problem showing a map on the device in Basecamp

Berin said:

Here's the map showing up in Basecamp. It's on the card called No Name, and the file on the card is called fred.img. Basecamp reads the metadata and so calls it City Navigator Europe NTU 2018.1.

Click to expand...

Are you telling us that your Mac can now receive and then display the maps from your Garmin device / from a card from within your Garmin device / from a card in a card reader? If so, can you show / tell us which exactly how you did it, in simple to follow stages, please.

I only ask as there is the other fellow with the same problem. You seem to hold the answer. If it works reliably and is reasonably easy to replicate, I'll cut the method out and make it a sticky.... so make it good.

Thanks.

No problem Lee. Out of interest, what Garmin device are you using? I've been renaming .img files since about 2013.

I'm just doing it again, to make sure I know what I did!

Berin said:

No problem Lee. Out of interest, what Garmin device are you using? I've been renaming .img files since about 2013.

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I have 2 zumo 660 1 550 and a couple of nuvi's, and as i said was led to believe that was the only naming format that would work, now i know different, and with reference to the gma and unlock files it makes no difference if i rename them, this makes sense as the map would come up locked if it could see it.

Berin said:

I'm just doing it again, to make sure I know what I did!

Click to expand...

Your audience awaits....

Berin said:

I'm just doing it again, to make sure I know what I did!

Click to expand...

Your audience awaits....

Berin any news on the fix, just curious

I'm trying to replicate what I did, and it seems that part of my problem wasn't Basecamp related at all, but due to an issue with my Mac (and windows running in a vm on the Mac) is having reading card readers. So although I can view the maps on the device, and also in Basecamp if I plug the device into the Mac whether the map is on the card or on the device, I don't always see the map in Basecamp if the map is on a card and I plug the card into the Mac in a card reader.

I am investigating!

Have you tried running the Mac as a Mac, not as a virtual PC?

Right, after distraction by various issues unrelated to but having an impact on the map stuff, I can now post up the steps to load a map to BC Mac, install the map to an SD, then make the map on the card readable in BC. Wapping, I use the Mac as a Mac 95% of the time but there are some tasks, like running MemoryMap and others as we'll see below for which Windows is required. For these I run Windows 10 in a VM on my Mac.

How to install a map to BaseCamp for Mac and to an SD card

First off, download the latest (pretty old) version of BC Mac from the Garmin site, not from the App Store. Also download Garmin Map Manager and Garmin Map install. You will also need JaVaWa Device Manager which sadly due to ill health of the author does not run on Mac OS Sierra. The Windows version still works though.

By the way, I'm aware there are a number of ways to achieve the same end. If you have an alternative, maybe post it on a separate thread.

Use case 1. Installing a free OSM map to BC mac, installing the map to an SD card, making the map on the SD card visible in Basecamp.

1) Download the map you want. You can choose downloads for windows, Mac, etc. I am using the Mac OSM maps for Morocco in this example, found here.

The download is called OSM_routable_Morocco.gmap

To install, find the .gmap file in finder and click it. This will run Map Manager, follow the instructions to install. Here's the map in BC Mac





First stage accomplished.

Install to SD card

Next stage - install the OSM Morocco maps to an SD card. You'll need a micro sd card, and a card reader. I advise at this stage using a new SD card in a reader, not the one in your device, to avoid overwriting maps you may already have.

2) Connect the card reader to the Mac. I've found it better to connect direct to a USB port on the Mac, rather than via a USB hub. Check in Finder to see it's there, and note what it;s called in Finder. Find Map Install in Applications and run it. Map Install will recognise your SD card (if you have other USB devices attached make sure you choose the right card). Click next, and Map Install will show you which maps you can install.



Choose OSM Generic Routable Morocco, choose the map tiles you want, click send maps. Map Install will create a gmapsupp.img file and send it to a folder it will create on your card called Garmin.



Once this is done, locate the new gmapsupp.img file in Finder, and rename it. I called it OSM_Maroc.img. Garmin calls all its map images gmapsupp.img, so if you install a new gmapsupp.img to a location where a gampsupp.img file already exists, it will be overwritten. Apart from solving this problem, it also makes it easier to see what's what.



Take the card out of the card reader and pop it in your device (Garmin Montana, in this case). Go to Map, press the 3 lines, >setup map>select map. Your new map appears here.



Second stage accomplished

It may of helped if you had mentioned you were working with osm maps at the begining and using a card reader, but glad you are now sorted.

Make the maps on the SD card visible in Basecamp

So now we've installed the maps to Basecamp on the Mac, and also installed them to an SD card to be read by the device. What we now want to do is be able to connect the Garmin device to the MacBook Air used for trips and for Basecamp to be able to read the maps, so we don't have to install the maps to the Macbook Air.

The maps have a software switch which makes them "visible in BaseCamp" or "not visible in BaseCamp". When the maps were transferred to the card this switch is set to "not visible in BaseCamp", so connecting the SD card reader to the Mac and firing up BC results in the following:



BC sees the card, but doesn't see any maps. The card is under devices, called SD1. Now, there is a complex way to set the "visible" switch to "on" by modifying the map file, or there's an easy way using JaVaWa Device Manager. As mentioned, JDM only runs in Windows.

Assuming you have access to a Windows machine, follow these steps.

3) Make the maps on the SD card visible in BC.

