Long time to turn on (“Loading Maps”) and, once on, display maps

TL;DR version:

As of recently (though before the latest v7.6 firmware upgrade) Fenix 5 Plus now takes significantly longer to power on (minutes as opposed to seconds) with the screen displaying “Loading Maps” for most of that time - this has been going on for a number of weeks, have been meaning to investigate.
When zooming in/out on the map (standard/latest Garmin TopoActive Europe 2019.10 installed) it now takes 30+ seconds to render the map on the screen - only noticed this for the first time last night (don’t regularly use the mapping/routing functionality, most of the time used as a triathlon training watch).
Similarly, in troubleshooting I noticed when using using the POI database (which also seems slow, though no baseline to compare) and selecting ‘Map’ for a given POI, it takes 30+ seconds to display the map with detail.
Generally when navigating around the menus/screens it seems a bit more laggy than I remember (though unsure whether this is just a placebo effect).
Tried re-installing maps via Garmin Express = no improvement.
Firmware also updated a few days ago to latest stable v7.6 = no improvement.

Q1. Can others confirm that, with the standard/latest Garmin TopoActive Map setup, basic functionality (ie. turning on and using maps) is significantly quicker than this? Ideally someone with the latest and greatest TopoActive Europe 2019.10 (upgrading to which might have been the trigger point to these issues starting)?

Q2. Is a Factory Reset likely to help my (presumably map-related) issues?

Q3. I’m focussing on maps here, for obvious reasons, however could this be misguided and in fact there be something else slowing me down?

Q4. Any obvious troubleshooting steps before jumping to a Factory Reset (which I’ll reluctantly do, including setting everything up again, though will be somewhat disappointment if the problem remains!)?

Thanks in advance.

Top Replies

SpikySimonW over 6 years ago +1 verified

Follow-up: I found a corrupt activity on the watch (showed up as "invalid" when scrolling through my activity history and could not be opened), I then deleted the relating .fit file (using a bit…

All Replies

0 gtiberghien over 6 years ago

I live in Europe but I purchased my Fenix 5 plus in the US. So I had to download free European maps from http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ I found that they are quite fast to load and use. During a trip to the US i tried to use the Garmin maps already included in the watch and it was much much slower to the point of being useless. So maybe a fix is to try the openstreet maps instead?

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I've been having the same slow power on issue since the last couple of days. Did you manage to fix it?

+1 SpikySimonW over 6 years ago

Follow-up: I found a corrupt activity on the watch (showed up as "invalid" when scrolling through my activity history and could not be opened), I then deleted the relating .fit file (using a bit of guesswork, it being one of the tiny ones with a date not corresponding to any activity showing up on the Garmin Connect calendar) = now the watch loads up much quicker (night and day difference). However, I'm not sure if this will make any difference to the performance of the maps when in use (eg. panning and zooming), very much doubt it.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago in reply to SpikySimonW

I think the culprit of the slow loading is the South West Europe TopoActive map. In one of the many map reinstalls I've done, the SW-Eu wasn't installed and the watch loaded as quick as before. I tried using the SW one from https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-5-plus-series/149936/hard-reset-firmware-reinstall-data-location-and-backup/844645#844645 but that didn't seem to be it either.

I suspect the fault lies in the map being incorrectly installed and the watch taking a long time to "find it", so to speak. After manually copying the above file on the watch and doing yet another reinstall, it seems like the loading speed is back to normal. Here's hoping it's permanent.

Although I'll also take a look at the corrupt activity on the watch, as I recall there being a couple of them on mine also (the watch rebooted during an activity and the timestamps are messed up).