Garmin GPS 62s Download Map Hell

[+nericksx]

Last November I bought the Garmin 24k Topo West map (download from the site) for my GPS 62s. I attempted to download it via Basecamp, but never could find a way to make Basecamp "see" my purchase. It kept saying "no unlocked maps" I finally looked at my email receipt again and followed the download instructions which included the Communicator plug-in. I emailed customer support because I couldn't believe I had to install the map this way. The support rep insisted that the Communicator plug-in was the only way to get my map because it "installs directly to the GPS or SD card". I never did get it working before my trip to snow camp in Lassen NP. It downloaded for 36 hours, then got hung up trying to "activate" my map. We actually delayed our trip by 5 hours to see if I could get this working, and never did.

 

Fast forward to today. I decide that since I'm just hanging out, and it's going to be hiking season soon, I'll work on this again. I break out IE 11 (?!) and download the stupid Communicator plug in. I plug in my GPS and it takes about 2 hours for the map to install on to the SD Card. This being a 4gb map, I bought a big ol 64gb card for my GPS. Well, it downloads (took FOREVER), but the file names don't seem right:

D1532010A.gma

D1532010A (disk image file)

D1532010A.unl

 

Sure enough, the map isn't detected my my GPS in the map setup. I thought it was because I was trying to use a big 64gb card that was formatted exFAT32, so I snagged the 16gb card from my phone and formatted it FAT32 and tried again - same result. I've downloaded this 5 or 6 times and it's never worked. Right now I'm just furious because I spent $130 on this map that I can't use.

 

If anyone has any insight, that would be great. Thanks!

[+Atlas Cached]

You are correct, the exFAT32 will not work, must be FAT32.

 

Beyond that, you will have to contact GARMIN customer support for this issue.

[+Red90]

Those are the correct files. Where exactly are they on the GPS? You should be able to use Garmin Express to do the installs, I would assume and not need IE.

 

Are you positive the map can't be seen by the GPS?

[+nericksx]

I wondered if those were the correct files because the file names weren't more characteristically descriptive like "gmap24kwesttopo" or something. The files are in the /Garmin folder on the sd card.

 

Garmin Express (via Basecamp) doesn't see any unlocked maps available for install.

 

According to the Garmin support rep that I emailed (FWIW) the files must be downloaded from their site via their Communicator plugin, which is only compatible with IE 11 and older and Firefox.

 

I'm positive the maps are not seen by the GPS. Menu > Map Setup > Choose Map - only displayed the world basemap as an option.

 

Thanks for trying to help!

[+nericksx]

Update: I think one problem is that I'm not getting a complete download. The file downloads for a couple of hours and goes to 100% and says it's done, but the file size is 2.3gb when it is a 3.8gb map. I have no idea why the download wouldn't be complete.

[+nericksx]

Update 2: Got it working. Turns out I'd never gotten a complete download. The Communicator plug-in is terrible, it take hours to download, and it's really sensitive. The connection breaks for no apparent reason. I ended up setting my laptop to never sleep or hibernate and letting it go overnight. Then I finally got the whole file and my GPS picked it up with no problem.

[+Atlas Cached]

Ah, so the issue was that your laptop was going into sleep or hibernate mode during the download before it was finished.

 

Thanks for posting the updates so future users with similar issues will have this thread for guidance!

 

Happy Cachin'!

[+nericksx]

Atlas: for clarity, no, the problem wasn't that my laptop was hibernating or sleeping. The issue was that the download is so slow and unstable that the connection would break without a discernible cause if I was using my laptop at all during download. My solution was to turn off hibernation so that I could leave the laptop alone long enough for the file to download for 4 hours undisturbed.