Edge 1030 stop navigating when official start/finish of mtb track is reached

This behaviour is absolutely normal. If you think your Edge 800 behaved differently, your memory is playing tricks on you.
The course is read from a fit-file. If the file is at the end, the navigation is also at the end. This is not a „perpetuum mobile“!

But when I come to the officcial start/finish of the track

It looks like you are talking about a loop track.

Ideally, the track would end some short distance before it gets to the start. That way, the device would pick up the start point rather than the end point. This is a simple trick that not enough people use.

The problem is that you happen to be closer to the end point than you are to the start point and the device picks the closest point.

Another way of dealing with the problem you are having is to start the navigation a bit along the loop after the start.

The issue you are having existed with the 800 too.

dpawlyk said:

The problem is that you happen to be closer to the end point than you are to the start point and the device picks the closest point.

He says, he starts somewhere in the middle of the course! And when he reaches the end the navigation tells him: congrats, you are finished. But he is not because he startet many km/miles after the startpoint. That is a different scenario as you are speaking of.

Maybe to move the last trackpoints away from the course (with Basecamp for example) might help. So you would never reach the real end but „deviate“ to the beginning of the course. That might work with „track-navigation“ but I doubt it works with „turn-guidance-navigation“.

It's kind of confusing.

It looks like he starts somewhere in the middle and, when he gets to the end point, he wants to have the course continue. To jump the gap (so to speak).

It won't do that.

(The 800 didn't do it either.)

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Maybe to move the last trackpoints away from the course (with Basecamp for example) might help. So you would never reach the real end but „deviate“ to the beginning of the course. That might work with „track-navigation“ but I doubt it works with „turn-guidance-navigation“. 

If he can do that, he should be able to draw a track that would work. The "you've finished" doesn't have anything to do with the calculated course.

What I do is this ,   Go into the course you want to follow,  change the setting to Always Display.

You can then start a normal recording activity and detour on / off the course without all the off course , start / stop messages Etc etc  

Yes, that would be a perfect solution if the colored track would be as thick as the original magenta track. For me - and I have „normal“ eyes - don‘t need glasses - I can‘t see the track good enough.

ok, on a map without details it's ok...

But on a good detailed MTB-map you'll get into trouble.

I wish the maps didn't have the background pattern. It makes important stuff harder to distinguish on the small screen). 

Using red for the track color is not a good choice here.