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Base Camp survival guide and how to do 128GB of maps.

Xymox1
over 7 years ago
For years I've been using Base Camp and fighting all its quirks and limitations. For the last few weeks ive been setting up a new 64st because I had lost my old one. So while its all fresh in my mind I thought I would help others and go over what ive done.

I explore abandoned mines from the 1880-1920's all over arizona. There are 10,000+ of them and this takes me to stunning vistas and on awesome adventures. I go all over the state. Normally there are no roads and barely discernible old mining roads. I dont go to the obvious and easy ones, I go to ones no one has been to in 100 years. This means its a real adventure as there is no one else who has been to these in most cases. No guides to get me there. Many times these are not even marked on topos. I get the locations from a very old book kept by the AZ mining historical records people. Many times the locations are vague. In over 10 years of doing this ive discovered I need top grade topo maps and hi-rez sat maps. The 64st loaded with City Navigator, the Topo US 24k maps, Birdseye Topos, Birdseye hi-rez sat images and some GIS maps and GPX files of mine locations are ALL needed in almost every trip, literally switching between them and doing different combos as needed. The sat images are really useful as you can see whats on the other side of a hill without going over it. The 24K topos and Birdseye topos are killer useful in 3D to hike to the sites. Im working on getting a GIS map of the geology into the 64st as well. As my adventures take me all over the state, I never know exactly where im going next, I need all the maps / images / POI's, GISs and more for THE WHOLE STATE loaded at once. I cant stop and load maps as i go as there is *ZERO* cell service where I go.

So, this presents a serious set of issues. I need HUGE amounts of room to put all this stuff in. I currently have a 128GB SD card and its full. Im thinking about going to 256GB. I will know in the weeks ahead.

128GBs is clearly unsupported In EVERY way by Garmin. Most here might consider this is not possible. WELL it works great. It does take FOREVER for the 64st to boot, but, once booted its the whole state with lots of maps all instantly available.

Before I get into how to do this,,, I want to complain. It takes 3-4 WEEKS of download time to get a whole state worth of Birdseye images. Thats running 24/7. Its a Garmin birdseye server speed limitation - its a cloud based big time provider - so its Garmin not paying for faster speeds for users. . Also it requires incredible patience to draw a thousand boxes to download images in birdseye. The hardware needs to support large format SD cards and needs to support FATex. Also it needs a faster interface to read the cards. If I could draw one big box for the state and the server did more then 1Mbps and FATex was supported that would have saved me 4 weeks of work of 3 hours a night and 4 weeks of 24/7 downloading. It would reduce everything to a few hours of downloading and 30 mins of actual work on my part. Currently Base Camp is stuck in the 80's, Its like trying to use a TRS-80 to do Google Earth.

Im going to have to do this guide in steps as I cant do this all in this one post.

So im going to start with prepping the computer, mem card, tools needed and a general overview of requirements.

Part 1.. Before you begin.
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First up. Resign yourself to a LONG process. This will take a month.

Second. You will not be able to use your device for a month as it will need to stay hooked up to the computer the whole time as each file will be checked for activation as each one downloads by physically checking the attached device. Once you start - you cant reliably stop and restart. You gotta go all in one shot.

Third. You really need a separate computer. One running XP ( BaseCamp was designed for XP ) or Windows 7. More modern versions of windows and all apple versions are more buggy and not worth the risk of having to start over because of corrupt files. As Basecamp is buggy its best that NOTHING else is installed on the machine and you do nothing else with it while its doing Birdseye downloads.

I bought a Tecra M9 from ebay and then bought a 1TB hard drive and installed a retail Win 7 Pro on it with NOTHING else. I HIGHLY recommend setting up a seperate computer just for this use. You MUST have AT LEAST TWICE the HD space as the largest card you intend to fill. This is because when you load the device it creates a additional set of files on C ( no matter where you put the database and/or add shortcuts to ) that will double your overall set of files. So you need at least 512GB of free C: space. I find a dedicated cheap but reliable laptop is perfect for this.

PUT EVERYTHING ON C: Dont use shortcuts to other drives or change your database. Best to just create a huge C: thats empty.

