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"Ghost Course", Chevrons missing & Wrong Navigation Instructions. (17.29) (Not fixed in beta 18.15!!!)

Started a short local ride following a loaded course to see what had "improved" in 17.29 and as almost always I had Turn Guidance Disabled (OFF).

First surprise, no chevrons on the map and second surprise the navigation instructions at the top of the map had no relationship to the course I was following.

         

   

The instructions on top of the map were a double surprise as I had "Guide Text" set to "When Navigating" ie only if Turn Guidance was ON. The top of map and "Turn List" instructions were both for a much longer (200kms) course I had done 6 months ago which started about 25kms from my real starting point. The "Course Points for my real (loaded,11.37 km) course were listed in the Course Point List. As I progressed in the ride the Ghost Course instructions on the map advanced as did the WPT NEXT data field.

And the most surprising is that after this sort of thing happened to me before I had kept my courses on the device to a  minimum and this course was not in the Courses directory or the Cals or PointCache directories. WHERE was the 1040 getting these instructions from ??? When I finished I scanned the 1040 file directories but could not find any trace of the Ghost Course.

 has said there is a "ticket" raised regarding this so I hope Garmin developers are working hard on a solution as it is becoming a BIG PAIN.

To help them along I have done a quick scan of the forums here for threads posted by users regarding these problems, I came up with 12 (plus 4 more since) in the 1040 forum over the last 12 months and various software versions from the original released version up to the current 17.29 and 2 in 840 forum (it's only new) , the first one contains a summary of the observed issues on page 6, Garmin, let me know if I can assist more.

A summary of the major aspects of this issue are

People see some of a number of issues including,

  • Most frequently no chevrons on the course they are following (because the chevrons are on the ghost route)
  • Getting "turn Guidance" (instructions and big white arrows) not related to the course they have loaded (happens both if Turn Guidance is enabled or disabled)
  • An actual ghost course in the pink route color as well as a separate (completely different) magenta loaded course
  • Various off course & re-route prompts even though the position cursor is on the loaded route (Virtual Partner is too)
  • Can get both Course Point notifications on a loaded course AND Turn Guidance notifications from a different ghost course especially if TG is OFF.
  • Often the issue is triggered by some GPS issue/ lost signal such as a tunnel or other temporary interruption

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/300530/route-using-the-wrong-cached-directions/1614145#1614145 (summary)

1040 Series

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/300530/route-using-the-wrong-cached-directions

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/307902/navigation-on-without-selecting-a-course

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/307924/where-are-the-chevrons-after-out-of-course-and-other-things

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/312795/directional-arrows-disappeared

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/313716/caching-issue-with-street-names-when-off-course

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/317186/i-can-t-get-rid-of-calculated-route

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/315419/garmin-edge-1040-solar---course-route-navigation-directions-are-scrambled-mixed-up

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/322883/navigating-a-route-problems

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/326222/still-ghost-tracks-sw-16-11-and-other-things

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/331170/odd-navigation-behavior

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/333882/course-maps-and-course-directions-not-syncing-up

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/334170/navigation-instructions-hangs-at-previous-course-which-in-700km-away

forums.garmin.com/.../another-ghost-course-wrong-navigation-instructions-17-29 (this thread)

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/340331/failed-to-resume-navigation-after-going-off-course

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/340563/strange-behaviour-when-navigating-without-turn-by-turn-guidance

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/340947/i-m-going-to-complain-a-bit-about-my-garmin-1040

https://forums.garmin.com/beta-program/edge-1040-series/public-beta-bug-reports/i/edge-1040-series---18-xx-bug-reports/new-beta---old-ghost-rides (still in beta 18.15)

840 Series

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-840-series/332859/turn-by-turn-directions

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-840-series/336218/chevron-gone

  • after 3 rides the chevrons are working well

    Is the fix still working?

    Did you reset via the Menu>System>Device Reset>"Reset Default Settings" or "Delete Data and Reset Settings"

    Did the Settings & Profiles etc get imported from Connect OK?

    I was leaving it alone to try and debug more but the last few rides have been even more crazy so I am ready to give up and try the Nuclear option

  • Exactly the same happened again on Monday, not initiated by an off course but was present right from the beginning , same ghost and it still is nowhere to be found in the Courses, Calcs or PointCache directories. Again my loaded Course  was the 11kms test course with 10 turns (displayed in the course Point List) and no chevrons, Turn Guidance OFF. The Ghost course is 200kms, has 165 notifications displayed in the "Turn List", reviewing my rides it is likely this course is the last time I used (experimenting) Turn Guidance and that was 4 months ago. The ghost course route never comes within 25kms of the loaded course. The first few navigation instructions from the ghost get displayed in the guide text at the top of the map but not as turn instructions with distance etc but like I was just riding on those roads, even though they are 25 kms away. The real course point turns were displayed at the bottom of screen , the next point name was from the ghost turn list but the CRS Pt DIST was to the next course point.

    The ghost course must be hidden somewhere on the 1040, maybe in some persistent memory which survives device power offs and software version upgrades as I have installed both 17.26 & 17.29 in those 4 months, (I power off after every ride)

    On Tuesday I tried the same loaded course and all was ok, no ghost so it is fairly random.

