My etrex 30x is losing caches

[+Gill & Tony]

My 30x has suddenly started losing caches.  

 

I have two gpx files on an micro SD card.  Every third or fourth time I start it it, the result is no caches found. 

My old etrex 30 did this all the time, but the 30x never did it until a couple of weeks ago.

 

Does any one know why?  Can it be fixed?  I know how to get the caches back, but it is time consuming and I'd really like to stop it from happening in the first place.

 

Advice would beappreciated

 

Thabks

 

Tony

[+HHL]

31 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

I have two gpx files on an micro SD card.  Every third or fourth time I start it it, the result is no caches found. 

µSD cards are best known for the appearance of read/write errors every now and then. Export your files to the unit itself and you're good to go.

 

Hans

[+kunarion]

36 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

My 30x has suddenly started losing caches.  

 

I have two gpx files on an micro SD card.  Every third or fourth time I start it it, the result is no caches found. 

My old etrex 30 did this all the time, but the 30x never did it until a couple of weeks ago.

 

Does any one know why?  Can it be fixed?  I know how to get the caches back, but it is time consuming and I'd really like to stop it from happening in the first place.

 

Is that all that's on the card, just caches?  I think placing them into the internal memory is a good start as HHL mentioned.  Maybe it is just the card, and that's a way to tell.

 

You may try another card, or try formatting the old one (low-level format rather than "Quick Format").  Up to 32GB, Windows can format in FAT32, the format that Garmin likes.

 

You can clean a micro SD card using light pressure with a pencil eraser, to shine up the contacts.  The card holder connection inside the device is trickier.  It's very cheesy.  Maybe try cleaning it with a tiny paint bush and rubbing alcohol, and then letting it dry.  See if it helps.

[+hal-an-tow]

1 hour ago, Gill & Tony said:

My 30x has suddenly started losing caches.  

 

I have two gpx files on an micro SD card.  Every third or fourth time I start it it, the result is no caches found. 

My old etrex 30 did this all the time, but the 30x never did it until a couple of weeks ago.

 

Does any one know why?  Can it be fixed?  I know how to get the caches back, but it is time consuming and I'd really like to stop it from happening in the first place.

 

Advice would beappreciated

 

Thabks

 

Tony

I have my maps on the micro SD , a habit carried over from an etrex20 with talkytoaster maps added by me. I recently bought a bargain etrex30x which came pretty much full to  the brim with garmin's  version of OSM, which I found less good. So I shifted the garmin maps to a micro SD in the 30x, added and made default  the talkytoaster maps again,  and now have a vast storage space for more caches , tracks and wpts than I'll ever need in the GPS memory.

 

SD cards do fail (some photographers use cameras with 2 SD slots and write every picture to two cards just in case ) but it's not common, so I wonder if you have a simpler problem ?  A few times I've switched on the '20 only to see caches but no  maps. Opened the back, and found the flimsy metal slider thing which holds the micro SD in place has been disturbed , maybe when I changed batteries, or just because I dropped the GPS or something. So I'd check to be sure the SD is properly seated and the metal thing is in place before trying anything else.

 

[+Gill & Tony]

Thanks all.

 

I'll start by trying a different card, to see if that fixes it.

 

The reason I don't use the internal memory is because there is no way to recover if the device fails to index properly unless you have access to a computer.  With the SD card I can just remove it, boot the machine, replace the card and boot it again.  Annoying, but less annoying than not being able to recover in the field.

 

Thanks again

 

Tony

[+Atlas Cached]

43 minutes ago, Gill & Tony said:

Thanks all.

 

I'll start by trying a different card, to see if that fixes it.

 

The reason I don't use the internal memory is because there is no way to recover if the device fails to index properly unless you have access to a computer.  With the SD card I can just remove it, boot the machine, replace the card and boot it again.  Annoying, but less annoying than not being able to recover in the field.

 

Thanks again

 

Tony

 

EXACTLY why I put all my data on the uSD card as well!

[alandb]

As long and as often as the indexing problem has been identified on so many Garmin devices (going back years), why has Garmin never fixed it? It seems to me they could add a function to the setup menu to re-index GPX files. The indexing program logic has to already be there, since you can initiate it by removing and reinserting the SD card. So why can't they include a setup menu item to access the indexing function on demand?

Edited September 16, 2018 by alandb

[+Mineral2]

1 hour ago, alandb said:

As long and as often as the indexing problem has been identified on so many Garmin devices (going back years), why has Garmin never fixed it? It seems to me they could add a function to the setup menu to re-index GPX files. The indexing program logic has to already be there, since you can initiate it by removing and reinserting the SD card. So why can't they include a setup menu item to access the indexing function on demand?

for the most part, I think Garmin has fixed this issue. The newer GPS units such as the Oregon 600 and up and the GPSMAP 64 series don't seem to have this problem, or if they do, fewer people are reporting it here. This might even be the first I'm hearing of this issue in the eTrex 20/30x, so it's possible that it's less an indexing issue and a problem reading the card.

[alandb]

3 minutes ago, Mineral2 said:

for the most part, I think Garmin has fixed this issue. The newer GPS units such as the Oregon 600 and up and the GPSMAP 64 series don't seem to have this problem, or if they do, fewer people are reporting it here. This might even be the first I'm hearing of this issue in the eTrex 20/30x, so it's possible that it's less an indexing issue and a problem reading the card.

Good to know ... I didn't realize Garmin had fixed this on the  new devices. I thought I had read reports of this on some newer devices, but I am probably remembering it from reports on older units. I know my Oregon 550 definitely has the issue.

[+The A-Team]

On ‎9‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 12:40 PM, Mineral2 said:

for the most part, I think Garmin has fixed this issue. The newer GPS units such as the Oregon 600 and up and the GPSMAP 64 series don't seem to have this problem, or if they do, fewer people are reporting it here. This might even be the first I'm hearing of this issue in the eTrex 20/30x, so it's possible that it's less an indexing issue and a problem reading the card.

I'm not sure if it's fully fixed, but it at least seems better. I experienced it a number of times on my 450, but it's happened much less on my 600. It's probably been a couple of years since I had it happen on my 600, but it definitely did happen earlier than that. Maybe one of the updates finally resolved it.

Edited September 18, 2018 by The A-Team

[+PeoriaBill]

Picked up my Etrex 30x and immediately had two problems.  Couldn't see my caches because I used an incorrect naming convention for the gpx filenames.  I had put a space or an underscore, etc in the file name.  Just use plain old letters and numbers.  Once I changed the filename all was OK.  Second problem, the Etrex 30x Is not the speediest gps out there.  Sometimes you have to wait for a completion screen if you are for example exporting from GSAK to the gps.  This applies to all gps units, but it was a lesson I had to relearn.  Don't know if this will help, but it is worth a look to see if you are making these type of mistakes.  PeoriaBill :>)