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Garmin GPSMap 64S Problems


wildroamer

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Second unit, same issue. Thing works perfectly sometimes. Other times, I turn it on and it simply will not lock on to satellites. Spoke with customer service at both Cabela's and Garmin. After extensive troubleshooting with the first one, including hard reset, Cabela's overnighted me a replacement. Oh, plus I got a nice voicemail message in which the rep told me he was assured by Garmin that the device was functioning correctly, and that no gps receiver will work well in dense canopy. Duh! I never said I was in dense canopy, in fact I told them that this was ocurring with a clear view of the sky!

Replacement unit is doing the same dadgum thing, "Acquiring Satellites" "Weak GPS signal" "Lost GPS signal"

I find it difficult to believe I am the only one who happens to buy 2 dadgum lemons, back-to-back...

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That's a bummer.....I have over a dozen of various GPS units and picking up Satellites is a basic function that happens automatically and has little or nothing to do with settings. I have been in areas were certain of my units would not pick up sats., maybe high voltage power wires, GPS jammer, etc.

In addition to the hard reset download the latest firmware.....problem could be Cabelas received a bad batch having either firmware or hardware issues.

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I just bought a GPSMap 64s and went on a hike this weekend. It started out very frustrating because the GPS kept beeping saying it had lost the satellite and I was in a wide open parking lot. I was leading scouts on a hike so I didn't have time to mess around with it and it continued to beep every minute or so like it kept losing and re-gaining the satellites. I had an older Etrex Legend C I was letting one of the boys carry and it was working like a champ. After 2 miles into the hike I looked at the trip computer and my GPS said I had gone 83 miles. I was like WTF this thing is going back to the store. I started browsing settings as I was walking and I found I had initially set it on GPS+GLONASS because I read it was more accurate. So on a whim I changed it back to just GPS and it started working fine. So I don't think my GPS is ever going back to that GLONASS setting I don't care how much hype I read. It totally messed up my track. So maybe check and make sure yours doesn't have this setting turned on.

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You probably just needed to restart it.... Instead of going on the internet and writing up a long rant, people would be better off looking for a solution.

 

You calling my post a rant? If so you need to just shut up. I was only looking at this thread because I was looking for solutions and I only provided my experience as a possible explanation for what the OP experienced.

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You calling my post a rant? If so you need to just shut up.

 

Yes. You are complaining without seeking advice. There are a lot of solutions we can propose to fix the problem but instead of asking, you simply have complained and stated you are giving up on finding a solution.

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You calling my post a rant? If so you need to just shut up.

 

Yes. You are complaining without seeking advice. There are a lot of solutions we can propose to fix the problem but instead of asking, you simply have complained and stated you are giving up on finding a solution.

 

Red90 I think you may have missed the last line in scorpion-king's post. The last line was especially about finding a solution...."So maybe check and make sure yours doesn't have this setting turned on. "

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Red90 I think you may have missed the last line in scorpion-king's post. The last line was especially about finding a solution...."So maybe check and make sure yours doesn't have this setting turned on. "

But that is NOT the solution. There is nothing wrong with having GLONASS turned on. He is mistaken that the units do not work with or have a problem with GLONASS. This is my general point. Instead of finding or looking for a real solution, he gave up and turned off a useful feature permanently and then comes on here giving other people bad advice.

Edited by Red90
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You calling my post a rant? If so you need to just shut up.

 

There might have been a more tactful way to get your point across. "...just need to shut up." comes across as just being petulant. That said, a factory/hard reset is sometimes met with good result. Not sure if the OP tried a reset, perhaps they did, but it's always recommended when experiencing odd, not commonly experienced issues. My experience with the 64 with GLONASS has been flawless.

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I just bought a GPSMap 64s and went on a hike this weekend. It started out very frustrating because the GPS kept beeping saying it had lost the satellite and I was in a wide open parking lot. I was leading scouts on a hike so I didn't have time to mess around with it and it continued to beep every minute or so like it kept losing and re-gaining the satellites. I had an older Etrex Legend C I was letting one of the boys carry and it was working like a champ. After 2 miles into the hike I looked at the trip computer and my GPS said I had gone 83 miles. I was like WTF this thing is going back to the store. I started browsing settings as I was walking and I found I had initially set it on GPS+GLONASS because I read it was more accurate. So on a whim I changed it back to just GPS and it started working fine. So I don't think my GPS is ever going back to that GLONASS setting I don't care how much hype I read. It totally messed up my track. So maybe check and make sure yours doesn't have this setting turned on.

