HELP Garmin Nuvi 1690

I just tried updating the software on my 1690 this evening and am getting the same problem. I got the "Software Update Complete" pop-up, with the instructions saying: -- "1. "Disconnect your device from your computer and let it restart. Do not turn it on or off until it returns to the main screen,* because that may cause your device to become inoperable."

I did exactly what it said; however, the thing never restarted. It just hung with the "LOADER LOADING..." message showing at the top. I have updated the software before. The "LOADER LOADING..." message displayed for a few minutes and it restarted by itself. This time, however, it just stuck on the "LOADER LOADING..." message. It's been like that for 3/4 hour now.

I recently used it for a 1600 mile trip (each way). I noticed that the thing started to take longer and longer to start up. When I first bought it, it would start up in less than a minute (30 seconds or so). After my trip, the thing started to take a good 5-6 minutes to start up -- and taking longer and longer to start (it seems) on each passing day. Is there a connection?

The thing would also crash now and then while I was driving. The screen would just go blank. One time it would not start working again untill after I held the power switch down for 10 seconds -- to force a restart.

Yet one more to the list my 1690 is locked up now after the update. just keeps saying loader loading... Anyone know how to fix it?

:(

New developments since my last post...

The following worked for me; however, I cannot say if it will work for anyone else.

IMPORTANT: Because of the limit of 10,000 characters to a single post, this post is in TWO (2) PARTS.

PART 1 OF 2:

While trying to figure out whether or not my nuvi 1690 was now an expensive paperweight, I decided to read the User Guide and see if there was anything in there that I can try that may indicate if it was truly dead or if there was any spark of life still in the device.

I found the procedure for calibrating the screen, which involves touching the upper left corner during re-boot and getting the white calibration screen to show, which displays black dots that move around the screen that you have to touch. I was able to successfully re-calibrate the screen, after which the device re-booted. However, during the re-boot process, the "LOADING LOADER..." message showed up and the device hung again.

Believe it or not, this was an encouraging sign for me. I now knew that the device was still alive. So, I did some more searching and found some hits on the German Garmin forums. Even though I do not know German, I decided to check one of them out, anyway, at: https://forum.garmin.de/showthread.php?t=4034

To my surprise, some of the responses were in English -- one of which described placing the device in "Pre-Reboot Mode" using a procedure that was similar to how you get the device into "Screen Calibration mode".

Thinking back, I recalled being able to get my computer to recognize the device as new hardware when it was plugged into the USB port. The procedure used for putting the device into "Pre-Reboot Mode" was describing something similar, but not exactly the same.

One thing, though, is that after getting the computer to recognize the device as new hardware, it eventually failed to successfully install the new hardware. The device simply continued with its normal reboot and eventually re-displayed and hung on the infamous "LOADER LOADING..." message.

Since I could not ever get the device to be recognized (and STAY recognized) by my PC, my options seemed limited and I most likely would not be able to go into any of the folders (treating the nuvi 1690 as if it were a mere flash/thumb drive), as described in the German procedure, and delete the file it was telling me to delete, which seemed a kind of scary thing to do anyway.

This is (from the German forums) the original procedure for putting the nuvi 1690 into "Pre-Reboot Mode", which I did not use:

1. Verify that the device is powered off and disconnected from the computer.

2. Then press and hold the power button.

3. While the device is booting up, press and hold the upper left corner of the screen.

4. You will not see any prompt or indication that says 'Pre-Boot Mode', but this will put the device into Pre-Boot Mode.

5. Then plug the device into the computer via USB cable, and this should enable recognition between the computer and the device.

As I explained above, the principle problem I had with this procedure is that it conflicted with that which I experienced during all of my prior experimentation -- i.e. my computer was never able to successfully (fully) recognize the nuvi 1690 as any kind of legitimate hardware, flash drive or anything. It was as if nothing was plugged in. Furthermore, Step #5 seemed repugnant (to me) and seemed not applicable to what I needed.

