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Garmin Oregon 6XX and GPSMap 64x Firmware Upgrades


BikeBill

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I was fiddling with my seldom used Oregon 600 today to see if I could find anything (like custom symbols) that would cause it's annoying crashes. While hooked up to my PC I realized that there was a firmware upgrade available, V 5.0, so I upgraded. While at it, I plugged in my trusty GPSMap 64s to find that it also had a firmware update available: v. 4.5.

 

Both these updates are to enable the devices to use Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) which I know nothing about. Can someone explain what this is?

 

My hope is that the new firmware versions have other fixes in them that will help with the 600's crashing problem. My 64s is pretty stable unless I try to load more than one additional stage of a multi into it, then it crashes, too.

 

I don't know when these firmware versions became available as there were no dates shown with them on Garmin's site. I apologize if this is old news.

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5.0 on the Oregon was released a few weeks ago. I haven't noticed any problems with the device locking up and freezing, but I haven't been using it heavily either. Still get an issue where cache descriptions sometimes don't load, but I think that's always been linked to bad html in the GPX file.

 

MTP is used by cameras to connect with software. I'm guessing that by adding MTP to the camera enabled devices, you can import your photos into lightroom or iphoto, etc., directly as a camera rather than as an attached mass storage device.

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MTP is used by cameras to connect with software.....

 

MTP covers many file types, not just photos. This is an interesting development. For one thing, Win7 and later support MTP over Bluetooth. That doesn't mean Garmin will, but it's food for thought, especially with seeing some MTP support on our phones. Wikipedia mentions that when using MTP transfer mode, the receiving device does not have to reindex the file system after every transfer. That might solve a few problems and make for faster boot up times. Just have to wait and see.

 

MTP is touted as a 'safer' transfer protocol in that you cannot access the full file system on the device and format/delete/overwrite system files by accident. The latest model Nuvi's come with MTP enabled by default. You have to go into a hidden admin menu to switch them over to standard USB Transfer mode in order for many of the utilities to work. Quite a pain, actually. I see that they have labelled it as "optional MTP" mode, so I hope they do not make it the default transfer mode.

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JohnCNA wrote: << I see that they have labelled it as "optional MTP" mode, so I hope they do not make it the default transfer mode.>>

 

It appears not to be made default after the firmware update. I plugged my Oregon into my Win 10 laptop after the upgrade and all functioned as it did before.

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Former OS engineer here. Media Transfer Protocol, an evolution of Picture Transfer Protocol which was popularized on cameras, grew legs for music and video players last decade, but can handle any type of file that it chooses to support. It is a protocol that exists as a layer between one or more apps talking to a storage device and the code managing the storage device. If you think of a file system as a wall on a shoestore of boxes, it's the difference between everyone adding and removing shoes themselves ("oh, I saw it was empty, so I went to put a shoebox there - hey, I did the same thing at the same time!" or multiple customers fighting over the same box because they both saw it at the same time) vs having one one shoe salesperson that's the only one that's allowed to touch the wall. "Sorry, that box was JUST removed" This allows the salesman to adjust inventory on the fly ("Hey, we need to order....") which you just can't do if all the customers are touching the shoeboxes directly. This is why cameras like to use MTP; by saying "Hey, I'm adding/removing a picture", it can generate or delete a thumbnail or add it to a gallery database. You don't have to do the "safe eject" thing because the salesman knows exactly which shoes aren't on the shelf when the store closes; it's possible to safely reverse any outstanding transactions on the filesystem. It is indeed safer; the shoe salesman don't hand you things that aren't for sale. Anyone that's attached a Mass Storage device and deleted system files will appreciate this. This also means that unless the OS adds another abstraction on top of this, apps (like GPSBabel and thus, GSAK) that are used to reading and writing files can't just read and write files; they have to implement MTP themselves or have the OS do it or farm it out to something like http://libmtp.sourceforge.net/

 

As for making the Garmin boot times faster, it's likely this wouldn't make the actual read of the GPX and updating internal databases faster as you still have to crack open the GPX, parse it, and stuff it into the database because the same Geocache can appear in multiple GPX files. (You also have to handle the case of deleting anything in the internal database that's not there any more.) Where it COULD make a difference is that you don't have to reboot as often. Since MTP allows both the computer and the device to access the device at the same time without destroying each other (this is why the modern devices all go catatonic when they're attached to a computer) you could copy a PQ to the device, see it appear on the map, confirm that it really is the right area you wish to hunt in or copy more to it without incurring the plug/unplug/boot cycle. I'd expect the individual parse times to be the same. If each GPX file held only one geocache the rules would be different, but that would be terrible in other ways. (Pictures are one per file, as are songs and videos.)

 

Over time, as the royalties and patent landscape surrounding FAT32 and exFAT worsens (TomTom and Barnes and Noble were both hauled to court...) I expect a decrease in the number of portable devices to offer that as an option at all. The device can use whatever filesystem it wants to use internally and use MTP as a way to get files to and from most operating systems. Now that MTP is part of the USB standard and without licensing issues, it's the "obvious" way to do it. Hint: this is another reason why expandable card memory is disappearing from portables. Even the empty socket involves royalties if you expect those memory cards to work (viably) with Windows.

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I tried out the MTP interface with my Oregon 600. It still goes to the USB screen on the device and displays the drives on my mac as it does using Garmin Spanner for mass storage mode. So from a functional user interface standpoint, nothing changes.

 

Are you sure everything is accessible? When a Nuvi is in MTP mode, the system files can't be accessed. You need to force it into mass storage mode if you want to get at the .system folder.

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I tried out the MTP interface with my Oregon 600. It still goes to the USB screen on the device and displays the drives on my mac as it does using Garmin Spanner for mass storage mode. So from a functional user interface standpoint, nothing changes.

 

You don't get drive letters, for starters.

 

Right.

 

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Hans

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I tried out the MTP interface with my Oregon 600. It still goes to the USB screen on the device and displays the drives on my mac as it does using Garmin Spanner for mass storage mode. So from a functional user interface standpoint, nothing changes.

I set my 600 to MTP to see what would happen.

 

It still mounts in Windows 10 fine, but the GSAK and the Garmin Export macro cannot see the drive letters, so it won't work for me that way.

I even tried setting my GPS as a Monterra in GSAK, but no dice.

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So it sounds like Windows PCs and Macs handle the MTP differently. Mine mount as volumes as normal. I'll check again when I get home to see if I can access the system folders.

 

So I can still access the hidden system folders on MTP mode. For now it might be a windows-only option that functions as a regular mass storage device on a Unix-based OS.

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