Tracking stops at random times

The only thing I know about is the fact that tracking (iR sent points) is coupled with activity recording (logged points local to the device) in incomprehensible ways. Any time you start or stop either one, you need to check the state of the other.

That has me thinking.  I usually start both up when I get going in the morning.  And "activity recording" does make some decisions about stopping itself when I break for lunch or a rest, so maybe that is the bug that also is turning off tracking.

It's not a bug. People have been complaining about it forever. Garmin believes it's a feature. And it probably would be IF anybody except their programmers could understand how it works. It has gotten better in recent releases in that you now (sometimes at least - can't vouch for always) get a warning when you stop/pause one side about what will happen on the other side.

From what I recall, the original problem was that it was asymmetric - it would stop/pause the other side but would not do the symmetric thing when you restarted one or the other. But I really don't remember the details. The only thing that sticks to my brain is that I now ALWAYS check the "other side" when I do something to affect "this side".

Ha ha!  The old joke, "it's not a bug -- it's a feature!".  Sort of on the lines of "beauty is in the eyes of the beholder".

Well all the lies and subterfuge aside -- it is a bug.  There is no reason for tracking to get turned off except that I turn it off.  And if it gets turned off automatically, it better get turned back on automatically.  Or else it is a bug.

But I am happy to hear it isn't some loose wire in my unit -- just a loose wire in the heads of the Garmin programming staff.

Here is a simple flowchart to help explain the logic behind the Garmin GPSMAP 66i inReach + Activity Tracking operation:

Well, that is a lovely diagram, but it has essentially nothing to do with the problem I described.  I tells (as near as I can understand it) how the two things interact when I give commands to stop or start either one.  It does not say a thing about the buggy intereactions when the 66i decides for unknown reasons to stop one or both.

My complaint is that I start both in the morning, then later check my device and find that inReach Tracking has turned itself off for some unknown reason, which deeply annoys me.   A working theory is that I stopped for some reason and that caused Activity tracking to stop.  Activity tracking then automatically resumes, which is sensible.  Apparently Inreach tracking got shut down at the same time, but did not automatically restart, which is stupid, wrong, and one could argue potentially dangerous since you are relying on it to post your position for possible rescue workers.

Well, now that the complex integration and interaction between the two systems can be more easily understood with a visual diagram, I hope you may have an easier time troubleshooting and determining just exactly which scenario has occurred that resulted in the behavior you have experienced.

It's always possible that there is a bug. However, my suspicion is that you might have the ACTIVITY set up for auto-pause. I don't know what happens when the auto-pause kicks in. Or if you need to manually resume the activity after the auto-pause kicks in. Let alone what happens to the inReach tracking in either case. However, if inReach tracking stops when the activity auto-pauses (but does not restart when you resume the activity), that MIGHT account for what you see. IIRC, this is one of the cases which I observed back when I was trying to understand this.

While atlas_cached has all the basics correct (in so far as I know) in the diagram, there is a distinction between pausing activity recording and ending it. Pausing it allows you to resume/continue the same activity. Ending it actually saves the activity. I don't know that the distinction makes any difference as far as interaction with iR tracking, but it is MIA from the diagram.

I'll reiterate my original point: It's so complicated that nobody can understand all the nuances without visual aids - and maybe not then. And probably too complicated to ever work correctly for every possible case. So I disable auto-anything (like auto-start or auto-pause) so I don't get any unanticipated state changes. And I ALWAYS check the state of both sides after making a manual change to either one.

You may also want to have a look at this relatively new setting. Setup > Tracking > Link with Recording. This is explained in this post:

https://forums.garmin.com/testers/outdoor-testing/gpsmap-66i/f/qa-chat/261468/link-with-recording/

I haven't had a chance to experiment with it yet. But it is probably relevant to what you want.

FWIW, I have experimented with that new setting and still find the device does not behave the way I want or expect it to. inReach Tracking still gets turned off without the user asking it to be stopped, which is beyond comprehension to me.

I still believe inReach Tracking and Activity Recording (GPX & FIT) should operate 100% independent of each other.

As it is now, the 'Outdoor Recreation' inReach devices do not behave like all Garmin handheld GPSr before them.

I always end up with my inReach Tracking or my GPX track log coming up short.