+JohnCNA Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 Gotta love this non-answer I got from Garmin Tech Support when I reported a bug with the 'dashboard' on my Etrex 30. "I would be happy to help you today. There could be some issues with the actual geocaches, have you attempted to download any geocaches from {their geocaching web site}? This is Garmin's Geocaching website. Please try here and let me know if you have any issues." Yes, I 'm sure the problem is that I'm using those 'unofficial' geocache files from here..... Quote Link to comment
+stijnhommes Posted October 17, 2012 Share Posted October 17, 2012 Just let them know the answer, and be sure to tell them that other geocachers have no such problems... Quote Link to comment
+Redwoods Mtn Biker Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 I fear this is going to become their stock answer. I'm already seeing other signs that this is the case. Quote Link to comment
+splashy Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 (edited) Read this http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=302035 Just let the mass admit Garmin sucks in the software and helpdesk department, so they get their act together. Edited October 18, 2012 by splashy Quote Link to comment
+coggins Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 Gotta love this non-answer I got from Garmin Tech Support when I reported a bug with the 'dashboard' on my Etrex 30. The thing is… if you want to report a bug in the eTrex, you don't contact tech support, you contact the folks that write the firmware. Here is the email address used for this: eTrexBeta@garmin.com Quote Link to comment
+splashy Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 You really believe they have a software department for all models? If so, how come they all make the same kind of mistakes. And above all these bot generated Email answers. Quote Link to comment
rsaxvc Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 And above all these bot generated Email answers. You've had bots reply to you? Quote Link to comment
yogazoo Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 (edited) I've had "non-answer" experiences like the one referenced by the OP. They mostly occurr when you email or call the general help/support desk about a very specific issue related to a specific operation of a unit. Their standard anwser to just about everything is to do two hard resets and call them in the morning. In this case I think they must have an answer key full of issues with standard answers. The general service desk IS helpful when dealing with warranty/repair/replacement issues. I've had many great experiences communicating with the engineers/firmware people. They have actually written and sent me experimental versions of unit software to test and confirm fixes, called me at work, assisted in getting problems resolved in other departments at Garmin, etc. Very proactive in many cases when it comes to more serious issues. If you want something done I would suggest dealing with the software engineers for the specific product, not the help desk. Try emailing the address specific to your product, explaining in detail your issue, and even send them the specific GPX file AND the System.xml found in the Garmin folder of your units internal memory which contains data that may help them diagnose the problem. The more helpful you can be to them the more motivated and effective they'll be to get to the bottom of it. Something to try anyway. Edited October 18, 2012 by yogazoo Quote Link to comment
+coggins Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 You really believe they have a software department for all models? If so, how come they all make the same kind of mistakes. And above all these bot generated Email answers. No. Do you really believe I hid that inside my message, because I didn't say anything of the sort. Tech support has nothing to do with the bugs. If you really want a bug fixed, you are going to have better luck going to the source, when those that can fix it actually get the report. Quote Link to comment
+splashy Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 (edited) We have about 1 year many errors in the Montana, zillions of messages are sent to Garmin without any result, the updates make it even worse sometime, so tell me how do we get this fixed and who can we speak about this? And yes, we've sent the mail to the Beta Montana team, with the Garmin (error) file including the coordinates if needed and explained what happened. 46 on the Montana http://garminmontanagpsr.wikispaces.com/Montana+Issues Edited October 18, 2012 by splashy Quote Link to comment
team tisri Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 Gotta love this non-answer I got from Garmin Tech Support when I reported a bug with the 'dashboard' on my Etrex 30. "I would be happy to help you today. There could be some issues with the actual geocaches, have you attempted to download any geocaches from {their geocaching web site}? This is Garmin's Geocaching website. Please try here and let me know if you have any issues." Yes, I 'm sure the problem is that I'm using those 'unofficial' geocache files from here..... In fairness to Garmin it's not totally impossible that a single geocache file might be responsible for some issues. I had all sorts of issues with my Montana that turned out to be a single corrupted geocache entry in a GPX file I uploaded to it. When I took the cache out of the GPX file (as it happened, when I found the cache from the text and general description rather than GPS coords) the problem went away. Although it's frustrating with a reply like this it's often best to play along, try using a different file, download a geocache file from their site, and demonstrate that it doesn't make the problem go away. Nobody in tech support will want to spend their time hunting a problem that turns out to be down to someone else's file being corrupted. Quote Link to comment
ZeMartelo Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Gotta love this non-answer I got from Garmin Tech Support when I reported a bug with the 'dashboard' on my Etrex 30. "I would be happy to help you today. There could be some issues with the actual geocaches, have you attempted to download any geocaches from {their geocaching web site}? This is Garmin's Geocaching website. Please try here and let me know if you have any issues." Yes, I 'm sure the problem is that I'm using those 'unofficial' geocache files from here..... I dont know what you are complaining about here. Its a Garmin device, they have their own geocaching website which they support and you you want them to help you with an outside geocache provider?? Be lucky that the device still support GC caches. I wonder how long it will last. Quote Link to comment
