Garmin map update problems

[Lorpet]

Hi,

I have a Garmin Nuvii 660 about three years old and the map update process is rubbish. Does anyone else have the same problem with the map download and limmited map storage on the device. I have bought additional memory but neither myself nor Garmin support can get it right.

 

Is it me or is it bad software or something else entirely, Any shared experiences would be appreicated.

 

Regards,

Lorpet

[Don Madge]

Lorpet - 2011-08-24 1:18 PM

 

Hi,

I have a Garmin Nuvii 660 about three years old and the map update process is rubbish. Does anyone else have the same problem with the map download and limmited map storage on the device. I have bought additional memory but neither myself nor Garmin support can get it right.

 

Is it me or is it bad software or something else entirely, Any shared experiences would be appreicated.

 

Regards,

Lorpet

 

Hi,

 

I've just updated my Garmin1490T with the latest maps and it went very well, took a few hours though. I bought it in July 2010.

 

My computing skills are very limited and I just followed the instructions on the screen.

 

I have a 4GB Sandisk from a previous model (350) going spare if it is any use to anybody just let me know.

 

Regards

 

Don

[chrisallys]

Hi , I also have the 660 fm with lifetime updates, just put my latest update on, there is a slight change from the last time I did it , however it didnt seem to be a problem. you can check whatyou have loaded by looking at settings,map then map info. it will tell you what you have at this time .I have CN Europe NT 2012.20. I load mine to the sd card because there isnt enough memory within the actual sat nav.so I download the area i want to my computer , then use mapinstall to laod to my sd card.To choose the area you want you have to click top left of screen (when map is shown) and drag to cover the area you want, it changes colour to show you the area you have chosen. hope that helps a bit .Chris

[Frankkia]

We have a Garmin Street Pilot 7200. We were considering getting a new Garmin with lifetime maps but couldn't find anything as good. The 7200 has a 7" screen and remote control (handy when the machine is so far away on the dash for the copilot to operate) It also is able to attach to the radios input with the sound of the instructions and music from the on board SD card coming from the radio speakers (this is then interrupted when there are traffic announcements.

 

We decided to keep the 7200 and just get the lifetime maps for it.. That's when the problems started.

 

I downloaded the software to my new Win 7 64 bit machine and to the Garmin - after 2 and a half hours it had completed the download (or so it said) then after a further 2 hrs it said that it had updated the Garmin. When I unplugged the Garmin it was not very well (it was left with only the base maps on it and limited functionality). My new laptop said that it had now blocked the Garmin as "the software was known to cause problems in Win 7 64 bit - despite the fact that I had downloaded the 64 bit driver.

 

I re downloaded the new maps on a Win 7 32 bit machine and still no joy (but at least the 32 bit machine didn't block the Garmin). I rang customer support who said there was a problem with the unlock code and emailed me another file with an unlock code which I installed - still no luck. I rand customer support again and we did another download of the map updates ( they took over my 'puter to do this) and then loaded only the western half of Europe to the SD card in the Garmin. It now works but cost me a lot of download hours and I exceeded my monthly download limit on BT.

 

It would appear that the problem is that the old maps took up about 1.5gb whereas the new ones are over 2gb so there is insufficient room to put the lot on in one go.

[Don Madge]

Frankkia - 2011-08-24 11:57 PM

It would appear that the problem is that the old maps took up about 1.5gb whereas the new ones are over 2gb so there is insufficient room to put the lot on in one go.

 

Hi Bernie,

 

Long time no hear from you, I hope all is well.

 

A couple of points.

 

I run my new laptop Toshiba windows 7 on 32 bits all the time as Adobe flash player does not work on 64 bits, I got that from way to go, I think.

 

Do you know if there's a way to check how much free space you have left on a Garmin?

 

At present I have CN Europe NT 2012.20 [1] ALL and my POI's, so it would be useful to know how much free space I have.

 

The updated maps are very detailed, they even have the small village in Turkey where we spend the winter.

 

Don

 

 

[scramblers]

Don Madge - 2011-08-25 8:57 AM

 

Do you know if there's a way to check how much free space you have left on a Garmin?

 

Don

 

 

Go to MyGarmin at https://my.garmin.com/mygarmin/login.htm?service=https%3A%2F%2Fmy.garmin.com%2Fmygarmin%2Fcustomers%2FmyGarminHome.faces and sign in to your account. If you haven't got one then you can create an account from the same page.

 

Now click on the MyDashboard tab, follow the instructions and then plug in your SatNav. It should give you all sorts of info about your SatNav including how much space you have left.

 

 

[Don Madge]

Thanks for that John.

