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Missing roads on maps

Hello, my Garmin maps were updated a few weeks ago and since then I can see hardly any roads on them. Very major roads show up (like motorways and trunk A roads) but no other roads/tracks do. Here is a photo of it a scale of 1.2miles (this is Manchester, UK):

The main roads show up (although the M60 is incorrectly labelled the M63). When I zoom in however no other detail appears. Here is a view at 800ft scale:

The names of some more roads show up, but not the roads themselves. On the device, there are four maps installed and enabled, which are:

  • INTL Stadard Basemap, NR
  • Garmin Cycle Map EU, North East, 2020.10
  • Garmin DEM Map EU 2017.20
  • Garmin Geocode Map EU 2020.10

The map settings in relation to what is displayed are all on their automatic defaults, I think. 

If I try to get the device to generate a route, it only uses the roads than can be seen on the display, none of the (many) other roads that exist.

I can still use the device to record where I have been and I can create a course on my PC and download it as the PC uses Google maps, but the course I have planned just shows up on the device as being through empty space.

Does anyone have any idea what could be going wrong? I contacted Garmin support two weeks ago through there chat facility and they pointed me to a couple of web articles about resetting the device and checking that all the maps were enabled, but none of them helped so they asked me to email them photos which I did and since then I've heard nothing.

If anyone has any suggestions I would be very grateful. My background is computer science, so I'm happy to try anything!

Many thanks, Paul

  • Brief summary, if you don't want to go through the whole thread:

    Perhaps you're using broken version of Garmin Express for Mac. If that's the case, update to the latest version, and do the map update again.

  • Hello tmk2, thanks for the suggestion. I'm using the Windows version of the Garmin Connect software, but I'm going to try deleting all the img files off my device and forcing a reinstall of some maps to see if that does help - once I've backed them up, which is taking a while! Paul

  • I'm using the Windows version of the Garmin Connect software,

    Windows version was affected by this issue as well, only it was fixed much quicker. So won't hurt to make sure your windows version of Garmin Express is up to date.

  • By the way, which edge model do you have? Those map files keep growing with each update, you know, so maybe you're simply running out of storage space?

  • Don't delete the basemap files (gmapbmap.*), because they are not restored when re-installing the Cycle Map (s) using Garmin Express.

  • It's an Edge Explore 1000, a few years old now but I've just looked at the drives in File Explorer in Windows and I think it must have 8GB of internal storage and a 32GB memory card installed as it's showing up as two drives with those capacities... still backing up!

  • Thanks bikepc01 for the advice about the basemap. I will leave that file alone! Paul

  • Hello everyone, thanks for all the help so far. I've had a look at the map and the files on the device and the installed SD card and found out the following information:

    • Maps for these countries are detailed (just some examples): Poland, Finland, Germany, Czech Republic
    • Maps for these countries are not detailed: UK, France, Spain, Holland, Belgium, Croatia

    This led me to conclude that the problem is that I only have the NE EU map installed not the SW map, as had been suggested (thank you!).

    I then looked at the files on the device and the SD card using the GMapTool software, which was very useful. The files on the device itself are:

    • gmapprom.img (3250MB) - Garmin Cycle MAP EU, North East,2020.10
    • gmapbmap.img (6040kB) - INTL Standard Autoroute Basemap, NR
    • gmapdem.img (964MB) - Garmin DEM Map EU 2017.20
    • gmappgc.img (1713MB) - Garmin Geocode MAP EU 2020.10
    • gmaptz.img (585kB) - Time Zone Map

    The files on the SD card are:

    • D6017000A.img (3426MB) - Garmin Cycle Map EU, South West, 2018.10
    • D6017020B.img (3105MB) - Garmin Cycle Map EU, South West, 2019.10
    • D6017030A.img (2878MB) - Garmin Cycle Map EU 2019.20, South West
    • D6017040A.img (2846MB) - Garmin Cycle Map EU, South West, 2020.10

    My assumption based on this is that the device is only using the maps on it and not the maps on the SD card. I'm getting maps without detail in countries in South West Europe because the device is only using the basemap for this area, not the detailed map which there are four copies of (presumably older versions archived too) on the SD card.

    There isn't enough storage space on the device's memory to install both the Europe NE and Europe SW cards at the same time.

    I can see two possible solutions:

    1. Configure the device to also look on the SD card for maps as well as in its own memory.
    2. Delete the NE map from the device (which I can live without) and replace it with the SW map.

    If anyone can help, I have a couple of questions before I try to delete/move any files, which are:

    1. Is there a way to configure the device to look for maps on the SD card? I presume there must be, otherwise what is the point of the card?!
    2. If I just delete the NE map from the device's memory and copy the SW map from the SD card onto the device do I need to rename it to gmapprom.img or can I just leave it with its current name D6017040A.img, and is there anything else I need to do?

    Obviously, it's a shame that the Garmin software doesn't just do all this automatically. The version of Garmin Connect that I'm using is for Windows, version 6.21.0.0 - installed 21/03/2020.

    Many thanks, Paul.

  • First make backups for safety.

    To my opinion you can delete the three old EU South West map files from the SD card. So just keep D6017040A.img and its corresponding .unl (unlock) and .gma files (version 2020.10).

    Normally the device recognizes maps in the ..\Garmin folder, both on the device AND the SD-card. But maybe in this special case that the Cycle Map EU has been splitted in two parts they need to be present together in the same directory. For this reason too, I never would delete the NE part. You have room enough available.

    On my Edge Explore all members (9 files) of the Garmin Cycle Map EU are present on the device in the ..\Garmin folder.

    By the way... your device is an Edge 1000 Explore. Possibly better to post in the Edge 1000 forum part? Just to prevent confusion. The Edge Explore, released in 2018, is surely a different device and does not have a SD-card slot.