Map of Europe is too big to install

After looking at several options I considered the 540 would be the bike computer within my set price range that best suited my needs.

Now I'm really glad I found this thread before I actually bought the Edge 540.

I'm living in Germany, close to the border to France and ride in both countries. 

Not being able to install the two neighboring countries is such a  letdown, that the 540 is no longer a option.

I could live with having to install a new map when I go ride in another country when I'm on vacation. But for everyday rides that frequently cross borders this just does not work.

Even though it seems to be possible to get it working by manually copying files I don't think this should be the way we as customers have to deal with this. Also I don't think anybody can tell how future updates might affect that hack. 

I was really looking forward to  get the 540 soon.Too Bad, that now I'm back to comparing products from other companies to find another option that works for me. 

While the limitations of installing the Europe Region maps is a pain I have a couple of observations, some of this is covered in the 4 previous pages but I will summarise,

1. The 840 is a far better more useable device than the 540 (IMO) due to it having both button & touch interface and well worth the extra cost. I say this as a previous user of a 530 and frequently regretted not spending the extra. In addition to the interface difference there are a few options only available with the touch interface that are much missed. You can see from the number of questions in the 540 & 840 forums that the 840 is much more popular.

2. It might be possible to install both EU West & EU Central to cover both countries by removing or not installing other files. There are some GBs of files related to the “free” climbpro feature and climb searching, see here and related https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/356802/can-i-delete-files-in-the-sql-folder

3. Another option is to install a free OSM map covering just the border region you are likely to cross in your rides, this could be a large area. Sites like https://garmin.bbbike.org allow you to set a boundary box for the area you will download and tell you how big the resulting file will be but it could be much smaller than a whole sub-region. As you might know the OSM maps are the basis of the Garmin maps and for most things you would be hard pressed to tell the difference, if you do load the OSM map make sure it is the “latin1” format rather than UTF-8 and you may have to ensure only it or the Garmin one are enabled at the same time as overlapping enabled areas can cause issues but both can be installed concurrently.

Hopefully you can find a solution that works for you, good luck.

ps also check via Garmin express what other maps might be install that you won’t use, ie Africa ?

The copying of these files are no hack, that's how it is with garmin since 'ever'. I own devices like the colorado 300 (2008 or so) and with this device it was the same. The good thing is, in the modern days (colorado 300) you could name the files as you want, as long as the file extension is .img. At the older devices you have to get all the maps you want in the gmapsupp.img, but there are tools to get this done. As a reference https://www.openfietsmap.nl/tips-tricks/installation#h.p_1mbDzlwjaXP_
But it's sad that user get to 'forced' to another device because garmin gives a crap about good usability and user experience

Definition of hack is not always something evil. A process or an experience that is not smooth and always has a step or two in it is what we call a hacky method. Good thing is, it's only done once, at least for the users who understand the steps.

Baffling part is the choice of not fitting a 32GB memory in the first place. You can buy a 32 GB sd card online today for less than 6 euros. This feels more like a cheap marketing move to force users to buy a more expensive device like 840.

I don't know how things with Garmin work since I never used one of their navigation devices before.  Their marketing to me does not reveal that there are limitations installing two neighbouring countries without having to fiddle around with third party maps or manually copy files.

I'm sure it is not that hard to get things installed, I'm well experienced working on PC's and file structures. But do I really want to have to deal with that when buying my first device? My clear answer is no. If in 2024 a device has such limitations, it is just not for me.

I'm sure the 840 is the better device and because of the bigger memory you don't have those limitations. But the price difference is approx. 100€ to the 540.  It might not be a lot of money but for someone like me who isn't even fully convinced that he needs the full map navigation at all, but because of the overall features decided for the 540 over much cheaper devices such as the 130 Plus, it would be a bigger step than I'm comfortable to take. 

Like I said, I'm happy that here I was able to find out about those limitations before I actually bought it. I would have been really  bummed if I found out after I bought it.  

Also I wan't to thank everyone for your suggestions on how to still make it work, or to use other devices.

I haven't made up mind yet, but right now it seems like Garmin is no longer a option any more. 

I red there might be  a successor of the 130 Plus sometime soon. If that is being released anytime soon, maybe it's features can convince me to pass the navigation of the 540. If not there are other brands like Wahoo, Hammerhead and so on, that are supposed to built good devices too. 

Hi. I have same issue. Can you guide me for workaround please.

My thoughts also.

if you go to page 4 of this thread, there's a workround there that may work for you. As it happens, I couldn't get it to work for me, but it might for you!
In my case, after not getting that to work, I just downloaded the relevant country map from https://garmin.opentopomap.org/ and it worked very easily. good luck! This, whole process, though, is yet another example of a rather half-baked product from the Garmin developers. 

Try sticking with your home region Garmin basemap and then just downloading the Hungary map from garmin.opentopomap.org/