 

I have 577.4 MB free space and also got a software update.

 

I have no idea how much 577.4 MB is in terms of space though.

 

Don

[scramblers]

Don Madge - 2011-08-25 4:23 PM

 

Thanks for that John.

 

I have 577.4 MB free space and also got a software update.

 

I have no idea how much 577.4 MB is in terms of space though.

 

Don

 

Hi Don,

 

Try taking off all your POI's then note how much space you have. Now re-install your POI's. It will give you an idea of how many POI's you can install before running out of space.

[Don Madge]

scramblers - 2011-08-25 4:36 PM

 

Don Madge - 2011-08-25 4:23 PM

 

Thanks for that John.

 

I have 577.4 MB free space and also got a software update.

 

I have no idea how much 577.4 MB is in terms of space though.

 

Don

 

Hi Don,

 

Try taking off all your POI's then note how much space you have. Now re-install your POI's. It will give you an idea of how many POI's you can install before running out of space.

 

Thanks again John, I've got no idea how to remove the POI's.

 

I'll just leave it for now until I can get some help.

 

I'm wondering what the software update was, I'm not clear at all what software is. 8-) 8-) 8-)

 

Don

[scramblers]

Hi Don,

 

By your reply, I have made the gigantic assumption that you have never put any POI’s onto your SatNav and that you are not aware of there usefulness or purpose. Please forgive me if I’m trying to ‘teach my grandmother how to suck eggs’.

 

Any place on earth can be located using its longitude and latitude, combine this with a name and a small picture called an icon and you have a POI or ‘point of interest’. These may be campsites, shops, museums, garages, LPG providers, aires, etc. Many organisations now provide lists of POI’s detailing there sites ie the Caravan Club provide there members with a POI listing of all there club sites and CLs.

 

Once these POI’s are installed into your SatNav, then you can quickly plot a route to that site by selecting it on your SatNav.

 

There is a sticky thread http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=6076&posts=54 which gives general info on how to download POI’s for SatNavs.

 

As yours is a Garmin this link may be of more use http://www8.garmin.com/products/poiloader/POISource/ Garmin also provide a small programme to upload POI’s to your SatNav http://www8.garmin.com/support/collection.jsp?product=999-99999-12

 

A SatNav is nothing more than a small dedicated computer with a hard drive that has maps installed on it. This computer needs a programme (also known as software) to tell it that it’s a SatNav. This programme provides the screen displays and uses an algorithm (a mathematical formulae) to calculate the best way from A to B using a given set of parameters (circumstances). These parameters will include whether you wish to take the quickest route or the shortest route, use bus lanes or avoid them, use toll roads, etc. The maps will also contain the info with regard to road speed limits and with the Truck SatNav any narrow roads or low bridges.

 

All in all, a complicated piece of software containing many lines of programming and like all programmes there maybe glitches or they may find better ways of doing something – hence the sotware updates.

 

Don, apologies once again if I have pitched the this reply at the wrong level.

[Don Madge]

scramblers - 2011-08-26 11:53 AM

 

Hi Don,

 

By your reply, I have made the gigantic assumption that you have never put any POI’s onto your SatNav and that you are not aware of there usefulness or purpose. Please forgive me if I’m trying to ‘teach my grandmother how to suck eggs’.

 

Any place on earth can be located using its longitude and latitude, combine this with a name and a small picture called an icon and you have a POI or ‘point of interest’. These may be campsites, shops, museums, garages, LPG providers, aires, etc. Many organisations now provide lists of POI’s detailing there sites ie the Caravan Club provide there members with a POI listing of all there club sites and CLs.

 

Once these POI’s are installed into your SatNav, then you can quickly plot a route to that site by selecting it on your SatNav.

 

There is a sticky thread http://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=6076&posts=54 which gives general info on how to download POI’s for SatNavs.

 

As yours is a Garmin this link may be of more use http://www8.garmin.com/products/poiloader/POISource/ Garmin also provide a small programme to upload POI’s to your SatNav http://www8.garmin.com/support/collection.jsp?product=999-99999-12

 

A SatNav is nothing more than a small dedicated computer with a hard drive that has maps installed on it. This computer needs a programme (also known as software) to tell it that it’s a SatNav. This programme provides the screen displays and uses an algorithm (a mathematical formulae) to calculate the best way from A to B using a given set of parameters (circumstances). These parameters will include whether you wish to take the quickest route or the shortest route, use bus lanes or avoid them, use toll roads, etc. The maps will also contain the info with regard to road speed limits and with the Truck SatNav any narrow roads or low bridges.

