4.20 load but I still get the unit hanging (requiring a battery-pull to fix) then no caches appearing on restart. 3 or more power cycle restarts and the unit then seems to realise that there are caches to load and reads the current file. Very annoying. :angry:

 

To avoid this

1: Delete the .gpx files on your Oregon. I also delete the poi's that the macro creates

2: Disconnect then power on. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP

3: Reconnect, reload.

4: Disconnect and boot.

 

Since I have been doing this I have not had a problem.

 

DO NOT SKIP STEP 2!

 

ETA, the reboot with nothing on seems to clear the internal memory bank or something. Sure it takes another step instead of just loading over the old but it works and you don't have to think will it work or not this time. Worth it to me.

This irritating problem alone makes the $10 (or less) to get a small micro SD to load geocaches on worth it. That way you have a way to recover in the field if you forgot to check (or don't have time to check) after loading.

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This irritating problem alone makes the $10 (or less) to get a small micro SD to load geocaches on worth it. That way you have a way to recover in the field if you forgot to check (or don't have time to check) after loading.

Just as an aside, if there's a gpx file loaded in the main memory and another on the microSD card, do both get loaded automatically, with a shared upper limit of 5K caches?

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Bumping a slightly wizened thread here. I loaded the 5.2 firmware for my Oregon 550 hoping the old 'vanish-on-boot' problem would be fixed but it seems to have gotten worse! :mad:

 

More often than not, if I start the unit in Automotive mode, it won't load the gpx file (in memory, from GSAK), nor any individual gpx files, and reports 'No geocaches found' when tapping the Find a Cache button. To force a reload I need to switch profile to recreational or geocaching, and cold reboot (batteries out/in) before it'll see the gpx files and load the caches. That works after 2-3 cycles. The only way avoid it when out in the field is once it's loaded ok, DO NOT TURN OFF until day's end.

 

The only other correlation seems to be that it'll do the first wipe when plugged into the car power, and ignition key/engine start turns the unit on.

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