Ive NEVER been able to get everything downloaded and loaded from a computer that was in use for other things. Base Camp is buggy and can lock up and you can get weird issues. A clean install of windows and then a clean install of NOTHING but basecamp DOES WORK PERFECTLY. As long as you follow my additional steps I will outline as I go. So I CANNOT EMPHASIS ENOUGH THE USE OF A DEDICATED COMPUTER WITH A NEWLY INSTALLED WIN 7 or XP.

Order a good quality USB cable. Ive found the ones that have come from Garmin to be less then ideal. Shorter is better, and get one thats expensive and high quality. You dont want to fight with a bad cable.

I use high end SD cards. I dont think they really help read speed, but maybe. They do help in write speed when loading them as we will load them via plugging them into the computer to load them. I have used a number of the 128GB cards, but have not yet tried the 256GB cards. The Toshiba Tecra M9 laptop has a SD card slot we will use later to load rather then loading it in the Garmin device. https://www.sandisk.com/home/memory-...microsd-uhs-ii

You will need to PLUG IN ETHERNET. *DO NOT* use wifi !. The use of wifi will lead to corrupted downloads and a lot of extra hassle. So plan on locating the computer next to your router for a month and plugging it in. You may need to buy a Ethernet cable.

A loss of internet during the entire month, even if its just for a second could lead to corrupt files and base camp getting confuzed and even having to start again. So be aware you will need UNINTERRUPTED WIRED Internet connectivity for a month.

Base camp Birdseye downloads are seriously effected by latency. Ive found that DSL ( AT&T ) connections, or cable supplied internet with spiky latency and packet loss will cause all manner of corrupt downloads. So you need to be sure your internet connection is latency stable. Base Camp has a time out for each of its thousands of files per download. Its not very long. If they time out it will not retry automatically and will just skip the files prompting you to retry later. So you need to be aware of the quality of your internet connection before you begin because if your connection has any packet loss or latency jumps you may NEVER be able to get a good set of downloads. A good way to monitor your connection is to use Multiping and set its interval to 1 second and let it run for a few days and see how things look. If its a nice flat line and it has no red you should be good to go. This is a HUGE issue that caused me months of work till I figured it out. DSL = NO WAY.

I also recommend a external USB hard drive so you can backup your base camp data. After a month of effort you dont want to loose it. So a good external 1 or 2 TB drive is a good idea.

So.. The above stuff needs to all get settled out and ready before we begin.

Once you have all the above worked out, download and install some things.

1. Garmin Express
2. Base Camp
3. MiniTool Partition Wizard FREE edition. You could also buy the least expensive version. I did. You need this to format the 128GB SD Micro card to FAT32.
4. Multiping - optional to keep track of your latency and packet loss to spot issue. https://www.multiping.com/

Start up Garmin express, register and update your device. Start up Base Camp and get that all hooked into your Garmin account and happy while plugged into your device. You can even try a few Birdseye downloads to test things out. You can load your device and get a feel for how all that works. DO NOT TRY AND DO MORE THEN ONE THING AT ONCE. So first plug in your device and WAIT for Base Camp to read it all into its files. You will see bards loading until its all finished. ONLY THEN should you start a BIRDSEYE DOWNLOAD. Then WAIT FOR IT TO FINISH ALL DOWNLOADS BEFORE YOU LOAD THE DEVICE.

Your 128 GB mem card will not work yet, so dont install yet.

Thats it for this first installment of how to use Base Camp to load 128GB of maps. Once all the above is ready to go, your ready to start loading things. BUT. Its very specific things in order and you gotta follow the steps for it all to work.

I will continue this in the next day or so.

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COMPLAINT.. ALL the INSANITY LEVEL COMPUTER NINJA SKILLS REQUIRED ABOVE WOULD BE UNNESSARY *IF* GARMIN SUPPORTED exFAT, HAD A MODERN VERSION OF BASE CAMP COMPILED IN THIS DECADE. PAID FOR FASTER SERVERS AND SUPPORTED LARGER SELECTION SETS ON BIRDSEYE.

  • 0 over 7 years ago
    While I sense your frustration with BirdsEye I run BaseCamp on both Win7 and Win10 and hardly ever experience a lock up. Having said that I haven't downloaded BirdsEye for years and certainly not the quantity you're after. Best of luck with your project.
  • 0 over 7 years ago
    Best of luck with your project.