 

All in all, a complicated piece of software containing many lines of programming and like all programmes there maybe glitches or they may find better ways of doing something – hence the sotware updates.

 

Don, apologies once again if I have pitched the this reply at the wrong level.

 

John you got it just about right.

 

I rely on my daughter and grandchildren to sort my computer out for me. I've learnt a lot but the terminology beats me at times.

 

I do have POI's on my Garmin courtesy of a friend.

 

The main problem is if I get a problem I'm then stuck until the cavalry arrives to sort it out.

 

I saved the sites you have suggested and I'll try them out sometime when help is close by.

 

Once again thanks for the help.

 

Don

[Frankkia]

Sorry for the delay in reply but we are in Germany and only getting occasional wifi. Using my German Aldi dongle now.

 

POIs take up very little space on the Garmin - I have thousands of them in all sorts of categories including all of the supermarket chains in Europe and all of the Aires and Stelplatze and many many more. They only take a few kilobytes. On a 2Gb memory card I have all the POIs and had lots of music too. The memory card now has the POIs and most of the Europe mapping. When I get home I will have another go at the unit and move the mapping back to where it should be on the Garmin hard drive and therefore free up the memory card for the rest of Europe and some music.

 

Space has already been made by removing some of the languages which I will not be using.

 

If you want some more POIs there is a good site at poihandler.com.

 

Cheers

[Brian Kirby]

If it helps, the latest version of the Garmin European maps (2012.20) is 2.85GB on the computer. We have a three year old Nuvi 760. It can just take the UK and Ireland mapset onto resident memory, the rest has to go onto a 4GB SD card, that also contains several thousand POIs. Using MapInstall from the PC is a bit dodgy as, I have discovered, it is essential to load a pre-defined mapset to the device when doing the initial update, selecting the "load to PC and device option". This puts only the selected mapset on the device, but the whole Europe mapset onto the PC. Then, after that has completed, run MapInstall, drag across the whole of the Europe area on the MapInstall screen (which can be enlarged by putting the cursor over the edge of the frame so that it becomes a two headed arrow, left clicking, and dragging) to select all of Europe, then zoom UK and Ireland, and click off all areas previously loaded to the device. This is especially tricky around the major cities, because they are covered by very small mapsets, that are difficult to spot on screen. Having satisfied yourself that you have generally eliminated the overlaps, transfer what is left to the SD. The problem I ran into was that in trying to load UK mapping to the device from MapInstall, an exact match with what had previously been loaded was not achieved. This left "orphaned" bits of an earlier UK mapset on the device, alongside newer mapsets of adjoining areas. All appeared well until I tried spelling a place name on the Nuvi under "Where to", when all I got was a faint click and a blank screen! I eventually had to delete all maps from the Nuvi, under guidance from Garmin, and start again from scratch. So, be careful, 'cos it took me bleedin' hours! :-D

[Don Madge]

Brian,

 

I feel a lot better after reading your post, I understood the first two lines and after that I was totally confused.

 

I will stick to my tried and trusted way a of buying a new Garmin every other year and do a map update in between.

 

Don

[Brian Kirby]

Don Madge - 2011-08-31 10:26 AM

 

Brian,

 

I feel a lot better after reading your post, I understood the first two lines and after that I was totally confused......................................

 

Don

 

Hi Don - a bit like me after I read Garmin's instructions on how to do it, then! :D

 

It is a very good piece of kit, and the map update facility is very desirable. It is just such a shame that whoever writes the instructions doesn't draft them out and then give them to their granny to use first! They explain at great length what is pretty much obvious, leave out much of what is not obvious, change terminology from time to time, and resort to jargon. So, at first you think you've understood what to do, until you find out about the bit they didn't describe, which you should have done four moves back! Properly explained, in simple, consistent, language, step by step, it would not be too difficult to follow. As it is, I just allocate a day, and consider I'm lucky if it takes less. Given the falling price of the kit, and the cost of the map updates, plus you automatically get all the latest refinements, your approach has much commend it! :-) I just hate chucking out stuff that is working perfectly well! :-(

[Losos]

Brian Kirby - 2011-08-31 3:47 PM Hi Don - a bit like me after I read Garmin's instructions on how to do it, then! :DIt is a very good piece of kit, and the map update facility is very desirable. It is just such a shame that whoever writes the instructions doesn't draft them out and then give them to their granny to use first! They explain at great length what is pretty much obvious, leave out much of what is not obvious, change terminology from time to time, and resort to jargon. So, at first you think you've understood what to do, until you find out about the bit they didn't describe, which you should have done four moves back! Properly explained, in simple, consistent, language, step by step, it would not be too difficult to follow. As it is, I just allocate a day, and consider I'm lucky if it takes less. Given the falling price of the kit, and the cost of the map updates, plus you automatically get all the latest refinements, your approach has much commend it! :-) I just hate chucking out stuff that is working perfectly well! :-(

