GPSMAP 66 Hard Reset - Puzzling Results

[+Cheminer Will]

At about 3:45pm today, after removing my SD card, I did a hard reset on my 66st.  I have kept the SD card out since.  When it powered back up, as expected, I had to redo all my initial setup and settings.  But once I did that, I went to the Map Screen and was surprised to find 5 close by geocaches being displayed.  There were hundreds on the unit before the reset and all were gone except for these 5.  I can scroll to any of the five on the 66 Map Screen and display the cache information.  I can also see them on the Main Menu>Geocaching page list.

 

I powered down the unit and connected it to my computer and could not find any ggz or gpx file that might contain those 5 caches.  I looked through all the folders for files that were time stamped before I did the hard reset to see if there was a file that might contain them. I am not knowledgeable enough to really know if anything I found might account for those 5 geocaches still being on the 66?   Most of the files on the 66 now are from the time of the reset, but there are some that are not.

There are others, but some files I found are these: 

4/3/19 geocache_logs.xml (in the main Garmin directory)

4/3/19 geocache_visits.txt (in the main Garmin directory)

2/9/19 gmaptz.img (disc image file) (in the main Garmin directory)

The folder Garmin\CustomSymbols still contains all my custom symbols. I had backed them up expecting them to get wiped also?

The EDM folder has 8 files in it, all from before the reset except for active.bin

The file UserData.sqlite3 in the SQL folder is stamped at the time of reset so I guess that is good.  However a temp subfolder in the SQL folder contains the file etilqs_LYsZZZbXh0wmWGD8SCpC from a couple of hours before the hard reset.

 

I expected that the hard reset would make my 66 as it was out of the box, but that does not appear to be the case.  It even still has the latest firmware/software on it. 

 

Anyway, here are some images of directories on the 66.  If anyone sees anything above or below that might be the reason for the 5 geocaches still on the 66, I would really appreciate knowing.   Thanks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 11, 2019 by Cheminer Will

[+Atlas Cached]

The hard reset on these units is very 'non-destructive'. Most, if not all user data remains after performing it, and mostly just all settings are returned to 'as new' as well as non standard profiles being cleared completely from the unit. 

 

Those geocaches have to be in the SQL library, so I might rename that and start that part fresh again and see if they are still present...

[+Cheminer Will]

6 minutes ago, Atlas Cached said:

 

Those geocaches have to be in the SQL library, so I might rename that and start that part fresh again and see if they are still present...

 

OK.  Do you mean rename the main directory itself, or just rename the database file itself to something like "OLDUserData.sqlite3"  Or maybe just move it off the 66 entirely.  If I do that, then remove the 66 from the computer and restart it, does it just rebuild the .sqlite3 file from scratch?  Any idea what that odd file is in the SQL>temp folder?  Should I get rid of that too?

[+Atlas Cached]

Easiest is to rename SQL directory

[+Cheminer Will]

OK.  Thanks.  Did that and it rebuilt the directory and now those 5 geocaches are gone.  So now I hopefully have a clean unit for when I continue trying to get the proximity alerts working.  I have not used them much in the past either but that was because I only thought of it being possible for a cache that a GoTo had been set for.  The great instructions at GPSrChive for geocache proximity alerts has a first sentence that describes me, (and probably many others), perfectly and is why I really want to get it working:  

• Have you ever unintentionally driven, biked, hiked or otherwise passed by a geocache because you were distracted and didn't realize it until it was too late?

My answer to all 5 parts of that question would have to be yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes!