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Two problems to fix: nüvi 56 and Express

Former Member over 5 years ago

1) How do I get Express to make use of the 32GB micro SD card I have installed in my nüvi 56? The nüvi reports only 102MB of storage space left and has made no attempt to use the free space on the SD card. Do I need to do something in Express? Settings on the device? I know the card is a good SanDisk. The device created two folders on the SD card and a file called gmappupdate.gsd and another called Id.txt.

2) Why does the map download take so long? I only have DSL and my expectations are reasonable but approximately eight hours is a lot and I've struggled with this since I bought the Garmin nüvi a few years ago. I know all about the Garmin tech support topic here and nothing has helped. There was one time two years ago that I downloaded a new version of Express and ONE TIME it successfully updated my device in a few hours but before that and since then I've had to let it run overnight. While downloading a map, Express reports a transfer speed of 100kb/s. I closed Firefox, uninstalled Malwarebytes and disabled my real-time virus checking so Express could have my internet connection all to itself with no competition and best it would do is 105kb/s. Next, I ran several different speed tests and they each reported 1.0Mb/s download. There's nothing wrong with my internet connection. I uninstalled Express and re-installed it from the Garmin website with no improvement. This has really become a problem now because I'm getting "there was an error installing the update" crash part-way through the download so no matter how long I wait I can't successfully update the map. I tried downloading the map update to my hard drive using the "hard drive only" option but that crashed part way as well.

Thanks,

Andrew

Lenovo laptop / Intel i3 / Windows 7 Professional / Express 6.21.0.0 / nüvi 56 / 150GB HD free space / 10 GB RAM

0 SUSSAMB over 5 years ago

1. You can't force Express to use the card easily, it will use it when it needs to. If it's not using it for new map files then there is clearly free space on the device itself. Why are you concerned about using the card?

2. Map files don't normally take more than around 30 minutes, but if you've checked the FAQ and feel you're still having issues then your best bet is to contact Product Support so they can do some detailed troubleshooting for you.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to SUSSAMB

Thanks for the reply. Concerning the SD card you clearly answered my question, it will use it when it needs to. I was thinking a lack of internal storage space may be a cause for the download crashing part way.

On one of the previous (failed) attempts to download the map I performed a test to see what would happen to the transfer rate Express reported. I opened Firefox and started streaming a youtube video at the same time Express was downloading. The youtube video played fine, no buffering at 360P resolution and Express still showed 105kb/s. I closed the browser and Express continued to download for a few more hours before it crashed with the error message again.

The map install was successful last night. After approximately five tries, it worked on the sixth. I checked on the progress often and saw the transfer rate was 105kb/s all afternoon through late evening. At one check I saw it progress from Step 1 of 2 - downloading to Step 2 of 2 - installing and the transfer rate Express reported was now 9.5Mb/s! Things were really happening now! I watched the rest of the install go very quickly. The complete map update process took exactly 8h:53m, just under nine hours and that's typical for a map based on previous experience.

0 SUSSAMB over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Then something is wrong, never had a download take anywhere near that time and I've been downloading Garmin maps for around 10 years. Really worth you chatting to Garmin Product Support.