Quest ... where are my waypoints?

Greetings from across the pond! The folks on AdvRider don't seem to have the same fountain of knowledge as you blokes so I thought I'd post my question to you.

I've got a new Quest that I've been using for a month now (and previously I'd been using an eTrex Vista for several years). So I'm a nOOb, but I'm not *that* much of a nOOb.

My problem yesterday was this: On my Quest I had previously loaded detailed maps and waypoints. Everything was grand. I am about to go on a holiday, so I added to my waypoints file (on my pc) a bunch of waypoints of restaurants, etc. Then I downloaded the waypoints from my file (both the new waypoints and the old waypoints) onto my Quest. Because I'm wicked smart I figured I better test the new data out before happily driving off... and I could NOT do a "find" of "my favorites/locations" to find any of the new waypoints. The previously loaded waypoints were visible under the "my favorites" menu, but my new waypoints were not there. But wait that's not all. It gets weirder. If I pan the map to the where I will be on holiday, I can see my new waypoint icons! So the new waypoints *did* download to the Quest but I can not search for them either under "all" or under "my favorites".

I eventually decided to try to delete all of my waypoints and re-import them all again. I couldn't find a "delete all of my favorite waypoints" option, so I deleted all of my settings. :-( This kind of sucked. After I re-imported my waypoints, I could then see and search on all of my personal waypoints and things seem to work fine.

1. Is there a problem with downloading waypoints after you had previously downloaded waypoints? How come I experienced this weird behavior?

2. How the heck do I delete my personal waypoints (without deleting *all* of my personal settings)?

Thanks!

Sam

answer

FIND
MY LOCATIONS
MENU
select FIND BY NAME instead of FIND NEAREST
OK

Sherpa

sherpa said:

FIND
MY LOCATIONS
MENU
select FIND BY NAME instead of FIND NEAREST
OK

Sherpa

Click to expand...

Sherpa,

I tried My Locations > containing > [lola] for example to search for a waypoint I know I created that contains "lola". This didn't work. I also tried simply scrolling through my entire list of personal waypoints (I only have 60 or so). This also did not show my "lola" waypoint.

Is there some sort of cutoff (such as distance) that prevents you from finding waypoints when in "find nearest" mode?

Thanks,

Sam

yep!..

samtheeagle said:

Sherpa,

I tried My Locations > containing > [lola] for example to search for a waypoint I know I created that contains "lola". This didn't work. I also tried simply scrolling through my entire list of personal waypoints (I only have 60 or so). This also did not show my "lola" waypoint.

Is there some sort of cutoff (such as distance) that prevents you from finding waypoints when in "find nearest" mode?

Thanks,

Sam

Click to expand...

...thats why its called find nearest - it'll only show the ones within a certain radius of the map pointer.
Just follow the instructions above and I think you'll be sorted

Sherpa

samtheeagle said:

Is there some sort of cutoff (such as distance) that prevents you from finding waypoints when in "find nearest" mode?

Click to expand...

There certainly is a "cut off" on the 2610 and assume there is on a Quest. I had something similar just recently ie downloaded about 40 waypoints to my 2610 but had a hell of a fright when I could only find some of them using the "Find" feature. On the 2610 though, there is a drop down option to select waypoints "By Name" "Near Here" etc - mine was set to "Near Here" so only gave me the local ones - sorry but don't know what the "cut off" distance is. If you try sherpas suggestion above, you will probably find the lot.

sherpa said:

...thats why its called find nearest - it'll only show the ones within a certain radius of the map pointer.
Just follow the instructions above and I think you'll be sorted

Sherpa

Click to expand...

I presume that it is done this way to save on processing power other wise it would have to search through all the
poi's in all the maps on the unit which would slow things down a tad!!

Dave

I think the Quest will only hold, 500 waypoints, certainly on the European version, however, I think the American version, only has half the memory capability, of the European one. You may well have topped out with waypoints, and it has deleted, what you already have on to make way for the new ones.....

samtheeagle said:

Is there some sort of cutoff (such as distance) that prevents you from finding waypoints when in "find nearest" mode?

Click to expand...

Hi Sam:

That's it, you just identified the cause of the problem you are experiencing. There is a cutoff for the distance radius that is used when you do a 'find'. This feature was introduced around the same time that the first 2xxx series GPSR (the 2610) was rolled out about 2 or 3 years ago.

The rationale behind the cutoff makes sense when you think about it from a programming perspective - by limiting the search to a finite radius, the results are delivered to the user more rapidly. However, if the user is not aware that a cutoff radius exists for a 'default' search, this aspect of the user interface construction can be a bit of a nuisance.

The fix for the problem you are having is simple, though not 100% intuitive. When you initiate a search from any function in the GPSR, the default search criteria is 'near here' - you will actually see this text (near here) displayed somewhere near the bottom of the search screen. All you have to do is modify this default search criteria to suit your needs. There are various options available to you - you can search 'along your route', or 'near destination' if you have a route active (quite useful if you are looking for a gas station or a hotel for the night), you can search 'near other', or - most appropriate to solve your problem - you can search by panning the map around with the pointer tool.

So, if you are presently near London, and you want to find a user waypoint (or a hotel, or gas station, or whatever) near Moscow, you go to the FIND menu, then select the 'use map' option, pan the map around so the pointer is near Moscow, then you press OK. The search radius will now be centered on wherever you put the map pointer (Moscow, in this case), not on where you presently are.

