Garmin Etrex 20 memory question

[+searcherdog]

I have received a plea from a caching colleague who is away on holiday and has a capacity problem with his Etrex 20. I have an Etrex 10 so can't answer the questions. The Etrex 20 is showing 95% memory filled. He has deleted all non-essential caches from the gpx folder and it has made no difference to the memory available.  Is there another folder of gpx type files?  I've read other posts mentioning ggz files but haven't needed to understand these yet.   

I assume that he's got a lot of maps loaded. Where would these show in the file manager of a pc?  

We have limited communication facilities and I have no idea about the Etrex 20 file structure.

Any help from somebody who has a 20 would be really helpful. 

If he can't free some memory he's going to have to load more caches very selectively.

 

 

 

[+Mineral2]

There are file limitations on all GPS units, and or the eTrex 20, they look something like this: 

 

Quote

eTrex 20/30 and 20x/30x

• 2,000 GPX files
• 2,000 waypoints
• 5,000 geocaches
• 200 routes, 250 points per route
• 200 saved tracks
• 2,000 archive tracks
• 10,000 points per track
• 100 custom map tiles
• 250 BirdsEye Imagery files
• Approximately 3,000 mapping segments*

Each GPX file can contain a mixture of waypoints, geocaches, routes and tracks. If the GPX file containing a waypoint or geocache is deleted, the waypoint will no longer be available on device.

When utilizing routes, only 50 points can be used for on road navigation.

from: https://support.garmin.com/en-IE/?faq=Sf7jHKwP2V53j6MoP8AeH8

Usually, when one of these limits is being reached, the GPS will notify of that specific limit. But sometimes not.
A non-specific "memory is 95% full" message could mean just about anything, but I'm suspicious that it's the actual storage capacity, which I think is 1.7 GB on these. Geocache files don't take up nearly that much space - a full pocket query might take up 6 MB, so deleting geocaches isn't going to free up much space on the device. Individual geocache files will be measured in kb. Instead, you might ask how many maps your friend has installed. These are the real space hogs and are likely using up the internal storage space.

If he is loading geocaches one at a time, there is the possibility that he is reaching the 2000 GPX file limit, especially if other data such as routes, waypoints, and tracks are being saved to the device one file at a time instead of in bulk as fewer files. I'm still suspicious that maps are the problem first.

[+searcherdog]

Thank you very much Mineral2. At least we now know where to start looking.

[+Atlas Cached]

Tons of great info on the eTrex x0 series here.

 

I have seen that very same warning in the past, and had to remove the excessive number of GPX waypoints on the device. When doing so on a Mac computer, one must also empty the trash before ejecting the GPSr.

                       

[+searcherdog]

Thanks Atlas Cached. I've not met that site before but I think it will be very useful for both of us.