Explorist 510 firmware update 7.24 issues

[+rassilon256]

The story so far: I'm a recent convert to geocaching and have been using the iPhone app, which is great but occasionally a bit jumpy. So I figured it would be worth buying a proper GPSr for the accuracy, durability and general usefulness. Also, I have an overseas holiday coming up and I thought if I got a paperless geocaching enabled unit I could preload caches for the trip and not have to pay for international phone data.

 

So, with extensive research I looked at all the stores near me that sold GPSrs, Googled reviews, read the ratings here and on geocaching.com, and decided that the best unit I could afford was the Magellan Explorist 510. I duly bought one, got on the Magellan website for a full manual, and discovered that there was a firmware update that sounded very useful (see here). I downloaded it, followed the instructions to the letter, and 10 minutes later had a brick. It brought up a BSOD message, I can't remember the exact words but it was close to

File is incorrect. Please cold boot and try again.

If I cold-booted it it simply returned to the BSOD.

 

Assuming I had a faulty unit, I rang Magellan. They said return it to the store where I bought it for a replacement. I did that today, brought the new unit home and carefully reread the instructions on the firmware and ran it again. I now have what may be a brick. For the past 4 hours it has displayed a blue screen with the words

Updating image...

in the middle and

NOTE : This is Iboot fail

Please wait for the proced

at the bottom. I'm assuming it has simply frozen, and a cold-boot may fix it, but I'm tempted to just let it run down the batteries overnight and see what happens just in case.

 

Practical upshot: does anyone know anything about this problem or have any suggestions to fix it? Feel free if you do to be technical, my experience of WinCE systems is limited but I was in tech support for a few years so I should cope.

[+Walts Hunting]

Take it back and get a Garmin.

[+rassilon256]

Right... Anyone have any useful suggestions?

[+niraD]

You may get more help in the GPS technology forum.

 

I've got a 310, but I haven't tried upgrading the firmware yet.

[+rassilon256]

Thanks NiraD, I wasn't sure about whether to post there or here. I'll repost there, I hope that's not bad form.

[+Graculus]

I have a Magellan 710 and have done all software updates using Magellan's Vantage Point software. That has always worked fine. Please note that VP only works on a PC not Mac.

 

I can only think the actual file download is corrupt in some way. At the bottom of the software download screen is a contact Magellan option. Have you tried that?

 

Finally here is a link to the Magellan eXplorist forum thread on firmware issues with the 510. I've not read the whole thing but it seems you may not be alone with this problem. You may find some help there.

http://www.exploristforum.com/forums/software-issues/firmware-update-510/

 

Chris

Graculus

Volunteer UK Reviewer for geocaching.com

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[+rassilon256]

Thanks Graculus! Thats exactly the sort of thing I wasn't able to find myself for some reason. I'm surprised the Explorist Forum never turned up in my researches. My units also came from Dick Smith, I think its clearly a faulty batch. I was suspecting that might be the case.

 

Interestingly, that thread says *not* to use VP. And I'm 99% certain the update file is fine, its a self-extracting .zip and I've never known them to be resilient when corrupted. But without something like a checksum you can't be totally sure.

 

I contacted Magellan after the first unit bricked, I'll call them today, see if I can manage to get them to fix the situation. Ideally they might send me a replacement from a different batch with the update already in place. We'll see how far they want to go.

[+rassilon256]

Well, it took over two months and six devicesbut I finally got a resolution from Magellan. To avoid duplication I'm just going to link to my other post on the subject.