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Every year the same...

Former Member over 9 years ago

All I want to do is update my trusty Zumo 660 to the newest European maps, covering the countries I regularly ride through.

But it's impossible. Firstly I have to deal with the fact that Garmin Express absolutely fails to NOT use my system SSD drive for the huge downloads (without significant trickery), which is full. Then it provides only extremely limited options for "regions" after downloading the WHOLE map set anyway. And throwing it away when the update fails forcing you to re-download it (without extra trickery).

WHY is it so difficult for you guys (ie, Garmin) to just FIX this rubbish software? It's not like people haven't been complaining about this for YEARS.

More details on my blog (yes, I'm pretty peeved after wasting so much time EVERY SINGLE TIME for something which -should- be a 20 minute job. Current status is still 2hours, 27 minutes; I'm fully expecting it to fail again at some stage though).

http://www.micha.name/blog/2016/04/12/just-a-shout-out-to-my-garmin-map-update-howto-from-last-year/

PS. Yes, I fully expect this post to get moderated, despite the fact that my blog shows people steps on how to actually get around theGarmin software.

PPS. I can't log in to my main forum account despite getting a password reset, which is why I'm using this duplicate account now.

PPPS. To be slightly constructive:

I "get" that you're trying to make your software simple enough to use for the average Redneck. Fine. It works, assuming said Redneck has a computer with enough drive space and also your latest GPS product with sufficient internal storage.

But with only very little effort you can also support your more advanced users and those with more limited computers. While 12GiB of data may not be much these days, the scales shifted with SSD's - those drives are quite small and expensive. And these days VERY common as the primary (ie, C:) drive.

Not asking for much:

Provide an option to override the download location (C:\ProgramData\Garmin\CoreServices\Downloads).
When installing maps to "Computer", just download straight into the destination directory, and unpack the maps there. Why have them on the computer TWICE?
Allow a flexible approach to installing maps. MapInstall still works. Why is it so difficult to roll that functionality into Garmin Express for power users?
Improve the speed. Hours and hours to download and install some map updates is just ridiculous.

0 SUSSAMB over 9 years ago

Express has worked consistently for me for years, admittedly I don't have a SSD, with full downloads completing in around an hour.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

I already acknowledged in my post that it (presumably) works fine if you meet the system assumptions which the software makes. Ie, have lots of space free on C: drive, and a GPS with enough internal storage.

But just do a quick search on Google and you'll find LOTS of people complaining in exactly the same way I just did here. I'm not the only one complaining here, this is an issue for a lot of people, who have complained, yet Garmin does nothing. Presumably because it "works" for most and the rest of us haven't made enough noise to get Garmin to reconsider their strategy. Regardless it doesn't excuse shoddy software design practices IMHO. (I'm a programmer, so I know roughly what I'm complaining about here).

EDIT: eh; rewriting the sentences several times before hitting "Submit" has made them rather awkward now; but you get the gist.

0 mavison over 9 years ago

Express has worked consistently for me for years, admittedly I don't have a SSD, with full downloads completing in around an hour.

That is not my experience. It has only worked first time for me once in the last 3 years or so, and even then it took about 5 hours to download to GPS and computer. I also have a limit on daytime downloads, which means that each restart has to be started after midnight, and the laptop left on overnight. Not everyone has the luxury of a super fast unlimited broadband connection. It is only downloads using 'Express' which cause me problems.

0 SUSSAMB over 9 years ago

Well with limited speed and other ISP restrictions it is bound to take longer. Garmin can't really help you with that.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

I think mavison's point is that each restart starts from scratch, making slow and limited internet even worse than it already is.

Really no excuse to delete already-downloaded data and not providing an option to resume it later. Even better would be to allow downloading the data using a proper download manager (of the users choice) and just perform the unpack/install through the app. If Garmin is concerned about people stealing the map data it's trivial to encrypt it and only allow unpack/install using a certificate retrieved from the server.

You're making excuses here for a shoddy software system. I don't understand why people put so much effort into avoiding perceived blame instead of just accepting there is an issue and fixing the problems. Especially when they are fairly trivial to resolve.

0 EXPRESSCUSTOMERCARE over 9 years ago

mwerle2

Any changes you would like to see made to our software need to be posted to the Garmin Have An Idea? website. These suggestions are sent directly to the developers of our products.

Lisa