    Well thank you :)

    Im really experienced doing this and as its taken me years to perfect it, I thought I would share as I think Base Camp in its current incantation will be around a while. So its limitations are most likely here to stay. What i have figured out works perfectly and in one pass, with zero lock ups, can download all the Birdseye topo and sat images in one go. Its tricky tho, but, I have figured out work around methods worth sharing. One of the real big ones is NEVER do more then one thing at a time. Hook up the 64st and let Base Camp load it. Put the SD card directly into the computer, NOT THE 64st, and let Base Camp load it too. Only then do you start downloading Birdseye. Then download ALL birdseye selections.. DO NOT disconnect the device under any circumstance while its downloading and activating. Once its 100% finished downloading you then send the birdseye downloads to the memory card YOU HAVE STUCK IN THE COMPUTER. You DONT load the card when its in the 64st. You leave the 64st plugged in USB but you place the SD card directly into the computer.

    I will go over all this step by step in part 2. :)

    This can load a entire state in birdseye topos and sat images onto one huge card. It works perfectly. The only downside is a 5 minute ( forever ) initial boot time from power on to being usable.

    In the weeks ahead, I might try a 256GB card out and see how that goes. I am worried I might run into some limit in the number of files or something. Its initial loading time suggests im WAY WAY over any normal limit Garmin ever dreamed someone would be crazy enough to do. So im way out where no one has gone before. If each Birdseye 231MB max square has about 20,000 indiv files in it and I have 1000 squares, thats 20 MILLION indiv files the 64st might be indexing or something. There might be some upper limit like 32 million or 64 million. I might run out of battery before it loads ! hahaha..

    BUT, this does work fine out to 128MB. So I want to document it for others :) Not that anyone else is crazy enough to actually do this.

    One thing Garmin could do easily to greatly help. Currently the download server is capped at 1 Mbps avg. They use Akamai Technologies for this and its VERY easy to raise this per user limit. https://www.akamai.com/ This would GREATLY help people downloading Birdseye. 1 Mbps is 1980's speeds. I get 100Mbps from free servers. So they need to address this IMHO.

  • 0 over 7 years ago
    On to part 2... Its all about patience..

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    SD Card formatting. Large SD cards come with exFAT formatting. Garmin does not recognize this format. In addition you cant use your computer to format a large card with FAT32 because its not recommended. Garmin again is stuck in the 1990s and the entire world moved to exFAT long ago.

    You need to put the card directly into your computer. With the laptop I use, it has a SD slot for it. You can also use a USB SD card adapter. LOTS of people make these, they are cheap and ive found all I have tested worked for our use. You will have the micro SD card in a little adapter to make it SD possibly as well. Your computer will see the card once you insert it and your good to go.

    Start up MiniTool Partition Wizard FREE that you downloaded and installed above. Click "Launch free tool"..

    Locate the SD card. This is easiest by simply looking for a disc of the size of your card. Like 128GB. In the area where there is a horiz bar showing how much free space there is, RIGHT click. Click format. Click on the drop down box "file system" and choose "FAT32". Click OK. The window will go away. Click the "Apply" button in the upper left of the program. A warning will appear, click OK. It will change the format to FAT32.

    This next part is optional, but, I HIGHLY recommend it. I do a careful "long" format of the card at this point to be REALLY sure its in good shape and not corrupt in any way before I load data that will take a month. Close Partition Wizard. Right click the Windows Start button, pick Windows Explorer. RIGHT click the SD card. Click format. UNCHECK the quick format box. Click start.. This will take 20 mins. The end result will be a very clean and tested SD card.

    I would reboot before proceeding. Just good practice.

    Make sure NOTHING is connected to the computer. No Garmin device or SD card. Let Windows settle and start up Base Camp. Let Base Camp settle. DOUBLE CHECK NOTHING ELSE IS RUNNING ON THE COMPUTER. I even disable Windows Update.

    Plug in the computer to the router. TURN OFF WiFi to be sure its using the wired Ethernet.

    Plug in the Garmin device and plug in the SD card. This will take quite a while while Base Camp pulls all the existing maps out of the Garmin.

    DO NOT PROCEED UNTIL IT HAS FINISHED. There wont be any progress bars in the "Devices" section on the upper left side of Base Camp.

