Freezing up Magellan Explorist GC

[+roaddcrew5]

We just bought a Magellan eXplorist GC yesterday to start geocaching. We did a few locally yesterday, and went on an out of town trip today. Well, I turned on the MEGC to start our first cache, and it is frozen on the screen that starts it up. The screen says Magellan, has a spinning dial and our name as I had put it in. Can anyone please help us out. We are terribly disappointed as are our children who were so looking forward to this. I was unable to call support being that it is a Sunday. Also, the online support throught the MAgellan site was no help at all. I took the batteries out, pushed the reset button and it still freezes at that screen.

[+NJ Admin]

Moving this post to the proper forum where you are more likely to find help.

[+roaddcrew5]

Moving this post to the proper forum where you are more likely to find help.

 

Thank you so much!! We are new to this site.

[+Mr.Moo]

Hmm... For me on my Magellan Triton 500 it will sometimes crash on start-up and taking the batteries out and powering it up again worked. DOn't know about the GC though...

[+WestSideDaddy]

Did you update the firmware? There were problems with the first 1.0 version of the firmware. Does the compass keep spinning or does it stop? Sometime the unit has a problem processing the geocaches or the waypoints an will just spin and spin

 

You can try the following.

 

1. Pull the batteries and replace with fresh ones.

2. Connect the usb (with the explorist off).

3. Hold menu+up+power and the unit will start up in disk access mode (keep them all pressed in until you get a menu on the screen).

4. Once it starts up, browse the device in the windows explorer (or mac equivalent)

5 Go into \\Geocaches folder and move all the files in there to your pc (make a folder in your my documents to store them).

6.Go into the \\Waypoints folder and move all these file as well (keep them separate from the geocache files from above)

7. Eject the device and pull the usb plug and hopefully the unit will reboot normally

 

Once the unit is working normally, I would recommend getting the latest (1.4) firmware. You can download it from Magellan web site.

 

There's a moderately active explorist list at http://www.exploristforum.com/ though I imagine most of them are also around here as well.

 

I had the same problems with my explorist, I had to RMA mine twice, but all that aside, for the price, I love all the features it has. Someday I'll maybe upgrade to a more expensive unit, but I really like this one for now.

[+musthavemuzk]

well i was hoping to not have to come back to this thread and say i have this issue, but here i am and i have this freezing issue.

had our GC since 7/29. getting going was a breeze. installed vantage point got the new firmware. ran many PQ's got them into VP and onto the GC....

3 days ago i had the freeze issue and having had a BB 8330 i know all about battery pulls to get things working right. so i did that and all was good.

2 days ago i decided i wanted more flexibility and got GSAK

yesterday after getting many PQ's into GSAK i decided i wanted to load the GC from GSAK....

so i loaded caches onto the GC with GSAK. seemed pretty painless.

 

last night late it froze again on me. i have tried and tried and tried and am now frustrated.

following along with the update instructions it says to unplug and boot the GC then plug in....well if it will not boot then that is not an option. right?

so i did the menu+up+power to get the grey screen for developers. then i tried the update. well it appears to be good, but again in there it says to unplug boot then plug in....whether i unplug or leave plugged in i cannot get it to boot at the end of the update process.

 

so now i sit here wanting to cache as the weather is to be ok today, but unable to as my GC either is off after a battery pull. or it is on the boot screen with the compass going in cirlces and it not booting.

 

guess i call magellan on monday and see what the next step is....

 

grrrrrr

 

Monty

[+musthavemuzk]

so we stopped into best buy today and they said yes we could bring it back to them. i so got the impression i had to get in touch with magellan. so we went home and got the GPS and headed down the road to the one we bought it at as they had another one in stock. we were also going that way for roller derby so it was a win win i think.

anyways they had no issue exchanging the GC that was frozen for a new one.

will set it up in the AM so we can get back to caching tomorrow.

the girl we talked to at the one store and the male we talked to at the other store both are cachers. which was cool.

 

i so hope we dont have issues with this new one. as it was a great day to get out and cache today, but we were unable to.

since i installed GSAK i am gonna go with that to put stuff on the new GC.

now to do a few more PQ's and call it good.

 

Monty

[+mykegeegee]

Did you update the firmware? There were problems with the first 1.0 version of the firmware. Does the compass keep spinning or does it stop? Sometime the unit has a problem processing the geocaches or the waypoints an will just spin and spin

 

You can try the following.

 

1. Pull the batteries and replace with fresh ones.

2. Connect the usb (with the explorist off).

3. Hold menu+up+power and the unit will start up in disk access mode (keep them all pressed in until you get a menu on the screen).

4. Once it starts up, browse the device in the windows explorer (or mac equivalent)

5 Go into \\Geocaches folder and move all the files in there to your pc (make a folder in your my documents to store them).