If you are using Windows in a virtual Machine on the Mac, first off close BC in the Mac, eject the SD card, and empty trash. Fire up Windows and connect the card. Make sure the card appears in File Explorer. Then run JDM. JDM will search removable drives and find any which have maps on them. In this case the removable device is my Montana, and the card has been desgnated drive G by Windows.



Click the manage maps button for G, or whatever it's designated on your PC.



You can do other stuff here, like change the name of the mapset, but all we'll do is click the button in the tool bar marked "visible in BC"



The little world icon in the map line indicates it's now visible in BC

If you have BC in Windows, you can see that the OSM maps are now readable from the card



In Windows, close down JDM, BC and eject the card. If you're using a VM, lose Windows and the VM.

Reconnect the card to the Mac, and fire up BC.



And now the OSM maps on the card are visible in BC for both Mac and Windows. BC will read the maps from a card reader, or if the card is inserted into the device. If you want to install the maps to your actual device, rather than have them on a card, just copy the OSM_maroc.img file to the Garmin folder on the device.

Disclaimer.

I've used a Garmin Montana here. There may be some complications with a Zumo devices, including that the folders where the maps are installed are hidden, and Zumo's don't read some types of map, notably raster maps like GB Discoverer. These OSM maps are vector though and will work with Zumo.

leedude03 said:

It may of helped if you had mentioned you were working with osm maps at the begining and using a card reader, but glad you are now sorted.

Click to expand...

I wasn't using OSM maps. I'm just using OSM maps now to illustrate the method, since they're free and easy to access, and a small one like Maroc doesn't take hours to compile. And I did mention cards in Post 3, plus plenty of screen shot which show a card in card reader, not that it makes any difference.

No mention of a card reader here. post 3
you do call it a device but also call the nav a device, and yes you did mention cards but the nav will take cards aswell but as you say it makes no difference, and still glad its sorted and thanks for the how to.

Hi Lee. Using the device to display the maps - they are not on the macbook. Yes, the macbook can see the device and the SD card. It can also see other maps that are on the SD card, just not the CN 2018.1. This only happens on the Mac - on basecamp/windows I can see all the maps on the device and SD card,

Thanks for the clarification. It turns out in fact that the card reader did make a difference, since it had a weird fault whereby the Mac took ages to read some maps - so when I thought I was missing the maps I just hadn't given it long enough, and also the USB hub I was using appeared to cause some issues, and the USB drivers in the VM had corrupted so I to reinstall them.

Anyway, with all that fixed it's pretty straightforward.

leedude03 said:

No mention of a card reader here. post 3
you do call it a device but also call the nav a device, and yes you did mention cards but the nav will take cards aswell but as you say it makes no difference, and still glad its sorted and thanks for the how to.

Hi Lee. Using the device to display the maps - they are not on the macbook. Yes, the macbook can see the device and the SD card. It can also see other maps that are on the SD card, just not the CN 2018.1. This only happens on the Mac - on basecamp/windows I can see all the maps on the device and SD card,

Click to expand...

If you had of said card reader i may have said beware people with Macs have had issue with certain chipsets in certain readers, but glad its all sorted

Dealing with City Navigator and Garmin Maps

Garmin licence maps in 3 ways;

1) Purchased with the device, typically now Lifetime Maps which gives you updates. Example City Navigator maps on the Zumo's

2) Purchased on a micro SD card which you insert into your device. These are a one off purchase and are not updatable.

3) A download, locked to the device selected during the download, also non-updateable.

This does mean that even though you have a licence for City Navigator for your Zumo, if you want to also use City Navigator on your Montana, Garmin requests that you buy the City Navigator maps on a micro SD card which you can insert into the Montana. A couple of years later when that map is out of date then you need to buy a new version. You can buy the cards from Amazon, Garmin. CN Europe is £75.00, and it's worth checking which version you'll get too so you don't get an old one

For anyone arriving at this thread late, this was the opening post:

Berin said:

One of the handy things about Basecamp is the ability to view maps that are on the device on a computer, but I'm struggling with it on a the new 2018.1 map.

I have City Navigator 2018.1 installed and visible and working fine on my device. If I plug the device into a Windows PC with and open BaseCamp, I see the 2018.1 map (and a couple of others). On BaseCamp on the Macbook Air I use for travelling, though, it doesn't show up, although the other maps on the device do.

I've used JaVaWa device manager to switch the "visible in basecamp" flag to on, but JaVaWa now only works on Windows. I doubt if that's the reason, but maybe.

Any ideas, anyone?

Click to expand...

By the time we get to the end, the reality has altered:

1. Card readers are involved, not a 'device' (which most people will read as a GPS device)

2. USB hubs are involved

3. The Mac is running as a virtual PC

4. Lots of other things in between

In short, the story and the assorted set of circumstances changes considerably as the thread develops.

The good news is that anyone connecting their Garmin GPS device directly to their conventional Mac, should be able to draw across maps from their Garmin GPS device and / or from an SD card held within their Garmin GPS, with boring reliability. People running a conventional PC in the same conventional way, should be able to do the same, very reliably too.

The other bit of good news, is that anyone using their Mac, their Garmin devices and their card readers / USB hubs in the same way as Berin and encounter a problem with the maps not being drawn across now know why and / or have a reliable fix for their problem.