Disclaimer:
I am a long term garmin user. Since 14 years I owned several Oregon and GPSMAP devices and used them for cycling. Garmin literally enabled me to find my way. I spent together more than two years on the road, crossing some continents, always with a Garmin device attached to my bicycle.
Since a while I experience issues with my 64s and (barely used) 65s. It seems to be related to (write) access to the non volatile memory (EEPROM, Flash, whatever). Just my impression as an Embedded Software Developer.
I am curious whether I am the only one or anybody can provide advice here. Anybody with similar experiences?
What do I do? I download the map of Germany from Velomap. Then use Basecamp to download it to my device (64s/65s) into the internal memory. I update the map just a few times a year.
I use Overpass-Turbo to search and export e. g. all telephones and post boxes in a city like Berlin. I import the GPX lists into Basecamp and download/send the POIs to the device. (Rough number: 3000 POIs on the device.)
I attach the device to my bicycle, start somewhere, visit all POIs and delete them on the device if they are still present. In the backgorund I record my track. (In parallel I make photos with my smartphone and edit the POIs later in OSM. This step is independent of the device.) Obviously, in a bigger city this keeps me occupied for some weeks.
Some things I noticed, which became more and more annoying:
- The first time, after download/send POIs to the device, the first start takes forever, more than 20 minutes. The device is stuck in the "Loading waypoints..." progress bar. Next start is then normal (less than 30 seconds).
- Device just goes off once or twice a day. It seems to me, this is location related. Maybe caused by the OSM data in some spots. I need to restart my device. But the 65s really crashes in this case. I need to remove the batteries to be able to Reboot. (Yes, I waited also for 10 minutes. Unable to restart by the Power Button.) The 64s is able to perform a fast restart.
- When I reached a POI an delete it from the device in 1 out of 100 or 200 cases, the device goes off/crashes. I need to perform a restart which takes up to 30 minutes. During this time (stuck in "Loading waypoints..." progress bar), I am unable to use the device.
- My 65s looses GPS signal randomly, also under the open sky. This situation goes on for minutes. When I restart, then the "signal" is available again. No, this is not weather related... I have my experience, see above. And no, I am not in Russia... this time.
- Also, it may take minutes after Power On to get a GPS position with the 65s. Like the gathered satellite position data was previously no stored in NVM.
- Use the Track Manager to Store a track takes 5 minutes and keeps the device unusable.
- Tried to perform a Factory Reset with my 64s. Seems to me like no low level routine is used to erase the customer data and recreate the file system. Instead, Waypoints/POIs are deleted element by element over minutes. Factory reset did not cure the problematic behavior. I have the impression, but no proof, that deleted waypoints appear later again (not "really deleted").
- I worry, that a device completely fails any moment on a trip and now always carry two of them.
I assume that all the problems above may be caused by access to the NVM. Like a broken file system in the old days. I have no clue what the trigger may be. (Concurrent amount of waypoints on the device? Total amount of waypoints ever downloaded to the device? Length of the stored tracks? Size of the metadata of a waypoint/POI? Metadata payload like special characters or URLs or so). Since my 65s is barely used, I assume, it is not caused by a worn flash cell, etc.
Best Regards
Ulli
