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(Solved) Garmin Drive 52 obsolete after less than 12 months!

The TLDR for this issue is that there were some huge files in the folder .System/SID/ which had eaten up all the free space in the device. I deleted the earliest group of these files (all dated 2022) and gained about a gig of free space, allowing the Garmin Express to update the device normally. I expect I shall have to repeat this operation before every update.

After struggling to get my Garmin Drive 52 with lifetime maps updated, I eventually found a log file which shed some light on the reason. But unfortunately, it means that my Garmin Drive 52 has become obsolete within 12 months. The reason is that there are some files which MUST be stored internally, and hence even adding an SD card doesn't help the situation. The Drive 52 internal memory is 4 GB, and once it's full, then it cannot accept any more updates. I've tried deleting everything that can reasonably deleted, but it hasn't helped at all.

The log file I found resides in Library/Application Support/Garmin/Express and is named Service_<date and time>.txt, and is easily read using TextEdit.

Here you can see Garmin Express struggling to find space on the internal drive, before giving up. Note that I've trimmed date/time information off the start of each line:

AutomotiveOEM rule does not apply. Device is not an AutomotiveOEM device.
AutomotiveOEM rule does not apply. Device is not an AutomotiveOEM device.
Under2GBRule rule does not apply. No region will fit internally.
Internal install rule does not apply. The update does not fit internally.
Adding software file to locale: en size: 2344764
Adding software file to locale: en size: 2054716
Total size of software to remove: 0
Total size of additions to ignore: 0
Required size to allow auto-deletion of unnecessary languages: 1661119256
Total size of all language pack files: 4399480
Size of largest language pack: 4399480
LanguagePack rule does not apply. Map will not fit even if all language files except one are removed.
Not enough space to fit additional files internallySDRule does not apply. There is not enough internal room to fit all internal only files.SupplementalMaps1 does not apply. Device does not support this protocol.
Smaller region rule does not apply. No region will fit internally.

[MapUpdate-EU.2024.20-3423278981] Failed with error: Error Domain=RenuErrorDomain Code=103 "The specified map will not fit on the device." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=The specified map will not fit on the device.}

I think the log speaks for itself. The Drive 52 is obsolete after less than a year.

Fortunately, I bought mine as an Xmas present to myself last November, and it's still just in warranty. So I'm taking it back to the shop tomorrow and asking for my money back. I sure hope that someone thinks of a work-around that will allow the SD card to be used to store all files on the device.

The sad thing is that I really like Garmin sat-navs, and I'm more sad than angry, so I'll probably use the money to buy another one - but with a much bigger internal memory.

0 SUSSAMB 5 months ago

I don't have your model but I'd be very surprised if the files that need to be stored internally have filled up your device. Have you added anything yourself to the device? When you look at it with Explorer how much free space is reported? You could try deleting all unneeded text, language, vehicle, voice and help files to see if that helps

0 9534007 5 months ago in reply to SUSSAMB

Its size is 3.64MB. I've removed every non-English file I can find, but it's made no difference. You can see from the log file that Express itself looked for files to delete and was unable to find any. I, too, am surprised that 4MB is insufficient. I've looked through the folders, including the hidden folders, and I can't find anything that shouldn't be there, and nothing that could release a significant amount of space.

I suppose I could try moving some of the folders to the SD drive and put symbolic links across to them on the internal drive, but I'm doubtful that will work and since the warranty expires in a few days, I don't have any time to waste experimenting. Also, I don't want to find a solution that will only work for a month or so and find that my return window has closed.

I think this is something that Garmin failed to predict would happen when they designed the Drive 52. I note that they're no longer selling this unit. The Drive 53 has 16MB of internal space.

0 9534007 5 months ago in reply to SUSSAMB

After giving it some more thought over breakfast, I decided I could spent another hour or so on this. I decided to use Disk Utility to check the integrity of the GARMIN drive (it's fine, although the actual size 3.64GB, not 4GB as I reported earlier), and then run the Terminal command "du -h /Volumes/GARMIN/" to measure the size of each folder. This found something that I'd missed before:

2.6G /Volumes/GARMIN//.System/SID

There is a folder full of massive "SID" files, eating up most of the space on my internal drive. Some of them are 200 MB long.

What are these files and can I safely remove them?

Thanks in advance.

Bob

0 SUSSAMB 5 months ago in reply to 9534007

Yes, you can safely remove all but the last dated ones. They are part of traffic trends etc so older ones aren't required.

0 9534007 5 months ago in reply to SUSSAMB

I'm ahead of you there ;-) I deleted any sid files dated 2022 or earlier and made about 1.2 GB of free space. The update worked ok and I'm now back down to about 300 MB of free space. I just need to remember to delete the oldest files before every update, which is a pain but I can live with it.

How can we suggest to Garmin that these sid files should be deleted automatically by Garmin Express?

Incidentally, I used a Hex editor to look at some of the smaller sid files, and they had some plain text at the beginning saying that they contained POI phonetic data, which isn't something I'll ever use. I don't know if they all have the same comment at the start, or even if the data changes to something else at some point later in the files.

Anyway, thanks for your help; it's given my satnav another lease of life.

Bob

0 SUSSAMB 5 months ago in reply to 9534007

You can make suggestions here https://www.garmin.com/en-US/forms/ideas/

Glad you've resolved your issue though.