When connected to PC or to mobile app, i got a new EPO.bin file. When connected to mac, no new EPO.bin file. When this file is older than 1 week, Satellite aquiering is very long. Why!!!
The EPO.bin file is intended to help speed up satellite acquisition. There is no data in the file that needs to be synced or uploaded.
Shane
Yes, that's what EPO.BIN is for, and those running Express for OS X don't get it:
2014-03-28 16.57.48 (GMT-04:00) | 51719 | I | Looking for GPSData assets... 2014-03-28 16.57.48 (GMT-04:00) | 51719 | I | Skipping GPSData asset because output transfers are not allowed.
(I assume these are the relevant lines from the logs of 3.1.1.0, which I just installed.) Why don't we get EPO.BIN? There are a couple of ways to get it by hand, from mediatek itself or from Garmin's servers by lying and saying "Hey, I'm a Windows machine!", but I'd rather have it done automatically. Why isn't this done by Express, which is the only Garmin software I'm going to use daily? Apparently that's the way it's done on Windows.
The EPO.bin file is intended to help speed up satellite acquisition. There is no data in the file that needs to be synced or uploaded.
Shane
What kind of crap and lame reply is this? This sort of reply is as helpful as a boat in a desert.
Shane probably needs to re-evaluate his knowledge and perhaps it should be done before any further posts on this page, especially when posting under the pre-text of being someone from Garmin Customer Care.
It is clear that this is a functional deficiency that exist on the Mac version of Garmin Express. It works on the PC version and the Mobile version, why not the Mac Version ??? If it is a bug or something that Garmin is still trying to implement in the Mac version, then I'm sure users will understand and appreciate that Garmin is trying to resolve the issue.
But Garmin's failure to even acknowledge such a deficiency is frustrating and is compounded by silly(not to mention useless) replies that make the Garmin technical guys look incompetent and amateurish kids spouting gibberish.
I think a fair bit of Garmin Express for Mac users will appreciate that Garmin clarifies if the Mac version is supposed to be able to "sync" pre-cached satellite data to Fenix/Fenix 2, in a manner similar to that on the Windows/Mobile platforms. And if it is able to do so, what is the status of implementation in Garmin Express for Mac.
I created a simple tool using Applescript called "GetEpo" that downloads the epo.bin file: url removed, because it doesn't work (yet). see below. Unzip and read the text file for instructions.
I created a simple tool using Applescript called "GetEpo" that downloads the epo.bin file: http://1drv.ms/1jFyG6M Unzip and read the text file for instructions.
JAVAWA, I did some testing last night by re-pairing my Fenix 1 with the Garmin Connect iOS app to get the latest EPO.bin, and then comparing with the EPO.bin that I downloaded with the curl from http://www.kluenter.de/garmin-ephemeris-files-and-linux/. There are extra bytes in the latter, and on my Fenix 1 it doesn't speed up acquisition of satellites at all, while the EPO.bin provided by iOS Connect works properly. Did you catch that? You need to throw away the first three bytes, keep 2304 bytes, then throw away the next 3, etc., until then end of file. It doesn't look like a Unicode BOM, so I don't know what it is. Do that, and the EPO.bin I downloaded last night from Garmin's server using the curl and the EPO.bin that came down last night from Connect agree to the byte, for as long as the latter lasts. The Connect file is much smaller (around 4k) than the file you get from the server.
Good observation; I must admit that I didn't check the result... The 3 bytes could be a checksum. I don't get it though; if you omit 3 bytes out of 2307, how is it possible that the file shrinks from 65k to 4k? This needs some further examination...
No, it didn't shrink. The EPO.BIN supplied by the iOS Connect App was 4000+ bytes. The EPO.BIN supplied by the curl is 64000+ bytes. I have no idea why they're so dissimilar. It's possible I didn't wait around long enough for the Bluetooth connection to transfer the file, I suppose. Anyway, at the moment I have the EPO.BIN from curl, piped through a little perl script I threw together to cut out the 3 byte segments, installed on my watch. That seems to work on my Fenix so far; today I turned on the GPS several times and satellite acquisition was much faster than normal. I don't know how long it takes for the information in EPO.BIN to become stale, though.
The reason I looked into it in the first place was that the unmodified EPO.BIN from the curl just wasn't working on my Fenix 1. I also noticed the same initial 3 byte difference from the EPO.DAT (and I assume the subsequent 3 byte differences as well) you can download from mediatek itself. But the file from mediatek is even larger, ~ 275 kbytes. I haven't tried to find any documentation on the structure of the EPO file yet to see how it's laid out or why the differences between the three.
I did a comparison too with the epo.bin from the iOS Connect App. In my case I found the contents of the Connect App generated epo.bin in the curl epo.bin starting at offset 6924, and it's a contiguous block of 1994 bytes. 6924 = 3 * (3 + 2304) + 3, so it's the 4th block in the larger file. Maybe it depends on the location of the device? I'm going to try your method (stripping the 3 bytes) and see whether it works for me or not.
I haven't tried to find any documentation on the structure of the EPO file