    *** Optional/advanced ***

    I remove the installed topo maps on the 64st. I install a way better Topo using Birdseye and the 24K. This is tricky as you need to use windows file explorer and delete the file. When you first plug in the 64st Base Camp starts loading the preinstalled Topo. Initially it has a number in the listing. Thats later replaced with the actual name of the topo as Base Camp loads it. The file you need to delete is one with this number shown while loading. So you might need to unplug and replug the 64st and wait for that number. Open Windows Explorer by right clicking Start. Look for "Garmin GPSMAP 64st" in the drive listings. Expand that and you will see a Garmin folder. Click that and on the right a number of files will be visible. You will be looking for files with the exact number you found in the previous step. Delete all this files with that number being careful to only delete files with that exact number. There should be 2 or 3. One is a IMG, one a UNL and one a GMA. Unplug and turn on the 64st to verify the preinstalled topo is gone. replug the 64st into Base Camp and let it settle. The preinstalled Topo is no longer listed.

    The reason for the above step is to free up a bunch of internal space on the device. I use the internal drive for City Navigator and other maps. I use the SD for Birdseye.

    *** end of optional step ***

    The left hard window should now show your Garmin device and also show the SD card.

    At this point I load my purchased map products. There are lots of guides on how to do this already here. But you click on Maps>Install Maps from Base Camp top menus. You can choose to install each one on the 64st or on the SD card. You have a drop down menu that allows you to choose. I install Citi navigator and the 24K topo on the 64st. But you can put them on the SD card if you want. I have some 3rd party maps I also install at this point, and I also install them on the 64st and leave the SD card open.

    Also at this point I copy over some GPX files. I use Windows Explorer and just drop them directly into the 64st Garmin>GPS folder. This will cause a error when Base Camp reads the device when you plug it in. The error just warns you there are files there it did not put there, they work great and it causes no issues.

    At this point you should have EVERYTHING installed except Birdseye. I would reboot plugging in the Garmin after reboot and let it all load. This will now take a LOT longer as you have now got way more maps in the Garmin unit to load. It will sync the Garmin unit to Base Camp copying ALL the files to the computer.

    *** MAKE SURE *** you let it finish this step. It might take 30 mins to load everything. You know its done when there are no more progress bars and each map has its proper name..

    ________________________________________________

    At this point your about to start into a process that will take a month to complete. Get the computer into a position where it can work undisturbed for weeks where no one will bother it. Make sure your hooked up wired to the router and wifi is turned off. Make SURE the Garmin device is plugged in USB and the SD card is plugged in. Make sure you see both in Base Camp.

    These next steps are easy. Just incredibly time consuming and stunningly tedious.

    Click Birdseye from the Base Camp top menu.
    Click Download Birdseye Imagery
    This stuff will want you to log in and verify your subscription
    It will show your "available device" - which is your Garmin unit - not the SD card. Ignore avaliable space on this window.
    Click Next. It will want you to login.
    Then it will have a drop down box. Pick which imagery your going to do. In this example "Satellite Imagery V2".
    Click continue..
    A new window pops up.
    ** You MUST create a UNIQUE name for "Save Imagery As". I just start with a1 and the next one is a2, a3,, You MUST use different names for each one. I recommend a different prefix for each type of map. So if its Birdseye Topo then Topo1,Topo2, Topo3, etc. Sat images would be sat1, sat2, sat3...
    Set the "detail level" to highest

    You then use the top 5 little buttons to draw a box or area on the map. This is the area it will download. These boxes are limited to 231MB for the sat images. These will seem tiny. You can zoom and pan using the little buttons in the window. Pick a spot to start and realize you will repeat the above steps 1000 times and slowly draw boxes over the entire state.

    Click download. It will start downloading the first box. At 1Mbps it will take like 30mins per box.

    This will seem impossible. At first it will be horribly daunting. BUT it wont be as bad as you think, its mindless work you can do as you go in the weeks ahead in spare time.

    If your box is too big a warning will appear. I make about the same size boxes.

    ***>>> OVERLAP YOUR BOXES <<<*** Overlap your boxes by a small amount. Base Camp is not precise and can leave gaps. So ALWAYS OVERLAP YOUR BOXES..

    SO you repeat the above steps slowing drawing more boxes to cover all the areas you want.. Its incredibly tedious and time consuming but its the ONLY way.

    You will quickly develop a rhythm and its just repetition. Go as long as you can in each pass until your eyes cross so you can leave the computer downloading for days at a time. They will queue and one download will lead to the next,,, The blue boxes will be filled in with sat images.

    during this you might get asked if you want to send images to the device after download - DO NOT DO THIS

    also you may get a error saying "Images failed to download" pick the option "Use as is" and DO NOT load to device.

