When will database manager be reliable?

Hello, I'm sorry to hear about the issues you're experiencing, we're always striving to improve our program. After you uninstalled the program, did you restart the computer? Here is a troubleshooting guide for the Database Manager: Troubleshooting the Garmin Aviation Database Manager. If you're still having trouble after following those steps, please send me a message and I'll be happy to help!

It will still not run, it just starts a bunch of processes but never opens the UI.

I have tried repairing, restarting, uninstalling (as administrator), restarting, reinstalling, restarting, etc., to no avail.  The computer is a highly-capable windows 11, 64 bit machine.  The original problem came about when a drive was offline and the application tried to download databases to the non-existent drive letter. 

Your uninstall is total crap and leaves dozens of bits and pieces all over the registry and drive.  Apparently the uninstall is leaving a registry entry somewhere or configuration file that causes it to continue to fail after the program is 'uninstalled' and reinstalled.

Handling a disconnected drive is child's play, and cleaning up after an uninstall is the bare minimum for any respectable program.  Your application is totally unprofessional and would be an embarrassment to any competent programmer.

If you have a garmin uninstall clean-up utility that completely cleans and restores the registry and file system from anything you installed or modified, then please provide a link

Oh Geeze--

I finally found the solution and it is worse programming than imaginable.

When a folder is specified for the database download location, if that folder is not available at a later time, the Garmin Database Manager will throw up an error, followed by saying the error is being reported, and then it will cancel the update.  For example, if that download location drive is simply offline, is located on the cloud and not connected, or if it is on removable media that is not installed, or for any number of other reasons.

Any subsequent attempt to start the database manager after that error will result in the manager hanging before it opens the user interface.    Uninstall and reinstall of the manager is futile because either Garmin has hidden that configuration preference somewhere on the computer, or it is re-accessing it via the connection to the user's garmin account.  I don't think it is the latter because if the database manager set up on different computers, they each retain their own preferred path.  Either way, a repair, or complete uninstall and reinstall do not reset that download location path preference.  Why garmin hid this data and does not clear it during a reinstall is beyond comprehension.

For me, the solution was to temporarily recreate the path that was in the preference (the biggest problem was remembering exactly what the drive and full path had been when the manager first crashed).  As soon as was able to recreate the last path that was used when the database manager last worked, the manager started up fine.  I could then change the download location to a permanent location using the preferences tab and entering the new (and permanent) path for the downloads.

If Garmin is going to create and distribute such crap software applications, at least provide a simple drag and drop method for the user to get their databases.  It does not need to be this difficult and inconvenient, and i should not have to take a computer wherever i go because garmin forces me to install their crap app to transfer the current database to a memory device. 

Why can't it be as simple as walking up to any computer, logging in to my garmin account, and then dragging the database down onto the microSD card?