Maps from many old activities have disappeared

exp137 13 days ago

While revisiting some old activities (like 2013 old) I've noticed that the maps and most details have disappeared. It still has the distance/time/pace/calories & my notes, but everything else is gone. When I try to export to GPX or any other format it simply creates an empty file.

The kicker is that I'm absolutely positive this data previously existed. I've exported at least some of these activities to Google Earth before, and I can still see the route there. While I've downloaded this activity, there are plenty more that I haven't but would like to save.

Is this all permanently gone? Anyone have luck restoring these activities?

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seilogramp 10 days ago +1

My activities date back to 2004, and I spot-checked several, including some from 2013, without finding any missing map data. Have you tried the "export file" function? It creates a zip file of the original…

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0 seilogramp 10 days ago

My activities date back to 2004, and I spot-checked several, including some from 2013, without finding any missing map data. Have you tried the "export file" function? It creates a zip file of the original file, whether it’s in FIT, GPX, or TCX format.

exp137 said:
Is this all permanently gone? Anyone have luck restoring these activities?

If you can export as a fit file, then you can try opening the file in FIT File Viewer

If there are no timestamp records that include latitude and longitude data, then it’s most likely not recoverable.

0 exp137 9 days ago in reply to seilogramp

Thanks so much for the response. I can't export a FIT file (all instructions say to "Export original", but that option doesn't appear). However, when I try to export it as any other format (e.g. tcx) it creates a file titled "activity_0.tcx". Opening this in Excel shows only around a dozen data points, compared to the 1000s for other similar activities.

Just venting, but this is incredibly frustrating.. this means I've lost maybe 20% of my old activities from those couple years, including outings explicitly planned to map areas.

Thanks again for your answer though!

0 seilogramp 9 days ago in reply to exp137

exp137 said:
all instructions say to "Export original"

The term "Export Original" was used years ago, but it’s now been replaced with "Export File," which creates a zip file containing the activity in the exact format it was originally created.

If you’re checking out activities from 2013 and the device was even older, chances are it created TCX files. You can open these in a text editor like Windows Notepad to see raw details like timestamps, coordinates, heart rate, and more. If map data is included, you’ll spot latitude and longitude values.

<Trackpoint>
    <Time>2004-08-29T12:09:30Z</Time>
    <Position>
      <LatitudeDegrees>34.0879400</LatitudeDegrees>
      <LongitudeDegrees>-83.9975600</LongitudeDegrees>
    </Position>
    <AltitudeMeters>319.7760000</AltitudeMeters>
</Trackpoint>

Feel free to zip the activity and attach it so we can take a look.

0 exp137 7 days ago in reply to seilogramp

Thanks for the response. Here's an export of a TCX from one of the activities that's missing the map, and yes, it seems to be missing the coordinates but has the time stamp.

319626221.zip

0 seilogramp 7 days ago in reply to exp137

This appears to be a run from May 28, 2013, recorded on a Garmin Forerunner 405CX, which was first released in 2009. It’s no surprise the file is in TCX (Training Center XML) format. The 405CX used a USB ANT stick connected to a computer to upload data to Garmin Connect or Garmin Training Center. Over the years, Garmin has updated Connect several times, so some data fields may not have transferred perfectly.

I opened the file using notepad and can confirm that there are no "Trackpoints" in the file which would contain the GPS coordinate data to display a map.

It’s a long shot, but if you still have the 405CX or used Garmin Training Center and have a backup of that data, you might be able to recover the GPS information.