    _________________________________________________________________________

    You can click on any of the indiv downloads in the lower section on the left of base camp and see where it is on the map. The one it is downloading will have a progress bar.

    If you double click a item in the list it will show you a lot of detail. You can see it downloading indiv files. You can see if any failed.

    IF you end up with any failed files you can RIGHT CLICK and "download failed images again"

    I will cover how to handle the lists ( library ) in the next part. I like to end up with Topos on one list and sat on another.

    ________________________________________________________________


    So thats it for Part 2. You should now have a sore hand and clicking finger from drawing boxes and the computer is downloading a huge list of images.

    >>** DO NOT INTERRUPT THIS **<< -- LET THIS GO UNTIL >EVERY< Blue box is finished. DO NOT stop or pause it. DO NOT attempt to load the device until its ALL finished. If you dont wait for it all to be finished it can result in a corrupted Base Camp and a loss of your work. > DO NOT DISCONNECT THE GARMIN DEVICE DURING THIS PROCESS <

    Next up is Part 3. Loading the SD card... I will do this in the next few days...




  • 0 over 7 years ago
    Once your done downloading, the next step is backup. Choose this from the Base Camp menu.. Let it backup on C and then copy this over to your external drive for external safe keeping. You can also backup each time its caught up downloading. just make CERTAIN its not doing ANYTHING else before you backup. and MAKE CERTAIN the backup is complete before moving on to other steps.

    Base Camp CANNOT do more then one thing at a time, so, never tell it to do more then one thing at a time
  • 0 over 7 years ago
    Part 3.. Loading the SD card..
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    At this point your downloads will have finished. Hopefully without any failed downloads. I would suggest right clicking on each of the download items in the lower left hand section of Base Camp to VERIFY there are no failed downloads. If you have failed downloads that can lead to weirdness. This process might involve right clicking on 1000 items and might take days by itself.

    If you have failed downloads, click the download again option. If they fail again refer to the "trouble shooting" section I will do shortly.

    As I mention above, time for a backup. Doing this will take a LONG time and it will seem that Base Camp has locked up as there will be no indicator its working. In fact windows will tell you the program is "not responding". It IS working. Just be patient. Just leave it running. It will eventually be done.

    Once its finished with the backup its time to load the SD card.

    I close Base Camp.. Takes forever to close.. Will say not responding.. Just wait.. It WILL close.. Once its closed, unplug the Garmin unit from USB. Reboot the computer.

    After it reboots, start up base camp. Let it settle. Make sure nothing starts downloading. This will really confirm everything is done..

    Give this a good 5 minutes at least.

    Once its settled and done doing everything, plug back in the Garmin Unit.

    This might take a while as its syncs up with the Garmin maps. Wait for the progress bars to finish loading..

    You should already have the SD card plugged in and ready.

    Right click on "Birdseye Imagery" in the upper left hand pane of base camp. This will take a minute to even come up. When it comes up click send to. This will again take a minute to come up. Pick the SD card. Base camp will then seem to lock up and will again become "not responding". Its fine, just let it work. This will take like 10 minutes before the next prompt. You will then choose your device. There will only be one listed. Click ok. There will then be another HUGE long "not responding" seemingly locked up wait. It then might say "Some Birdseye maps have been activated and will be loaded, but some could not be activated and will be loaded as reduced resolution". Im not sure what this means but it seems to load them all fine anyway.

    It will then lock up for a LONG time with Windows showing "not responding". Like a hour. Not to fear, it is working. Just leave it. The Base Camp window will say "Not Responding" Ignore it and just be patient..

    After a LONG time, it will suddenly become responsive again and the progress bar showing its transferring data to the SD card will start going. This process will take a long time. The progress bar will go to the end and repeat, so there is no way to use it to tell how long this will take. Just let it run. Expect it to do this for hours.

    Eventually a green check mark will appear on the SD card folder.

    Your done !!

    Unhook the Garmin device from the USB. Remove the MicroSD card from the adapter. Insert the MicroSD card into the Garmin device. Turn it on and **WAIT** as it boots. It will say "Loading Waypoints, tracks and routes" for a LONG LONG time. It will eventually proceed and FOR ME has always landed on a error page "Invalid JNX file" however I have no way to locate which one ( or more ) it is so I cant fix it. It might not actually be a error tho. So im not sure. But for me at least its normal and does not SEEM to cause any issues.