So, based on all my past experimentation and learning how the device behaved when plugging it into the computer, powering it OFF/ON while still plugged in, etc., I decided to try this variation of the procedure described next (with the object of getting the moving green bar to show at the bottom of the nuvi 1690's screen that precedes successful recognition of the device and the familiar B & W icon showing the device connected to a PC):

1. Start this procedure by using method "a" or "b", below:

(a) verify that the device is powered OFF and DISCONNECTED from the computer, or;
(b) powered OFF if still connected to the computer.

Note: Try one or the other method for starting this procedure. If one does not work for you, try the other.

2. Press and hold the upper left corner of the screen and apply constant pressure until the step when it says it is okay to let go. (A variation would be to try applying pressure to the upper left corner of the screen immediately AFTER the device starts to reboot, instead of before starting the reboot.)

3. If using starting procedure "a" (above), plug the device into the USB port. The device should turn ON and start booting. If using starting procedure "b", press and hold the power button until the device turns ON. From this point on, the remaining steps of this procedure are the same no matter how you started.

3. While the device is booting up, keep pressing the upper left corner of the screen. Do not let go.

4. You will not see any prompt or indication that says "Pre-Boot Mode".

5. Hopefully, if everything goes your way, the "LOADER LOADING..." message will not show. Instead, the familiar green bar will start to show at the left bottom part of the nuvi 1690's screen. When this happens, let go of the upper left corner of the screen.

6. Allow the green bar to progress all the way across the bottom of the screen, from left to right. After this happens, the familiar icon showing the device connected to a PC should finally show. Then, wait 10 to 30 seconds before doing the next step, to make sure that the computer has fully recognized the device.

7. Go to myDashboard. You should get the "Scanning For Devices" message, after which you get the message "Please select a device to manage:" message with a "Please Select" dropdown box and a "Continue" button beneath it.

8. Select your nuvi 1690 device and click the "Continue" button.

9. A new screen should display with the "Software Updates" box. It should show that there are software updates.

10. Go ahead and install the software updates. (For me, the re-install of the software updates was quick, taking only a minute or so.)

11. If all is still going well, you should eventually get the "Software Update Complete" message with a pop-up window saying: "You must restart your device for the update to take effect."

At this point, I will describe (in the second post -- i.e. PART 2 OF 2) the remainder of the procedure according to my personal experiences, which may vary from what you may experience (if you have experienced any of what I have written so far).

PART 2 OF 2:

After LOGICALLY removing the device from the computer (by clicking "safely remove hardware" in my system tray) and getting the "Safe to Remove Hardware" message, the device seemed to start rebooting on its own. While the device was rebooting, I PHYSICALLY unplugged the device from the USB port. However, within a minute, the screen just went blank -- as if it was turned off. So, I waited.

After a few minutes, it seemed that it was not going to turn back ON (assuming that the thing had not crashed while showing a blank screen while still being ON).

Instead of touching the power switch, I decided to just plug the device back into my computer's USB port. To my surprise, the device turned ON and the familiar green bar started moving across the bottom of the screen. After a couple minutes, the icon showing the device connected to a PC displayed and my computer was recognizing the device again.

I clicked the "DONE" button on the "Software Update Complete" pop-up window in my browser.

Interestingly, myDashbored still showed that there were software updates. So, what the heck, I told myDashboard to install the software updates again. Besides, it seemed that I was making some kind of progress, anyway -- especially considering that the "LOADER LOADING..." was no longer displaying.

Again, reinstalling the updates was quick, only taking a minute or so.

After getting the "Software Update Complete" message with a pop-up window saying: "You must restart your device for the update to take effect.", I LOGICALLY removed the device from the computer (by clicking "safely remove hardware" in my system tray) and getting the "Safe to Remove Hardware" message. The device, again, rebooted on its own.

Important: This time, instead of physically unplugging the device from the USB port, I left it plugged in and physically connected to my computer!