    As it is pretty useless like this I will do a Factory reset as recommended upstream an see if it helps.

  • In preparation for a cross USA bicycle ride, I did a reset of my edge 1040 solar using Menu>System>Device Reset>""Delete Data and Reset Settings". I loaded 10 GPX tracks via the newfiles directory, sufficient navigation to get me from Boston, Massachusetts to Northern Michigan via Canada. Over the course of the tour I have so far added about half a dozen other GPX tracks using the ride with GPS.com automatic load of pinned routes. I am riding with turn guidance enabled and I find it to be very useful, especially in lighting conditions that make it difficult to see the screen. Prior to my reset, one of the most maddening experiences was seeing my course arrows or chevron's disappear when I would go off course and then back on course. This has not happened to me at all in 17 days of riding 100 to 160 kilometers per day. I'm going off course intentionally a lot but the device always continues to display the course properly and eventually recognizes that I am on it and announces course found.

    All of these courses originated as GPX tracks, not as routes planned using street names and turn vectors. So far, the edge 1040 has done a great job of turning those GPX latitude and longitude tracks into street names and turn directions. It is especially competent at drawing a big bold zigzag arrow when the sequence of turns warrants that , for example, when a road continues after a short jog to the right or left along an intersecting road.

    I am making heavy use of the stop course feature, so that I can without stopping the activity switch back and forth between the official Adventure Cycling provided course that has many days riding on it, and a shorter course that is from my prior year's ride of the course that only has the portion of the course that I will complete today. Seeing only today's ride gives me better information about coming total ascent and remaining distance, although at the risk of causing me to repeat last year's detour that is no longer relevant this year.  So far I have never had this course switching lead to any problems; the switched-to course always loads and shows me on it.

    I have ridden past tours using Garmin eTrex and then Garmin Oregon 750 devices. The Edge 1040 navigation is far superior, with turn guidance enabled, for my purposes. I am getting unintentionally off course almost never. If the 1040 continues to work well then I may ship home the 1030 that I am carrying as backup. 

    Part of what makes the 1040 usable for me at age 69 is a pair of reading glasses, which I wear over my cycling goggles and strapped loosely to my head. 

  • Great to hear your good news. Prior to version 17.26/29 the ghost course issue was almost exclusively with Turn Guidance OFF but with 17 it seemed to generalise itself a bit. The “solution” of doing a reset seems to fix (?) the issue but only if you continue to use Turn Guidance and this has been the support offered workaround up till now.

    Some users, including me, don’t want Turn Guidance for various (good?) reasons and the issue can continue, perhaps gone for a while until after Guidance is used again and then turned off again. Hopefully Garmin just fixes it for everyone .

  • Interesting theory about turn guidance. As stated in a previous post I recently had the Ghost course issue along with what can only be described as creeping death the Edge eventually became unusable. The factory reset appears to have fixed the issues for the moment. However I have alway run the device with turn guidance on  it's never been turned off I still had the ghost course issue.. 

  • With such a long running issue over many software versions it can get a bit confusing.

    In the first half dozen 1040 versions (exact number unknown) there was a bug where Turn Guidance was always on regardless of the status of the Turn Guidance switch, a “fix” was never noted in the change logs but the issue was privately acknowledged and silently went away but still leaving the random issue of the ghost courses.

    Also some software updates and resets can (did) change the status of some switches including the Turn Guidance switch. Users have reported ghost issues and are certain they had turn guidance ON but when I asked to see a screen shot of their map screen* I suggested guidance was off and when they checked they found it was indeed OFF, (* for some unknown Garmin reason the direction chevrons on the map are about 30% larger if turn guidance is OFF so you can look at the map screen and tell the status of the switch!)

    I almost never use guidance but sometimes would experiment just to see what I might be missing, I only get ghost courses for rides I experiment with**, not always and sometimes months later and as highlighted by many users it often starts from an off course or lost GPS, but again random, or at least seems random.

    After a few ghost courses a couple of weeks ago I also did a reset and am currently monitoring for ghost courses, still with guidance OFF and no experimenting with it, if I get a few weeks and a dozen rides where it does not appear I will then do a ride with guidance and then go back to no guidance and see what happens. My careful plan might be scrapped if a new beta with a “fix” is released.

    (**PS and always the last one I used with Guidance)

  • In the last half hour

    https://forums.garmin.com/beta-program/edge-1040-series/f/announcements/342345/public-beta-18-15---special-installation-instructions

    • Fixed a "ghost" course issue where a deleted course could be activated instead of a newly added course.

    I guess I had better give it a go, I hope they have covered ALL the issues associated with this that have been enumerated in the forum topics listed above (especially the highlighted “summary”)? 

    Apparently NOT “fixed”

  • +1 on this topic.

    Had this at least two times in the past. The last time a couple of weeks ago, right after removing all the old courses from my Edge 1040 (17.29). So basically, there was no course on the device at that point in time other than the one I've been following yet the Edge wanted to navigate and showed instruction for a course that had been done long before. Restarting navigation didn't help. Strangely though, I haven't been able to reproduce this problem afterwards when loading the course again on a new ride.