    _____________________________________________________________________

    Next up... Part 4 - troubleshooting...

  • 0 over 7 years ago
    I want to stop and reflect for a minute.. The above shows a highly dysfunctional software package in many different respects. The ENTIRE process above should really be

    1. Install Base Camp 2 into any drive / directory you want. ONLY that drive/directory is used for storage and temp files.
    2. Install a 256GB/512GB SD card in Garmin device
    3. Start Base Camp 2
    4. Select any size area - get prompted how much card space is required. Click OK
    5. Download takes a day or less and server can do 100Mbps-300Mbps.
    5. Maps are auto loaded onto card.

    This is what SHOULD happen. Base Camp is a LONG LONG way from this and is close to unusable as detailed above.

    Base Camp is really a 1990's program written for Windows XP thats really never been updated and has a lot of bugs and issues. Its also unstable on modern versions of windows. Ive NEVER gotten it to work fully when downloading lots of Birdseye images using Windows 8/10. It will eventually lock up and then corrupt files and i have to uninstall and reinstall and start new. This will again lock up and i have spent months trying to get a full state worth of Birdseye and never had it work. Windows 7 Pro however works. The way Birdseye causes 100% CPU usage thats so intense that Windows thinks its "not responding" is a major issue. This eventually leads to corrupt files for many people because they think its locked up as its locked up the whole computer and made it unusable. The user then forces the computer to shutdown and Base Camp files get corrupt.

    Base Camp is a huge mess and really needs a whole redo.

    Putting the Birdseye files on a server that can do 100Mbps+ would make a huge difference. NO ONE has 1Mbps download speeds for anything i know of. Gaming servers typically do 300Mbps now for example. These speeds need to be increased and thats easy to do.

    My next section will cover the problems ive found and how to work around them. Some things I dont know ways around them, some I have figured out.

  • 0 over 7 years ago
    Part 4 - Troubleshooting
    _____________________________________________________________

    Base Camp locks up.
    _____________________________________________________________

    This is the most common thing I run into. There are several places this happens. There are also seeming random lockups.

    First remember that Base Camp can take FOREVER on some tasks and might SEEM to lock up, but its not really locked up. It causes windows to show "Not Responding" and will cause the whole computer to appear to lock up. This occurs no matter how powerful your computer is. It will lock up 8 core CPUs clocking at 5Ghz with 16GB of ram. I have not explored what exactly is causing this. Its obviously something written wrong. Maybe its some REALLY old code written before there were multi core CPUs. BUT remember most likely its not really locked up. You need to be patient and NEVER force it closed.

    It can be actually locked up. As sometimes it takes a hour to do something in its "not responding" state it can take a while to know if its really locked up. If it is really locked up DO NOT CTL-ALT-DEL and terminate it. This will for sure lead to corrupted files and you loose everything most likely resulting in having to reinstall as well and deleting all files. CLICK the close button and wait. Usually it will close. It might pop up a window saying its unresponsive, dont force it. Let it close on its own or you will corrupt things. Once its closed, reboot the PC. Then start it back up and try it again. This usually works.

    I try and reboot between steps. Remember when rebooting to unplug the Garmin device first. Then reboot. Let windows settle. Then start Base camp, let that settle. Then plug in your Garmin device and let that load and settle ( 20 mins ) and then go back to what you were doing.

    _______________________________________________________________

    Birdseye images failed downloading
    _______________________________________________________________

    This one is vexing. Ive seen a few variations.

    First, try rebooting. Unplug garmin. Close base camp. Reboot. Open base camp. Plug in garmin, wait for it to fully load, try again.

    You can watch Birdseye downloads by double clicking the item in the lower left pane. It will show total/completed/failed/remaining. Watching this can be enlightening. So far I have found issue here were 100% network related. Latency or packet loss related. Base Camp leaves very little time as a time out and if your latency is high, the indiv files fail immd. A high overall latency will cause ALL the images to fail downloading. Your only choice then is a different ISP. Ive never gotten DSL based connections to work consistently. For me only Cable based or fiber work. Also wifi plays havoc with this. WiFi shows up as like 100 images out of 13000 failed. So Images that fail downloading for me have all been network related latency/packet loss caused by a bad ISP or wifi. OF COURSE Garmin is to blame here as its download protocol is so poor there is nothing to make it retry connections.