This second time, the "LOADER LOADING..." did not display at all. (Happy I was.) Instead, the green bar started moving across the bottom of the screen. This was a good sign -- I hoped.

Then, I got the "Loading maps" message at the bottom of the screen for a few minutes.

The MAIN SCREEN displayed with the "Where TO?" and "View Map" icons.

Could my device be cured? Only one way to find out!

I physically unplugged the device from the USB port. And, with the external power disconnected, I got the familiar question popping up that asked whether I wanted to turn the unit OFF or keep it ON. I touched the "turn off" icon, and the unit powered off.
With the device powered OFF, I physically re-connected the device to my computer.

The device turned ON and the green bar, once again, started moving across the bottom of the screen.

After a couple minutes, the familiar B & W icon showing the device connected to a PC displayed.

I again clicked the "DONE" button on the "Software Update Complete" pop-up window in my browser.

Success! This time, the "Software Updates" box on MyDashboard showed a GREEN check and the happy phrase, "Your software is currently up to date."

I then logically disconnected the device via the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in my system tray. After the "Safe to Remove Hardware" message displayed, the device rebooted on its own and the main screen displayed with the two icons "Where TO?" and "View Map".

I physically unplugged the device from the USB port and, again, the "Power Off" and "Stay On" buttons showed. I pressed the "Power Off" button.

The device shut down without incident.

I pressed the power switch and it started to reboot. Surprisingly, now it only took 1 minute to reboot and display the main screen (before it was taking 4-5 minutes!).

After getting the software updates installed and the device working again, the one new behavior that I do not like is that the speaker makes a constant hissing sound with strange occasional beeping noises splatter in -- kind of like the sounds coming from the speaker in the "Independence Day" movie at the beginning of the flick. Before the software update, the speaker did not do this. It was completely silent. I have the volume at 50%, as I did before.

I turned the device off and rebooted and it still happens. Other than this annoying new behavior, my nuvi seems to be working again.

Thank-you for you hard work. I had the same problem and your directions worked perfectly. Only change was that I had to physically disconnect after using the normal "remove device" icon. Other units were doing the same thing and apparently using the "remove device" icon is key to make everything work right. Again, thank-you for your work, it made my day!!!!!

I bought a 1690 a few days ago and initially had trouble getting my Windows 7 pc to recognize the device. Turns out I just needed to replace the mini-USB cable which I had been using on various cameras and my Edge 305 successfully. For some reason, it would not work on the 1690.

The 1690 would show that it was charging, but I could not get the device to show in Windows Explorer until I replaced the cable. I didn't use the included mini-USB cable because it is too short in my application.

FWIW, I also bought the ecoRoute HD device and plugged it into the OBD port on my truck. It paired up to the 1690 with ease and works great!

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Expanded speedometer:
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ecoRoute HD gauges: (there are more options, but these are what I had selected at the time of the screenshot)
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Genius! This worked on my 1490T - although I did have to physically disconnect. This would have been the THIRD 1490T that bricked on me, and this brought it back to life.

Thanks! This got me out of the same problem with my 1370T! I think I may have triggered it when I first clicked to download the new software and the process got to the point that Garmin said to disconnect and restart the device. I had gone to the "safely remove hardware", had clicked to safely remove the Garmin, and it came back with the "can't remove." because something else was using the device. Well, I unplugged anyway and got into the problem..

I tried all the steps above and some variations and I still get the loader loading screen of death....
According to the Web-Updater I am trying to go from software version 3.6 to version 3.7, but according to my GPS unit I still have version 3.5??
Has anyone else experienced this and was Garmin tech support helpful????
Everytime I try and install the update I end up having to delete the GUPDATE.GCD file to get my GPS to reboot.

Thanks for your help!!!!!

Thanks so much Twillightgleaming for all your help. my Garmin would have been a paper weight without your help. :) Jena 61