I'm not suggesting that having GLONASS enabled caused your problem but I don't use that feature anyway as I feel it has little or no affect on enhancing accuracy here in North America. I seems, however, that it does if you live in Europe.

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Red90 I think you may have missed the last line in scorpion-king's post. The last line was especially about finding a solution...."So maybe check and make sure yours doesn't have this setting turned on. "

But that is NOT the solution. There is nothing wrong with having GLONASS turned on. He is mistaken that the units do not work with or have a problem with GLONASS. This is my general point. Instead of finding or looking for a real solution, he gave up and turned off a useful feature permanently and then comes on here giving other people bad advice.

 

I'm not sure its bad advice.....there have been several posts in the last 6 months or so where folks claimed GLONASS was causing problems and the problems went away when they disabled it.

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Funny the firestorm that always erupts when people hear something they don't want to hear. I'm guilty too, nobody wants to think they dropped $400 on something that people are having issues with. BTW, I don't think "Try turning off Glonass..." is much of a solution. "Having trouble with 5th gear on your car? Try not using that gear..."

Anyway, I did soft and hard resets on the first unit to no avail. Then when I received my second unit, I ended up having the exact same issue. Wide open view of sky in area that has never given me trouble with any of the many gps receivers I have owned in the past. After almost an hour, it did lock on. Garmin told me the usual fixes, resets, make sure you have clear view, allow 20 minutes for lock, etc.

Really like the unit, functionality, basecamp is great... Will wait for next iteration, or some more firmware updates before trying again.

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I just bought a GPSMap 64s and went on a hike this weekend. It started out very frustrating because the GPS kept beeping saying it had lost the satellite and I was in a wide open parking lot. I was leading scouts on a hike so I didn't have time to mess around with it and it continued to beep every minute or so like it kept losing and re-gaining the satellites. I had an older Etrex Legend C I was letting one of the boys carry and it was working like a champ. After 2 miles into the hike I looked at the trip computer and my GPS said I had gone 83 miles. I was like WTF this thing is going back to the store. I started browsing settings as I was walking and I found I had initially set it on GPS+GLONASS because I read it was more accurate. So on a whim I changed it back to just GPS and it started working fine. So I don't think my GPS is ever going back to that GLONASS setting I don't care how much hype I read. It totally messed up my track. So maybe check and make sure yours doesn't have this setting turned on.

 

That was one of the questions Garmin rep asked, "Is glonass enabled?" Just too much money to say, "Hey, just disable this feature and it might be ok." I don't rely on a GPSr for my life, but I do rely on one to get me a mile or two out of the woods in the dark. Zero confidence in these units now, unfortunately. I think/hope the comment about a bad batch to Cabela's might have been right on.

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Hi,

First of all sorry for the rebirth this old thread but I have had exactly the same issue like scorpion-kingIs there any explanation why was it and how can it fix without disabling Glonass feature? Is it may be hardware failure? I have GPSMAP 64S and my firmware version was 4.7. After this incident I updated but had no chance to try it out yet.

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I can't imagine it is a common issue as there has been no other other mention of it in 3 years.  I have a 64S and never had any issue.

Were you using a really old firmware?  Maybe that is the issue as this was a very old post from when the device was quite new.  Do a master reset with the new firmware and see how it goes.

Edited by Red90
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I hadn't read this thread yet (don't have a 64) but my Oregon600 had exactly the same problem a few months ago. We just left our hotel (weekend away from home) with our bikes when the GPS could not find satellites. When we stopped I would get a lock again for a few seconds and then lose it again. After several reboots I switched of Glonass and immediately had a lock again. The rest of the day I used "just" GPS. On our next trip I re-enabled Glonass and had no more problems. It looks like a VERY intermittent problem that's not easy to recreate. I don't think in our case external interference could have been the cause as we restarted the GPS at several locations and there were no visible high tension lines, cell towers or other transmitting antennas nearby.

I'd just try to temporary disable Glonass and re-enable after a while. I didn't notice any degrading in accuracy when Glonass was off but I must say were were in an open area with hardly any tree cover.

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4 hours ago, Red90 said:

I can't imagine it is a common issue as there has been no other other mention of it in 3 years.