    Ive seen a really weird thing a few times. It will grab 1 image and then fail all the rest. i think this was also network related as I moved to a different network and it was fine.

    One thing to try if its really not working is to delete the square and draw a new one and see if that fixes it, it has helped for me.

    _____________________________________________________________

    Device not authorized
    _____________________________________________________________

    No idea what causes this. But it can be a huge issue. This occurs if you dont have the Garmin device plugged in at ALL times. Like if you unplug it once and replug it. It somehow then gets confuzed. Garmin does authorization a few times and sometimes this gets wacky. The first thing to try is reboot and do the usall unplug, stop base camp, reboot, start, wait, plug in, wait and try again.

    The bad news on this error is ive had it where I needed to delete squares i drew and redraw them so it checks auth again. Then it downloads and loads into the device fine.

    _____________________________________________________________

    Base Camp see SD card, loads it fine. Cant see maps on Garmin device
    _____________________________________________________________

    Format on card is wrong. Go back up above and reformat the card for FAT32 and then reload the card.



    ___________________________________________________________

    Invalid JPX file when you boot Garmin device
    ___________________________________________________________

    Once of the zillion files you loaded is corrupt and/or has incorrect/missing auth for the device. There is no way to know what file it is. I DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO HERE. There is no log or anyway I know of to know what file needs to be fixed.




  • 0 over 7 years ago
    So... Im done with my survival guide. Thats everything i know and thats how to load 128GB/256GB of maps into a 64st. This WORKS. It does require a extreme level of computer ninja skills, but it works.

    Its also a sad state of affairs that it requires this. It should be 5 simple steps that requires 5 minutes of user interaction and a few hours of download time but because Garmin has chose to not significantly update Base Camp in 15 years this requires 10-20 HOURS of user interaction and a MONTH of download time along with a dedicated computer and use of a outdated OS.

    I hope this guide helps others, its taken me years of trial and error to figure out what works.
  • 0 over 7 years ago
    A few tricks.. and some unanswered questions.

    I use Teamviewer on the dedicated computer I use for Base Camp. This allows me to check on it and work on it from any other computer. It provides a remote desktop.

    Base Camp uses way more space then it needs to disc wise. Its currently using 410GB for 120GB of stuff on a SD card. As I mentioned previously, when you sent things to the SD card, it doubles the space in use as it creates a duplicate file before transferring it and does not delete after its done. Also it seems to keep a separate copy of the whole SD card when it reads it in when you connect a device. It also does not delete this later either. Base Camp has no clean up options to delete cache or anything either. So I think a safe way to look at HD space required is 4-5 TIMES more space is required then the biggest mem card you intend to use. So realistically a C: drive of at least 1-2TB is realistic.

    I think it might be wise to make a backup, then completely uninstall Base Camp and delete ALL files from everywhere including removing registry entries, then installing new and restoring from backup now and then to really clean up and keep things from getting corrupt. I think this is most likely best practice with a program this buggy and based on such old code.

    I would like to figure out if there is any way I can somehow take what I download and move it to a new or different Garmin device and activate it on that device. Right now you just have to start all over again with each device and this is horrible. I would really like to figure out if there is a way to move everything, including Birdseye maps, over to a new device without downloading it all again.

    I would like to figure out how to find a "invalid JNX" file.

    If there are new Birdseye map updates, how do I update what I already have ? Do I have to download it all again ? Or is there a way to update what i have ?

    Is there a upper limit to the number of Birdseye images I can have on my 64st ? I know I can do a States worth and about 128GB, not sure beyond that.

    Can I use a SD card larger then 128GB ? There is a 128GB FAT32 limit for some devices. BUT. Can I format higher ? I have not tried. OR Can I create 2 128GB partitions on one SD card and will Base Camp see both and will the 64st use both ?

    Is BaseCamp so old its single threaded ? That would get back to Win 95. I only see one CPU core really being used with basecamp. That would explain alot of the performance issues.
  • 0 over 7 years ago
    Sorry but I seem to have none of the issues you have, apart from an (very) occasional lock up. Maybe you have a system issue.

    Caveat to that is that I'm not downloading masses of BirdsEye, nor using sd cards over 32 GB