6.Go into the \\Waypoints folder and move all these file as well (keep them separate from the geocache files from above)

7. Eject the device and pull the usb plug and hopefully the unit will reboot normally

 

Once the unit is working normally, I would recommend getting the latest (1.4) firmware. You can download it from Magellan web site.

 

There's a moderately active explorist list at http://www.exploristforum.com/ though I imagine most of them are also around here as well.

 

I had the same problems with my explorist, I had to RMA mine twice, but all that aside, for the price, I love all the features it has. Someday I'll maybe upgrade to a more expensive unit, but I really like this one for now.

 

Thank you so much, I hadn't gone caching for a week or two cuz of grad school hell, but I pulled my GC out today and was going to update it with some new caches in the area.....lo and behold it wouldn't turn on, so I had been scouring the net all day trying to find a reason why......luckily I found your post

 

I followed your rules exactly, except instead of trying to see if it would start after removing the waypoints and such to a separate folder in my computer, i had downloaded the firmware update separately and updated while at the developer's screen...it worked perfectly. I unplugged it from the USB, and put the batteries back in and all is well.

 

Thanks so much for doing all of this for people like me that was sad...

 

m

[jkb37]

Has anyone experienced a freeze up after a half hour or so after a 'start trip'? Map page frozen and can only be cleared with battery removal...! \I currently have the latest firmware 1.7 update....

 

thanks for any help in this regard.

 

jkb

[+gpsblake]

Has anyone experienced a freeze up after a half hour or so after a 'start trip'? Map page frozen and can only be cleared with battery removal...! \I currently have the latest firmware 1.7 update....

 

Yup. And the solution continues to be to turn off features on the unit. Turn off tracking, turn off smart arrow, and set the map to north only, load only a couple 100 caches in as few gpx files as possible, and your problem is solved.... Of course, this isn't a situation at all but a workaround. The problem is the processor is way underpowered for the features of the unit. Mine just collects dust now, in fact, I turned it on just to respond to this post.

[+RangerRicksClan]

I posted this in another forum, but adding here:

I have had a nightmare with tritons. Bought a 200 originally. After a few years, I can say I have had about 10 units all replaced by magellan, several of each upgrade. Each died, usually by freezing. I have had several 500's. I just returned one that died after 4 mos (3 mo warranty) and still got a replacement. The day I got it it froze again. Tried to use it yesterday (next day) and it froze again.

So, they freeze. they lock up and do not turn off. When I take out batts and put back in, the unit goes back to the same window it froze on. They stay on a permanent screen or startup mode. They die. They work great when they do work. I has to be the design and not me!

Each time I loose one I loose my stored data.

 

Another problem is Vantagepoint. That was my only way of saving info, maps, important material. 3 units ago that quit working too. I have become very familiar with Magellans phone center. Apparantly the vp was upgraded. Because my computer is older and only has 64 mb ram, I can't run the new program that requires 128 ram. They don't have the old option.

Now when my units freeze, I loose everything as I have no place to store it.

 

Magallan has given me the option of getting an explorist 510. (before I took the unit out yesterday for another test). I said I wanted to do some research on it, not knowing anything and not wanting to go from bad to worse. It seems the explorist also freezes. What is it with this freezing? I have had many outings and vacations ruined by having a unit that quit either right before a trip (like this week) or on my trip. We all know how long it takes to plan for a geocaching outing and the time lost when we head out and have nothing...

 

So now my delema is do I go for the Ex 510?

Why can't they fix this freezing problem?

[+Chupacabraz]

Has anyone experienced a freeze up after a half hour or so after a 'start trip'? Map page frozen and can only be cleared with battery removal...! \I currently have the latest firmware 1.7 update....

 

thanks for any help in this regard.

 

jkb

 

Yep, bought one last week, updated it to 1.7 firmware. Locked up repeatedly on me in Moab, only a battery pull would fix it. Taking it back to Best Buy tomorrow and won't be getting another one based on what I'm reading here.

[+Chupacabraz]

Because my computer is older and only has 64 mb ram, I can't run the new program that requires 128 ram. They don't have the old option.

 

If your computer has 64MB of RAM, it's got to be at least 10 years old and probably running Windows 95/98. Do yourself a favor, and upgrade that thing ASAP

[+CashCrew1]

Moving this post to the proper forum where you are more likely to find help.

 

Where is the "proper forum"? Typically, there's a link provided.

[+Jackpot88]

Magellan is junk, JUST JUNK! A BIG FAT paper weight. Ive tried all these steps plus some and it stays stuck on the Magellan start up screen, just says Magellan and no compass or anything. Will NEVER buy anything Magellan again in my life. No wonder GC shop stopped selling them. HA!

[+hukilaulau]

Yeah, junk! My explorist 500 just died... Oh wait, I've been using it for 6 years with about 4000 caches found. So maybe that's not so bad.

I went looking for something to replace it and ended up buying... another explorist 500 off e-bay for $82.00! I'll let you know how it turns out.