 

Brian, apologies for resurecting this thread after such a long time but I have been conducting a search on here to try and find out how to update my Garmin maps, I have paid E75 for a lifetime update service and after numerous attempts I have yet to get the latest maps onto my SatNav, this is disgraceful and Garmin should be totaly ashamed of the way they have treated customers, I wish I had never bought the dam thing now. Like you I don't like throwing away something that works perfectly well but what else can I do???????

 

[Mike B.]

I have the lifetime updates as well and it does take hours to update. I believe this is because it doesn't actually update anything-it removes and replaces the maps as per your choice.

One of the things I find really annoying is when you download/upload something via POI updater it will sometimes say 'An error occurred in transfer' and nothing gets transferred but it doesn't tell you why! After a number of attempts at this, I realised if there is insufficient space on the sat nav memory this is the result.

I have now bought a 16gb SD card (£11 Amazon) and load everything onto that. I have also downloaded the current Camping Car Info aires of France (6,500aires) to this and found another anomaly-when you go to POI and select aires it only gives you a sample rather than a list-you have to go to -Near, Country, City to get the list of aires in that area or select co-ordinates if you know them.

 

Also bit off thread but useful is the Acsii version of aires available for download on CCI site is not in CSV format even though it says 'download for Garmin' You have to download it to desktop, convert to CSV, then load via poi loader

 

Mike

[Guest ChrisB]

Apologies if this has been covered already, but I cleared several MB of internal memory by following the instructions below and also deleting non UK English Help files in the Help directory (not in the instructions - but seemed obvious).

Of course copy all of the files to a suitable location (I backed up to a writeable DVD which is now stored in the original box).

 

I now have more than enough free space for updates, POIs etc without resorting to an SD card

(currently have about 950MB free)

 

Chris

 

---------------------------------------------------

 

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

 

If your unit does not have enough space you will need to remove some extra files from the unit's memory. Please be aware that the map update will take place only on the internal memory of the unit, so an SD card will unfortunately not create the additional space the device will need.

To free up the needed space, please connect your unit to your computer with a compatible USB cable and please follow these steps below:

 

1. If you're using a Windows PC, open the Garmin nüvi drive in MyComputer.

If you're using a Macintosh, open the Garmin nüvi drive located on the desktop.

2. Next open the JPEG folder.

3. Delete out any unwanted photos from this folder.

4. Go back and open the Garmin folder.

5. Open the 'Text' and 'Voice' folders and delete any unwanted voice and text files. For example, if you do not speak French or German then you can delete those language files. Make sure that you keep the languages that you do use, such as American English. Additionally, each language consists of two separate files. One is a .sum file, the other is a .vpm file. You will want to ensure that you keep both files for each language you keep.

6. Finally, you can open the Vehicle folder and delete any unwanted or unused vehicles. You may always re-load these at a later time, should you change your mind.

 

(I then did the same in the Help folder)

 

You may now have enough memory on your nüvi for the download to complete. Please note that some units do not have enough internal memory to load the entire map update. In such an instance, you'll be prompted to select a specific region to load into the unit. For these units, you can use MapInstall (which is installed during the update process) to load the rest of the maps to a memory card. I've attached a document that will assist you with this particular process.

 

Please only delete the files recommended in this email. Do not delete any other files or you may corrupt the software in your nüvi.

 

I hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns. Thank you.

[Losos]

Losos - 2012-02-10 10:52 PM

Brian Kirby - 2011-08-31 3:47 PM Hi Don - a bit like me after I read Garmin's instructions on how to do it, then! :DIt is a very good piece of kit, and the map update facility is very desirable. It is just such a shame that whoever writes the instructions doesn't draft them out and then give them to their granny to use first! They explain at great length what is pretty much obvious, leave out much of what is not obvious, change terminology from time to time, and resort to jargon. So, at first you think you've understood what to do, until you find out about the bit they didn't describe, which you should have done four moves back! Properly explained, in simple, consistent, language, step by step, it would not be too difficult to follow. As it is, I just allocate a day, and consider I'm lucky if it takes less. Given the falling price of the kit, and the cost of the map updates, plus you automatically get all the latest refinements, your approach has much commend it! :-) I just hate chucking out stuff that is working perfectly well! :-(

 

Brian, apologies for resurecting this thread after such a long time but I have been conducting a search on here to try and find out how to update my Garmin maps,

 

Well I decided to try one more time this morning, thanks to the comments above I was aware that it might take a long time, I also used the second link that Garmin sent me, this was based on 32bit technology and I have a feeling the first link was 64bit.

