Need Help getting "Continue Tracking?" Prompt on Mini 2

I ran into a bug on the M2 the other day where messages would not be sent. I was using the explore mobile app, and after about 30 mins I checked the device directly. There was a prompt on the screen that asked me if I wanted to continue tracking. I don't remember the exact words, but it was definitely asking if I wanted to keep tracking. The moment I selected yes, the message queue was finally processed and messages were sent, with the corresponding audible chirp. It's a bug that this prompt is blocking message activity, indicating the device is effectively single threaded. Note: This was not an iridium or GPS connectivity issue. Skies were blue, I was in the alpine, on a peak, above the treeline with an unfettered spherical view of the sky. It's too much of a coincidence that the messages were sent immediately after dismissing the prompt, while failing for the prior 30 minutes. I also don't send GPS with messages.

I want to get a repro case to Garmin Support, but I can't seem to figure out how to get that prompt to come up. I thought it might be because I was Idle for about 30 minutes and the M2 just wanted confirm I wanted to continue tracking. I also thought it might be because I had Navigation on and tracking was initiated through Navigation, and perhaps it was because I was near the end of the route. However, I can't seem to get the prompt to come up by letting the device sit idle, with and without Navigation. To be clear, this is not the prompt to Save/Discard/Continue, when you stop tracking. It was something else that I don't think I have seen before.

Has anybody seen the continue tracking prompt before? If so, do you know under what conditions that prompt comes up? I'd like to get Garmin a set of reproducible steps to show that the M2 message queue gets blocked, and it starts with getting this prompt. You might wonder why this is is an issue. The answer is twofold. 1.) If you use the explore mobile app, there is no indication that the M2 device is waiting on input, freezing messages indefinitely until the physical device is examined. 2.) It's simply poor engineering to become single threaded and blocked like that for unrelated functionality.

0 twolpert over 3 years ago

I don't think I've ever seen that prompt, although I can speculate on the cause.

Don't know what you mean by "idle" - not moving? If so, a device which is working correctly would not ask you about this. Once it decided you were stopped, it would automatically change from your current send interval (10 minutes or whatever) to 4 hours. It would continue to check your position every 10 minutes (or whatever your selected send interval) to see if you had started moving again. If so, it would adjust the send interval back to your original setting.

Not sure what you mean by "tracking was initiated through navigation". AFAIK, tracking is tracking is tracking. Once started, it continues until told to stop.

Do note that Garmin persists in tangling up activity recording (what used to sensibly be called "logged points") with tracking (what used to sensibly be called sent points). This means that, depending on the device, the bug level, and maybe the phase of the moon, activity recording and tracking start/stop are linked together. Sometimes. Maybe. /rant

My actual point is that if you started or stopped activity recording, you might have accidentally attempted to affect tracking. IIRC, some devices sometimes prompt to see if you really WANT that interaction or not. So maybe that's what happened here. Especially since you were messing around in the Explore app at the time.

If I were you, I would open a ticket even though you cannot reproduce. The problem is not that the device is single-threaded. it is not. The UI might be single threaded, but that would not be the issue here. My guess is that this is a bug in the handling of that particular prompt. IF you stopped activity recording and the device decided to prompt to see if you ALSO want to stop tracking, it might be doing the prompting in the context of the thread that handles the modem, or tracking, or something else that would be interlocked with the send queue.

Open a ticket anyhow.

0 JimSa over 3 years ago in reply to twolpert

Clarifying.

Idle - Yes, I meant not moving. It was just a theory that after not moving for some time the M2 might ask if the user wished to continue tracking.

Tracking through Navigation - I agree. Tracking and Navigation are distinct to me as well. However, I seem to recall I started tracking from a different screen than usual, and that the option to start tracking was presented just after I started Navigation.

Activity vs Track - Through much pain and trial I've come to understand the difference and what is actually happening under the covers. In my case, I have tracking set to high detail, so the low frequency positional updates are going to Mapshare through iridium and high frequency logged points are being stored on device in the .fit file and synced with the Mobile Explore App. So they are indeed linked and starting tracking started both. I don't recall stumbling across the capability to start or stop them independently of one other on the M2 or in the Mobile Explore App. But in my case, I'm fairly certain the didn't happen because of the track/activity details that I got off the device after the hike. I loaded them into basecamp and there was nothing unusual about trackpoints and the leg times, etc. Frequency was pretty regular and both were complete. Standard 10 minutes intervals for the track, and between every ~8-20 seconds for the Activity. If one of them was stopped, I'd expect it to terminate early, or I would expect a break in the leg times, if it was then somehow restarted.

I've contacted product support to open a ticket. I just wanted to get them a reliable repro case of the prompt blocking the outgoing message queue. I'm pretty sure I could do that, if I could just figure out what causes that prompt to come up. Product support didn't seem to be aware of what prompt I was talking about... In fairness, I'd never seen it before either.

0 twolpert over 3 years ago in reply to JimSa

I am pretty sure that what you are seeing occurs when:

a) You are both tracking and recording an activity. And

b) You stop the activity recording.

The prompt is asking if you ALSO want to stop tracking (because you stopped activity recording).

0 JimSa over 3 years ago in reply to twolpert

Thanks! I'd like to try that. On the M2 (or in Mobile Explore), do you know how to stop the activity independently? I can only find start and stop tracking which starts and stops both simultaneously.

Oh, and the thing is, in my case it didn't stop the activity recoding. This was an out and back trail and I have the full activity log back to the trailhead. So I'm still puzzled..

0 twolpert over 3 years ago in reply to JimSa

I have no clue on the Explore app. I stay as far away from ALL the apps as I can.

I cannot find the feature on the M2 itself. It might be in the Explore app, although it would be unusual to find a feature available in the app which is not visible on the device itself. Most likely, I have my devices confused. This particular thing (start/stop tracking vs. start/stop activities) has changed over time. And currently (AFAIK, which is clearly not very far) differs from one device to the next.