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What is covered by the map region "Eastern Europe"?

Data
7 months ago

I updated my 6X via Express and it updated the maps, it took hours. After that the map looked strange, all roads, small and major, are the same grey. The map is functional, navigation works. It is hard to use in urban areas though.

In desperation I deleted all files from the watch including the maps, did a reset to factory defaults and synced with Express again. Only a map "Eastern Europe" was listed. I think my Fenix 7 had a "Western Europe" map and my Forerunner has "Europe".

Could it be that I am outside of the region offering most detail in the Eastern Europe map? What is covered by it in full detail?

And why would this map region be installed, the watch is from Garmin Netherlands.

I know better, but did not make a full backup before I updated with Express. I tried all map themes and levels of detail to no avail.

Is there any way to get the original colorful map back? 

  • 0 7 months ago

    In this talkytoaster article you can see the coverage of TopoActive west, Central and east. 

    https://shop.talkytoaster.me.uk/how-to-add-remove-change-garmin-topoactive-maps-on-a-fenix-etc-using-garmin-express-map-manager

    Maybe your 6x is slowly giving up :(. Especially the 6 Series doesn't seem to be made to last... 

    As a workaround, you could try a 3rd party map. 

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to #Matthias#

    Thank you for the link! Garmin Express was no help at all, there is just nothing there. Maybe the map support is tied to a limited amount of time, I really don't know. The whole "My maps" is not displayed. Maybe I made a dreadful mistake to have both a Fenix 7 and a Fenix 6 on the same account at one time in Express, perhaps that confused things.

    I spent a major part of the evening deep diving in the .img files on my 6X and my Forerunner, copied Europe West over and the maps are all good again! Sooo happy!

    One thing I know for 100% sure, I will never ever ever update my new Forerunner 955 with Express.

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to Data

    Great to hear you managed to fix it! And good to know that TopoActive maps can be transferred between different watch models!

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to #Matthias#

    It isn't perfect, the 'map manager' that I think was under 'Map' in Settings is gone, but I can still choose maps per activity. There must be some internal database containing a list of maps, and there are now double entries in it, so I have to guess which one is the right one. 

    Garmin will probably berate me for posting this solution, but those maps were paid for when I bought the devices. And I did consider buying a new Europe map, but what if that also turned out to look terrible, and then I'm told to replace my 6X which is out of warranty? So I had to try this.

    I could have installed custom maps of course, that would probably have been easier!