While not common, there have definitely been other occurrences of this issue (or something very similar to it) since the original drama above. For example, a few of us discussed a similar issue with Oregon 600/650 and Montana 610 devices here back in May. Myself, my caching partner, and hzoi all encountered issues where disabling GLONASS seemed to be the only workaround, and it sounds like on4bam ran into the same issue. Myself and my caching partner tried turning GLONASS back on at a later date, but we immediately encountered the same issue again and to this day still have it disabled. If I ever have the inclination, I may try a full reset of my device to see if that fixes the problem, but the device functions just fine for my purposes on GPS alone.

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I've had my 64s for several years now and this problem occurred for the first time yesterday.

Anyone hear of a fix yet? Not a major problem because the 64s using US sats are still extremely accurate but I wouldn't mind all features working as designed.

 

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Well, after caching the whole day, I could still not get satellite signal if I enabled GLONASS so, now that we're home I decided to try a factory reset (Turn off, - press & hold Page and Enter and turn on - release Page & Enter once the option to erase all settings comes up)

 

It worked!

Reconfigure all my customization and I'm good to go!

At least for now.. I've had it up and running for a while and I can still see that at least 5 of the GLONASS Sats are there while sitting at my desk on the bottom floor of my residence.

 

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I get this occasionally with mine and whilst the "Turn off GLONASS" solutions is a bit of a hack, for me it works.

 

If it won't lock on, or it loses satellites for no good reason, I switch of Glonass for a few hours, just using GPS for a bit. A few hours later I try Glonass again and it seems to work. Its almost as if theres a dicky Glonass satellite up there that spews out something that disrupts the calculation.

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On 7/29/2018 at 9:34 AM, Zop said:

I've had my 64s for several years now and this problem occurred for the first time yesterday.

Anyone hear of a fix yet? Not a major problem because the 64s using US sats are still extremely accurate but I wouldn't mind all features working as designed.

 

Interesting timing on this one.  I have had a 64s for a few years and used it with both GPS and GLONASS enabled for most of that time with no problems.  The first time it acted up was July 28 just like Zop.  I have had it happen a couple times since then including yesterday Sept 21.  I have never done anything but revert to just using GPS and it works fine.  Eventually I try GLONASS again and it usually works.

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Just found this thread...our 64s stopped locking onto the satellite last Saturday while geocaching up at Donner/PCT without being under trees.  We've always had it on GPS/GLONASS with absolutely no problems.  Will try a software update and a hard reset, if that doesn't work will try the suggestion of turning GLONASS off then on again. Thanks for the ideas!

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After using my Garmin 64S over the past year I just had the issue over the past two days... Exactly as described by the OP I used my phone to take a video and shared with Garmin support who claimed they'd never heard of the problem. Happens that i'm just under the wire for a replacement so looks like i'll be getting a refurbished unit shortly. I've had 5 Garmin unites now and this is the first to give me any issue. 

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Funny you should say that Nevadaselkie, mine did the exact same thing at the end of November! Up until then, I've had absolutely no problems with it.

CachingIn80 - I too have been onto Garmin support about this issue. They walked me through all the resetting functions but it hasn't fixed the issue. I've also done a hard reset without success.

Whilst Garmin were helpful, I'm not so keen on paying for a refurbished GPS just because the satellites are no longer locking in. Is it possible that the signals have been changed and the devices can no longer lock in? (I'm not tech savvy enough to know if this is even possible - it was just a thought!)

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19 minutes ago, nobarkinghare said:

I am not the best at computers, but I am hoping someone could tell me how to delete caches off my GPSMAP64st.  Some of the caches are no longer available and some others I just don't want to do, but I can't figure out how to get rid of them. Any help would be appreciated.

 

Ron

Connect the 64ST to your computer and open File Explorer. Go to the Garmin/GPX folder on the unit.  You then delete each cache, list, and PQ file you no longer want.  Individual cache files are listed by GC number so if you only want to delete certain caches, you'll need to know those GC numbers.

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I just had the problem the OP described, on my Garmin 64st.

* Hard reset did not solve the problem.

*Turning off GLONASS immediately solved it.

 

This seems to be a very intermittent problem with GLONASS; I've been running GPS/GLONASS without a hitch for about a year, until my GPS started consistently giving me "Weak GPS Signal" no matter where I was. I'll try turning GLONASS back on sometime and see what happens.

 

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In the past 5 years I have had 2 different Garmin GPSmap devices; a 64 and a 64st. And both eventually got hit by the same problem; suddenly they refused to acquire satellite lock, or if they got satellite reception they lost it again within a minute. While at the same time my smartphone (a samsung galaxy xcover4) had no trouble getting satellite reception or navigating. Yeah, that's right; a smartphone, whose primary function is making phonecalls, with satellite navigation being just an extra option, performed better than an expensive GPS-device for whom satellite navigation is the primary function.  I had to throw both away since nothing helped. 

