Garmin Communicator, Chrome 39, mac

[+Mineral2]

Is anyone else having a problem getting Chrome 39 to play nice with the Garmin Communicator extension?

 

I'm on a mac, but if the problem exists beyond macOS, that would be helpful to know.

 

I went to install a single geocache to my GPS and discovered that I didn't have the Garmin Communicator plugin installed (funny, it had been installed previously). Sure enough, it wasn't in my plugins/extensions list. So, I went over to Garmin and downloaded the latest version of the communicator plugin and installed it, and it still doesn't show up in the extensions list. It does work fine in Firefox, but I prefer not to go back to using FireFox over Chrome.

 

Suggestions? Thoughts?

[+thejayocacher]

Same happened to me. Have you figured anything out yet?

Used to work fine in Chrome for months then suddenly stopped working. I tried installing it again but nothing in Chrome but it worked fine in Firefox.

 

The garmin communicator plugin page just kept showing me the "You do not have Communicator Plugin" message, until I installed Chrome beta I got a different message: "Chrome No Longer Supports this Plugin". A quick read through http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html and it appears that Google blocked the plugin.

 

I'm surprised by the lack of information about this, especially in the geocaching community. How do geocachers who use Chrome and have a Garmin transfer their caches? Is there another simple solution?

[+Mineral2]

I'm surprised by the lack of information about this, especially in the geocaching community. How do geocachers who use Chrome and have a Garmin transfer their caches? Is there another simple solution?

 

For the most part, I (and many others) transfer using pocket queries, which require you to load the GPX files manually (I've written a BASH scrip to help automate the process). Since PQ's don't require the communicator plugin, I'm free to use whatever browser I want 99% of the time.

 

I wonder if the lack of compatibility has more to due with security settings. I've noticed that the plugin is blocked by default in both Firefox and Safari, and that you have to grant permissions to the browser to properly use it. That dialog box doesn't appear in Chrome, but I'll play with some settings to see if I can get it to work.

[+Team Geofrog]

I can't get it to work on Google Chrome 39 on a Mac either.

[FrankBooth]

I can't get it to work on Google Chrome 39 on a Mac either.

 

I did everything I could think of to get the security settings to cooperate and I could not get it to work with Chrome at all.

 

However, I used Firefox and everything went well.

 

I have to confess that this is my first time using a Garmin (I've used a DeLorme for years) and I'm pretty underwhelmed with this side of it. It looks great and I'm sure I will be happy once I am out in the field, but this aspect leaves a lot to be desired, IMHO.

[+Mineral2]

Garmin and Google has now clarified the issue. The Plugin was built on the NPAPI platform. Chrome has now ceased support for these plugins due to security issues. Firefox and Safari will block these by default, but give you a message with the option to turn on the plugin. It seems that Garmin will have to rebuild its communicator plugin if it's to work well with current and future browsers.

 

http://blog.chromium.org/2013/09/saying-goodbye-to-our-old-friend-npapi.html

[benji55545]

I ran into this problem for the first time today. Bummer. I hope Groundspeak and Garmin come up with a solution soon, I use the Send to GPS link occasionally and don't want to switch browsers just to do it...