Hope this helps,

Michael

You guys are all right ... and wrong!

I now am fully versed on the difference between "find by name" and "find nearest". It's a feature that makes sense, now that I have worked with it and thought about it.

But ... it turns out this is not my problem.

Last night I played around and did more test on my "find ..." for my waypoints.

I have about 60 waypoints loaded. When I do "find nearest" I can now see *all* of my 60 waypoints. None of my waypoints are beyond any geographical/distance cutoff! And I can see all my waypoints in the list, regardless of which mode (nearest/by name) I am in.

Yet, before, I could only see the waypoints that I had downloaded initially. The waypoints I had downloaded subsequently, as you recall, did not show up under my waypoints list.

I saw a post by "Twotter" (?) where he recommended downloading everything you need for a trip at the same time. He seemed to be implying that you might experience problems if you download items in different passes to the GPS. My experience confirms this.

Totter ... are you out there? I tried PM'ing him, but I'm not a paying member here. :-(

samtheeagle said:

I saw a post by "Twotter" (?) where he recommended downloading everything you need for a trip at the same time. He seemed to be implying that you might experience problems if you download items in different passes to the GPS. My experience confirms this.

Click to expand...

Twotter's suggestion is a good one for a new user, however, I don't want anyone to start thinking that there could be problems if you make subsequent additions to the waypoints, routes, or maps stored on your GPSR. If you are familiar working with the MapSource application, you should not encounter any problems.

Here are a few tips concerning transferring stuff from MapSource to your GPSR:

1) Waypoints: You can make as many subsequent additions of waypoints as you want to a GPSR that already has user waypoints in it. Adding new waypoints will not overwrite any waypoints that already exist in the GPSR - doing so will simply add the new waypoints to the GPSR. If you try to re-load a waypoint that is already present in the GPSR, the GPSR is smart enough to check and see if there are any modifications to the waypoint. If there are none, it will ignore your efforts. If the newer version of the waypoint has additional information added, it will be appended.

2) Routes: You can also add additional routes without messing up any routes you already have in the GPSR. The same comments made above for waypoints also apply to routes.

3) Maps: OK, maps follow a different set of rules. Whenever you upload any kind of cartography to your GPSR, you totally erase what is there already. So, this means that if you want to upload one tiny little additional map segment to your GPSR (e.g. you want to add in the Isle of Mann because you just won a free ferry ticket there), if you want to avoid erasing everything else that is presently on the GPSR, you have to do the following:

3a) Connect the GPSR to your computer, and transfer the maps FROM the GPSR TO the computer. In other words, download the maps from the GPSR. You won't actually be downloading all the map data - you will only be downloading a directory of what maps are presently on your GPSR. MapSource is smart enough to not transfer all the detailed map data from your GPSR to your computer, because it knows you have the detailed map data on your hard drive. So, this process only takes a few seconds.

3b) Now, working with the file you just downloaded, add the map segment or segments you want to append. You do this in the usual manner, by clicking on the map segments with the map select tool.

3c) Save that MapSource file to your computer (in case you screw up later, so you don't have to do the work all over again), then upload the maps back to the GPSR. This will take some time, because MapSource has to build a new map file, and upload this new map file (with all the detail) to your GPSR.

What you will have done, by following steps a, b, and c, is to have downloaded a list of what maps already exist on your GPSR, added a segment or two to that list (you can also delete segments if you want), then uploaded the complete modified map file to the GPSR. Think of it like this: Changing the map file is like burning a single-session CD. You have to send the entire package of all the information at once, you cannot any tag little bits on later.

Most people who encounter problems with appending waypoints or routes have problems because they unintentionally indicate that they want to transfer other categories of data (maps, tracks, etc.) when they upload their new data. If all you want to do is append a few waypoints and a route or two to your GPSR, then make darn sure that the 'maps' and 'tracks' box is NOT checked when you initiate the upload.

Michael

samtheeagle said:

...Yet, before, I could only see the waypoints that I had downloaded initially. The waypoints I had downloaded subsequently, as you recall, did not show up under my waypoints list.(

Click to expand...

I use a 2610 so don't know whether the Quest uses a CF card or something similar, but if (like the 2610) you download maps to a card, is it possible that you have downloaded the first batch of waypoints to the unit, and the second batch to the card? Don't forget that the card won't hold waypoints or routes as they need to be downloaded to the unit, ie the card will only hold maps.

If the Quest doesn't use a card, then please ignore all of the above.

PanEuropean: Those rules are generally true. However in this case I can tell you for sure that adding waypoints subsequently did not work as intended by Garmin and I must have hit a bug.

Taff: my Quest doesn't use a memory card, so I'm ignoring your post, as requested.

Thanks all!

- Sam

samtheeagle said:

I saw a post by "Twotter" (?) where he recommended downloading everything you need for a trip at the same time. He seemed to be implying that you might experience problems if you download items in different passes to the GPS. My experience confirms this.

Totter ... are you out there? I tried PM'ing him, but I'm not a paying member here. :-(

Click to expand...

Totter ??? Well, perhaps after a sherry or two

With my old Quest 1 I usually just left it with the UK detail maps and only loaded extra maps for trips abroad (remembering to reload the UK maps I needed as well of course) along with any routes and associated waypoints I had plotted on the MapSource software.

When I first started using the Quest 1 I did make a few mistakes and ended up using the hard reset to put things right. Certainly worked okay for me.

Pan (or Michael) is the Garmin guru so do what he suggests and you can't go too far wrong