Hex 1A issues with DeLorme PN-60

[+SilleB]

Just wanting to see if anyone else has been having issues with a DeLorme Earthmate PN-60 losing loaded caches from a .gpx file. In the last month I have been experiencing issues where I will load up several caches into a file and then go back and and most of them are gone. I found a thread on their support forum that indicates that this is a Hex 1A problem where the GPS does not recognize characters and will delete the caches that it does not recognize.

I contacted DeLorme and this is their response "We are aware of this issue. The core problem here is that the PN device cannot read the special characters used in some geocaches. If you download a Pocket query which contains one geocache with special characters and a bunch of other geocaches with normal characters, the entire PQ becomes unreadable. Currently there is no technical support solution for this. Tech support has submitted this issue to the correct developer channels. I’m not sure if the developers are going to include this in the upcoming firmware update. You may want to make geocaching.com customer service aware that we do not support these special characters and it’s making the product they offer unreadable. Perhaps if they made it so that special characters can’t be used when naming a cache, that would offer a solution as well.

I have had this device since Decembe 2010 and did not have this problem until about a month ago. I am wondering if anyone else is experiencing this problem or if goecaching.com has changed something in the way it downloads. Any help would be appreciated.

[+Pax42]

What method are you using to load caches to the device. I know there have been some issues if using the Topo 9 sync function. I use GSAK and haven't experienced any problems.

[+SilleB]

From geocaching.com I click on Send to GPS and send directly to GPS. From what I can gather it is a geocaching.com issue as I just tried loading 60 caches up on my PN-30 then when I went back into the file I only had 11. It appears that the characters . , ' - and ? are OK. I am guessing it does not like # ! @ characters.

 

What method are you using to load caches to the device. I know there have been some issues if using the Topo 9 sync function. I use GSAK and haven't experienced any problems.

[+Pax42]

From geocaching.com I click on Send to GPS and send directly to GPS. From what I can gather it is a geocaching.com issue as I just tried loading 60 caches up on my PN-30 then when I went back into the file I only had 11. It appears that the characters . , ' - and ? are OK. I am guessing it does not like # ! @ characters.

 

What method are you using to load caches to the device. I know there have been some issues if using the Topo 9 sync function. I use GSAK and haven't experienced any problems.

If you would like to PM me a list of the 60 caches, I can check it out with my 60 and 40 using different load methods and see if I have the same issues.

[+user13371]

This issue predates the PN60. Been around since 2009 at least.

 

Google infamous cr hex 1a site:forum.delorme.com

Edited April 28, 2011 by Portland Cyclist

[+Pax42]

This issue predates the PN60. Been around since 2009 at least.

 

Google infamous cr hex 1a site:forum.delorme.com

But I was under the impression the problem was resolved long ago.

 

Edit: My bad, I still see mention of it.

Edited April 28, 2011 by Pax42

[+user13371]

Actually, I've never really understood the root cause or why DeLorme hasn't been able to fix it.

 

Finding an unrecognized character in a data stream leaves the parser a few choices: Ignore it and proceed; convert it to something else and proceed; or just stop parsing. For each of those cases, you could provide a warning/error message or just do it silently.

 

To stop without alerting seems the least useful way to go, doesn't it?

[+Pax42]

I think we got things straightened out. SilleB sent me a list of caches and I found one that was indeed causing the hex 1A problem. The PN doesn't like bullet point "dots" in a cache description.