Garmin 66i shuts down in Expedition mode

I've updated my Garmin 66i via Garmin Express before going for a week in the bush only to find that when you go into Expedition mode the green light flashes indicating it's tracking but when you press the power button on it does a full restart and there is no record of my previous tracks. Logged a job with Garmin support Ref: 24590908K0 who basically came back and said "It seems like there is no workaround at this time, other than not using the Expedition Mode feature." Well that's really unhelpful when you rely on the expedition mode. Any assistance or advice would be greatly appreciated.

  • We are still investigating the issue. Thank you for your patience. 

  • Seams that Garmin has *** firmware. One season expedition mode worked. But the following season expedition mode failed regularly rendering expedition mode useless. Now putting the Garmin GPSMAP 66i in expedition means that it shuts down within 10 to 15 min. I just tested it again. And this with the latest software update (9.5). It seams a problem that many users face. 

    Garmin is just bad when it comes to firmware. Therefore I'm not purchasing new devices from Garmin because the first generation firmware is notoriously bad.

  • Seams that Garmin has *** firmware. One season expedition mode worked. But the following season expedition mode failed regularly rendering expedition mode useless. Now putting the Garmin GPSMAP 66i in expedition means that it shuts down within 10 to 15 min. I just tested it again. And this with the latest software update (9.5). It seams a problem that many users face. 

    Garmin is just bad when it comes to firmware. Therefore I'm not purchasing new devices from Garmin because the first generation firmware is notoriously bad.

  • Thanks for the heads up. You have to admire their (repeated) use of the word “possible”!!  Slight smile

  • It's actually a lot worse than simply poor firmware and software that has progressively deteriorated over the last few years and hobbling otherwise first-rate hardware devices.

    The bigger issue is that even when they are well aware of this, Garmin releases are still forced unsuspecting and unsolicited down your throat. Simply connecting your device when Express is running (possibly in the background if you haven't deselected this) will attract the update. Regardless of whether you have clicked on the update button or not. Unbelievably unprofessional and inept given the use case of these devices e.g remote wilderness, safety etc.

    If you ever connect a good working device to your PC, before removing it check the device Garmin folder and remove any potentially malicious GUPDATE.GCD file that may have been surreptitiously deposited and lurking in there until you are comfortable it's proven stable. Unless of course you have already been bitten and are desperate to recover. As an example, I've just found and removed the 9.70 update that was released yesterday.