Garmin Etrex 30 Wont Forget Old Caches or Load New Ones

[+JL_HSTRE]

I'm having a strange problem with my Garmin Etrex 30. I had a GPX of a few thousand caches loaded on it. I hooked it up to my computer, deleted the old GPX, and loaded two new GPX files. The unit started up suspiciously quickly. I checked for a cache in the new file via the search option and it didn't come up.

 

I turned off the unit, hooked it back up to my computer, deleted all the GPX files off the Garmin again, and added a new GPX that had zero waypoints in common with the GPX that was loaded when I started the process. Etrex starts up, still the same old caches and no new ones.

 

Repeat the process again except this time I deleted the GPX off the Garmin and didn't load a new one. After it starts up the Etrex should find it has zero geocaches. It starts up...and the old caches are still there, persistent phantoms. For some reason the unit seems to be bypassing the process where it checks whether the GPX files on the device are the same ones as the last time it was turned on.

 

There is no removal memory card in my Etrex.

 

Anyone had this happen before with their Garmin, Etrex or otherwise? Is there a solution other than a factory reset of the device?

 

Fortunately this is my old Etrex; I just got a new Etrex 32 because the 30's buttons were worn out and Garmin no longer supports the 30. So if the device is done for it's not a big loss at this point.

[+GeoTrekker26]

A couple of items that might help. If you are using a Mac be sure to empty the trash before you disconnect the GPS. 

 

Remove all the GPX files, disconnect and boot the empty GPS twice, once to clear the internal index and once to boot a clean system. 
 

Now try adding a new GPX file. 

[+Atlas Cached]

My bet is the OP is using a MAC and has not emptied the trash....... Classic issue.

[+JL_HSTRE]

No, I have a Windows PC.

[+Atlas Cached]

Is the 'deleted' GPX file still present on the device after a reboot?

[+GeoTrekker26]

How did this work?

 

Remove all the GPX files, disconnect and boot the empty GPS twice, once to clear the internal index and once to boot a clean system. 
Now try adding a new GPX file. 

[+chuck4564]

Geocache data can also be present in the form of a ggz file. Some waypoints may be stored as POI too. The POI could be part of a map but they wouldn't respond like geocaches but the graphical representation on the map could be the same. This is why it is a best practice to put geocache data on removable memory cards on Garmin devices.

[robertlipe]

<rant> I swear if Garmin would finally fix the UX on this and the "I have waypoints, but I'm not going to show them if they're > N miles away" issue (neither of which are exactly defects; they just violate the principle of least surprise and they're not That Hard to improve) we'd have had 10% fewer tech support posts over the last 15 years.  Maybe use better power switch sticks and rubber glue so we don't have to explain how to jam ink pens into their $500 hardware that's now "obsolete" and unable to replace that worn out $0.06 part. We free tech support types could reclaim a couple of vacation days per year.

The first Garmin I know of with this overly-persistent memory issue was the 60CSX class of units in 2006, as they were the first that had waypoints read from files on boot,  but the "too far" problem goes back to the serial models.
</rant>


I think the answers you got above, @JL_HSTRE, are all over your problem. You either have a copy of those files somewhere in some form (GPX, GGZ, POI, etc.) on the mass storage that you can't see (Finder on MacOS "deletes" files by moving them into a directory that's not shown by default....)  or the device's flash memory is corrupt where it's seeing a different thing than what you see on your end of the USB cable. (Less likely, but this forum has seen it at least once.) A factory reset is an inexpensive prescription for that. ChuckEd's last sentence may not apply to this case as you don't have removable memory.

We should confirm, too, what you mean by "still there".  Garmin has a different hidey hole for the list of found caches than it does for live waypoints that are editable, show on the screen, etc.

Also, hand-crafting a perfect GPX file isn't quite trivial. One blown angle bracket and the device may be throwing an error in the parser and not continuing on with the rest of housekeeping bootup duties.