 

Worthless devices.

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3 hours ago, dgnzcn said:

My friend has gpsmap 64s, yesterday he send me a video, he is stopped, but trip computer not thinking he is stopped, walking speed about 1km/h. but never walked, his unit on the table.

 

3 hours ago, dgnzcn said:

here the video

 

gpsmap 64s trip computer issue

 

If the GPSr has just been turned on and had not been powered up for some time, it is normal for this to occur, even while stationary. The GPSr may have been still perfecting it's position while searching for satellites, which can cause your reported position to wander quite a bit until it settles down....

 

Edited by Atlas Cached
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6 hours ago, Geo-Jeddak said:

In the past 5 years I have had 2 different Garmin GPSmap devices; a 64 and a 64st. And both eventually got hit by the same problem; suddenly they refused to acquire satellite lock, or if they got satellite reception they lost it again within a minute. While at the same time my smartphone (a samsung galaxy xcover4) had no trouble getting satellite reception or navigating. Yeah, that's right; a smartphone, whose primary function is making phonecalls, with satellite navigation being just an extra option, performed better than an expensive GPS-device for whom satellite navigation is the primary function.  I had to throw both away since nothing helped. 

 

Worthless devices.

 

I would have thrown those away for you!

 

8^)

 

 

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8 hours ago, Geo-Jeddak said:

In the past 5 years I have had 2 different Garmin GPSmap devices; a 64 and a 64st. And both eventually got hit by the same problem; suddenly they refused to acquire satellite lock, or if they got satellite reception they lost it again within a minute. While at the same time my smartphone (a samsung galaxy xcover4) had no trouble getting satellite reception or navigating. Yeah, that's right; a smartphone, whose primary function is making phonecalls, with satellite navigation being just an extra option, performed better than an expensive GPS-device for whom satellite navigation is the primary function.  I had to throw both away since nothing helped. 

 

Worthless devices.

I just had this problem this morning. Changed out batteries and it would/could no longer acquire sats. I removed the new batts and re-inserted a couple of times. No change. Batt level showing full.  Before calling Garmin (it's a gpsmap 64st only 2 weeks since purchase) I tried another set of new batts and it worked!? Very confusing.

 

Regards

Michael 

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Also have a 64st that started doing the same thing (weak signal, no satellite lock) after just over a year.  Garmin support sent a refurbished and it did the same thing after a few weeks.  Had a 60csx that worked flawlessly for about 5 years in an intense environment (sport aviation).  Something is wrong with the 64st.  Will turn off the Glassnos and see if things are stable.  UPDATE:  turning off Glassnos apparently took care of the problem

Edited by HadleyR
Further testing
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On 9/9/2019 at 7:44 AM, HadleyR said:

Also have a 64st that started doing the same thing (weak signal, no satellite lock) after just over a year.  Garmin support sent a refurbished and it did the same thing after a few weeks.  Had a 60csx that worked flawlessly for about 5 years in an intense environment (sport aviation).  Something is wrong with the 64st.  Will turn off the Glassnos and see if things are stable.  UPDATE:  turning off Glassnos apparently took care of the problem

 

My 64s which was bought at 2016 started doing the same thing yesterday,  remove battery and reset to factory defaults didn't help. I started to check the files in Garmin directory, after remove the GPS/MT.NVM file, the problem had fixed.

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Long time no see !

 

Bought a 64S on sale 6 months ago. Three days ago got  Weak satellite reception, lost satellite. In the same condition my still working 60CX had no issue.

I disabled Glonass just to see and was happy to see sensitivity was back to normal. Then turn Glonass on, still working fine.

 

Came back  here to check if other  had experienced this issue. Indeed, it is an old but still current problem despite my 64S has soft ver 5.5 !

 

Garmin has reaches the same level of other companies, ALWAYS have some funny random bugs popping up now and then and never fixed.

 

At least, it is less serious than the Boeing 737 MAX :) (I never fly in this airplane anymore)

Edited by Suscrofa
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Thanks.

Funny but when I noticed the issue a few days ago, I checked the firmware release  via Basecamp and it  updated  to 5.50 . Didn' solve the issue therefore my above post.

 

OK now  Basecamp did update to 5.60

 

That was the quickest fix I ever experienced !

 

At least for me because this thread is more than 4 years old :)

Edited by Suscrofa
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