Why do only some of my saved Activities show a Map?

I've just logged in to Garmin Connect after several years (to prevent my data from being deleted. I see a list of my past activities (though it looks incomplete), but when selecting them, only some activities display a map with my recorded activity's track on it. Is there a way to turn on the map for the other activities?

0 trux 1 month ago

As long as the activity was recorded with a GPS track, the map shows up automatically. Could you post a link to one of the activities without a map?

0 thugdrummer 1 month ago in reply to trux

I'm new to Garmin Connect, but as I scroll through my Activities with the left/right arrows, and it's about half of them with no maps. Here's one:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/18523521

0 trux 1 month ago in reply to thugdrummer

Which Garmin watch did you use for recording the run? The activity does not show any device. It shows just the generic icon, with no model details as it is otherwise usual:

Was it logged manually, or imported from a 3rd party app or device? If so, then you have to ask the 3rd party, why the activity file does not contain the full data.

0 thugdrummer 1 month ago in reply to trux

It was a a Forerunner 301 (which is in a drawer somewhere here...). I'm not sure how the data was loaded to Garmin Connect.

0 trux 1 month ago in reply to thugdrummer

That's a 19 years old device!!! Congrats that it still works (at least partially)! However, I know nothing about it, and am not sure it is really fully compatible with Garmin Connect. Perhaps seilogramp or another Garmin veteran user could help.

0 thugdrummer 1 month ago in reply to thugdrummer

Here's one with a map that shows the Forerunner:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/36416761

And here's one with a map that doesn't show the device:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/17524099

0 thugdrummer 1 month ago in reply to trux

Well, those activities were about 20 years ago. I've moved on to cellphone based tracking since, but thought it'd be nice to maintain these records if possible.

0 trux 1 month ago in reply to thugdrummer

I am afraid nobody can tell you today why the GPS data is missing in those old activities. There are several possibilities - missing ephemeris data, no GPS lock, corrupted file, incompatible format, etc. As long as you do not have the original activity files still on the device (or backed them up), nobody can investigate it.

0 thugdrummer 1 month ago in reply to trux

Well thanks for taking a look. I'll plug the thing in and see what is stored on it. The data might be on one of the backups I have from computers I've replaced but lord knows which one.

0 FlowState 1 month ago in reply to thugdrummer

thugdrummer said:
I'm new to Garmin Connect, but as I scroll through my Activities with the left/right arrows, and it's about half of them with no maps. Here's one:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/18523521

For this activity, could you click the gear icon (in the upper right hand corner) and select Export File? This should give you a ZIP file containing the original TCX file recorded by the device. (I know it's a TCX file because I checked in the developer console when I looked at your activity.) (I also noticed that the other activities which have maps were also uploaded as TCX files.)

You can then open that TCX file with https://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ (sorry, couldn't find a more modern site for viewing TCX files). I'm curious whether that site will show a map for that activity or not.

It's interesting because when I look the metadata for your activity in the dev console, it claims that no polyline (GPS) information is available, but there's a separate request for polyline data which returns hundreds of lat/lon points.

So it seems like the location information is in there, but Garmin doesn't want to display it for whatever reason.

It's also interesting to me that the activity with no map also has no charts (while the activities with a map have charts as expected). Is it the same for all your activities that are missing maps?