jholly Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Gotta love this non-answer I got from Garmin Tech Support when I reported a bug with the 'dashboard' on my Etrex 30. "I would be happy to help you today. There could be some issues with the actual geocaches, have you attempted to download any geocaches from {their geocaching web site}? This is Garmin's Geocaching website. Please try here and let me know if you have any issues." Yes, I 'm sure the problem is that I'm using those 'unofficial' geocache files from here..... I dont know what you are complaining about here. Its a Garmin device, they have their own geocaching website which they support and you you want them to help you with an outside geocache provider?? Be lucky that the device still support GC caches. I wonder how long it will last. And when they stop supporting GC caches they will see their sales drop faster than an anchor. Quote Link to comment
+coggins Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 We have about 1 year many errors in the Montana, zillions of messages are sent to Garmin without any result, the updates make it even worse sometime, so tell me how do we get this fixed and who can we speak about this? And yes, we've sent the mail to the Beta Montana team, with the Garmin (error) file including the coordinates if needed and explained what happened. 46 on the Montana http://garminmontanagpsr.wikispaces.com/Montana+Issues Zillions? Really? Seeing that is a pretend number I see why you might have problems having the software understand your alleged report if you are taking that tone with them. Does your Montana really produce an error file? That would be the first I've heard on one. I've had a Montana 650t for 6 weeks and have seen something like 3 firmware updates in that time and it works preey good. Maybe you should Garmin your résumé so you can get those zillions of emails answered. Quote Link to comment
+splashy Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Montana makes a file called 'system.xml", this file is important for Garmin to solve errors, but strictly it's not an errorfile, but a file with errors messages in it sometimes. Zillions sounds a bit over the top, but I'm convinced they receive so much mail there's no way to handle it. Quote Link to comment
+gelfling6 Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Read this http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=302035 Just let the mass admit Garmin sucks in the software and helpdesk department, so they get their act together. I agree recently.. Last year, when I got the new Nuvi 40 (On BlackFriday special), I noticed the inability to delete the old breadcrumb trail.. The new software update it made, seems to make it even tougher to locate a town, even if you give the postal code, until the unit can indeed find a satellite to narrow its search. Otherwise, it refuses to acknowledge the place exists. But, the Breadcrumb track, this was STANDARD ISSUE with the older Nuvi's.. Now, the ONLY way to get rid of the old record, is to perform a hard reset. (holding your finger in the lower-right corner, while powering the device on.) Now, once you do this hard reset, you must reset ALL of your preferences, because they have been all reset back to the factory default. (thankfully, it does not erase POI's, different vehicles, or voices.) I think Garmin has become too disconnected.. Even their quality seems to be lacking. Quote Link to comment
+gelfling6 Posted October 19, 2012 Share Posted October 19, 2012 Montana makes a file called 'system.xml", this file is important for Garmin to solve errors, but strictly it's not an errorfile, but a file with errors messages in it sometimes. Zillions sounds a bit over the top, but I'm convinced they receive so much mail there's no way to handle it. no way to handle it, or to satisfy their 'profit margin', they refuse to handle it, and give us a "We made it, You wanted the device, Now take it! we're Not changing it!" Quote Link to comment
+sTeamTraen Posted October 20, 2012 Share Posted October 20, 2012 In fairness to Garmin it's not totally impossible that a single geocache file might be responsible for some issues. I had all sorts of issues with my Montana that turned out to be a single corrupted geocache entry in a GPX file I uploaded to it. When I took the cache out of the GPX file (as it happened, when I found the cache from the text and general description rather than GPS coords) the problem went away. It's hardly "unfair to Garmin" to suggest that their unit should be able to handle any legitimate GPX file without crashing. It's true that if you accept user-submitted HTML then funny things can happen (Groundspeak could benefit from appending a few well-chosen closing tags to what the user supplies to prevent it from trashing the rest of the page), but at least within a Web browser you don't risk having it brick the computer until you remove the offending file via the mass storage interface. Garmin's caching site doesn't do too much better. I'm aware of at least one cache on there which has obscure ASCII characters in its description that Garmin are not correctly escaping, causing any GPX file containing that cache to be entirely unreadable by GSAK, whose XML parser correctly identifies that the file is not well-formed. Quote Link to comment
+Atlas Cached Posted October 21, 2012 Share Posted October 21, 2012 Garmin's caching site doesn't do too much better. I'm aware of at least one cache on there which has obscure ASCII characters in its description that Garmin are not correctly escaping, causing any GPX file containing that cache to be entirely unreadable by GSAK, whose XML parser correctly identifies that the file is not well-formed. Do you have the OX number? Quote Link to comment
+sTeamTraen Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 Do you have the OX number? Not to hand, but IIRC it's in Lithuania. There probably aren't too many there. Quote Link to comment
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