 

Anyway, I got to the 'Garmin Map Update application' (V.3.0.8) eventually and it all went smoothly from there onwards albeit taking nearly four hours in total, good job I wasn't planning to go out this morning!!!

I had NT2010.10 for Western Europe and NT2011.20 for Northwest EE

Now I have NT2012.40 for Europe ALL

I hope that means I've got the East and West of Europe, as I had before.

So I've calmed down a bit from yesterday and as for POI's well I don't dare even think about them!!!

Belated thanks to people above who have posted to try to help. 

 

[Mike B.]

ChrisB - 2012-02-11 3:40 PM

 

Apologies if this has been covered already, but I cleared several MB of internal memory by following the instructions below and also deleting non UK English Help files in the Help directory (not in the instructions - but seemed obvious).

Of course copy all of the files to a suitable location (I backed up to a writeable DVD which is now stored in the original box).

 

I now have more than enough free space for updates, POIs etc without resorting to an SD card

(currently have about 950MB free)

 

Chris

 

---------------------------------------------------

 

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

 

If your unit does not have enough space you will need to remove some extra files from the unit's memory. Please be aware that the map update will take place only on the internal memory of the unit, so an SD card will unfortunately not create the additional space the device will need.

To free up the needed space, please connect your unit to your computer with a compatible USB cable and please follow these steps below:

 

1. If you're using a Windows PC, open the Garmin nüvi drive in MyComputer.

If you're using a Macintosh, open the Garmin nüvi drive located on the desktop.

2. Next open the JPEG folder.

3. Delete out any unwanted photos from this folder.

4. Go back and open the Garmin folder.

5. Open the 'Text' and 'Voice' folders and delete any unwanted voice and text files. For example, if you do not speak French or German then you can delete those language files. Make sure that you keep the languages that you do use, such as American English. Additionally, each language consists of two separate files. One is a .sum file, the other is a .vpm file. You will want to ensure that you keep both files for each language you keep.

6. Finally, you can open the Vehicle folder and delete any unwanted or unused vehicles. You may always re-load these at a later time, should you change your mind.

 

(I then did the same in the Help folder)

 

You may now have enough memory on your nüvi for the download to complete. Please note that some units do not have enough internal memory to load the entire map update. In such an instance, you'll be prompted to select a specific region to load into the unit. For these units, you can use MapInstall (which is installed during the update process) to load the rest of the maps to a memory card. I've attached a document that will assist you with this particular process.

 

Please only delete the files recommended in this email. Do not delete any other files or you may corrupt the software in your nüvi.

 

I hope this helps. Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns. Thank you.

 

Hi Chris

Thanks for that-I didn't know you could do that but have followed your instructions and now I have lots of free space to add further poi

 

If anybody wants to try this but is a bit nervous, I can vouch for it.

 

Mike

[Brian Kirby]

ChrisB - 2012-02-11 3:40 PM

 

Apologies if this has been covered already, but I cleared several MB of internal memory by following the instructions below and also deleting non UK English Help files in the Help directory (not in the instructions - but seemed obvious).

Of course copy all of the files to a suitable location (I backed up to a writeable DVD which is now stored in the original box).

 

I now have more than enough free space for updates, POIs etc without resorting to an SD card

(currently have about 950MB free)

 

Chris........................................

In case you are anticipating problems with an SD card, I can confirm that my Nuvi 760 has the full European mapping spanned across part SD, and part resident, memory. UK and Ireland is on resident memory, the rest on an 8Gb SD.

 

In use, the Nuvi just transfers between the resident, and SD stored, maps "on the fly", so there is no need to be concerned that you may have to select which set to use, or that the machine will "clunk" when it gets to the boundary.

 

I also have several thousand POIs around Europe on the SD only, so as to leave the resident memory as free as possible.

 

I have had to strip out some of the original files, as you have done, but have done this because the Nuvi seemed to be struggling to handle the much larger than original European map files, and was slowing. It now runs better, so presumably does use some of the liberated memory for calculation.

 

I have encountered only one problem, which was a failure of the address search facility. After some very patient assistance from Garmin, it transpired I had left a section of an older map version on the Nuvi when using MapInstall to select which areas to load to the SD. This aspect is the biggest problem I have found in spanning the maps, mainly created by the very small MapInstall window making identification of individual bits of city maps difficult, even when zoomed.