Mapsource For Dummies: Part Three - Transferring Maps to your GPS

6.11.6 is that it?

Thats the one.

Clutching at straws here but try updating your version of Mapsource to the latest one.

Go here and download it and install it :thumb2

As msg1200 has said if you only have one set of maps it may not show up, but it sounds like you've got more than one mapset.
 
...download it and install it :thumb2

As msg1200 has said if you only have one set of maps it may not show up, but it sounds like you've got more than one mapset.

Done that OK, no difference though.
I have the 'Tossers POI' in it's own folder on the desktop. Presumably mapsource cannot access the POI file? Obviously not while it's in a seperate folder, is that the problem? How can I enable Mapsource to access it?
 
Thanks Whatton,
I was just a bout to throw the CD out the window and then I read this thread.
Not surprisingly it worked.
Thanks, :thumb2
Bob
 
Hi Chaps. Anyone know how to get the City Navigator software to work on a Mac?
 
Maps sent to 2610 or not?

Hi Kev

Thanks for the Dummy's guide.

I've recently upgraded to CN Europe 2008. I've unlocked the maps (although I didn't 'save a complete set as Untitled') and sent them to the 2610 - it sent maps, waypoints, and routes.

The next time I come to plan a route, the associated maps are shown in the top left section, along with associated waypoints and routes. When I send my route to the 2610 all 3 boxes are ticked for sending - maps, waypoints, and routes again. Do I just need to untick the maps box, as they're already on the 2610 (Menu/Info/Map Info tells me they're there), or is Mapsource trying to tell me something?


Cheers,

Neil.
 
Hope this has not been covered before but this is my first post. I purchased a second hand adventure (06), fitted with the Motorrad nav 111 complete withCity navigator NT+, Europe v8. I contacted garmin to see if there were any map updates available and they sold me City Navigator NT Europe 2008. It says on the cover ' update for streetpilot c-series, i-series,2720, 7200, 7500 and quest 2. I've downloaded the maps to my pc and unlocked them but my problem is that if I try to download all of europe the map software tells me that the maps I'm trying to download are just over 12 Megs and I've only got just over 6 Megs available. I thought the Motorrad nav 111 had 2 Gigs of Memory. I also have no drop down box but can download maps upto the 6 Megs available. Can anyone help
 
if I try to download all of europe the map software tells me that the maps I'm trying to download are just over 12 Megs and I've only got just over 6 Megs available. I thought the Motorrad nav 111 had 2 Gigs of Memory.
That sounds wrong. City Nav Europe 2008 NT is about 1.4GB and should fit comfortably onto your NavIII. However, it sounds like you're trying to load it onto the unit using Mapsource to transfer the files and I think that's where you are going wrong. In doing this you are trying to load the mapping into the supplementary memory rather than the primary memory.

The way the mapping is installed on your unit (I believe that the NavIII is a 2820 in disguise) is that the pre installed mapping is not accessible from Mapsource. The space left over is and this is the supplementary memory for any other mapping you might want to install such as Blue Chart or road mapping for another region.

The update disk uses some Garmin Voodoo to replace the old primary mapping with the update, this is done as you install the mapping. However, if the primary mapping is for a different region this will fail. There must be some identifier that inhibits this. The same may apply to mapping for the BMW units even though the region is the same.

Now, there is a way to replace pre installed mapping for a unit imported from another region. As it's a 2820 try putting it in mass storage mode. If, browsing from your PC with it connected via USB, you can see a large (1.4 ish GB) file on the unit called gmapprom.img the this is your primary mapping. This is what you need to replace. I strongly suggest backing up a copy of this to the hard drive of your PC in case it all goes wrong.

You will need a 2GB or larger USB pen drive or a memory card in a USB reader. Using Mapsource write all your European mapping to this rather than to your NavIII. This will create a large file (about 1.4GB) called gmapsupp.img, this will take over an hour. Rename this to gmapprom.img and then transfer to your 2820 using Windows explorer overwriting the gmapprom.img you backed up in the paragraph above.

If you can't see gmapprom.img in mass storage mode you might have to follow the instructions in the link below.

If you really want a head ache you can find how I upgraded the primary mapping on my US import 2720 from North America NT to Europe NT. It works very well. :D
 
Thanks for the info, I'll try what you've said and report back, but does this mean that any revised mapping, ie altered road junctions, new roads etc are not easily downloadable to the motorrad nav 111as the regions I'm trying to update are the regions already installed on the garmin. By the way I rang garmin with the problem and they didn't seem interested.
 
Thanks for the info, I'll try what you've said and report back, but does this mean that any revised mapping, ie altered road junctions, new roads etc are not easily downloadable to the motorrad nav 111as the regions I'm trying to update are the regions already installed on the garmin. By the way I rang garmin with the problem and they didn't seem interested.
Changes aren't loaded individually, it's a complete replacement of the existing installed mapping on the unit. These cannot be loaded on a revision by revision basis.

If you saved just one mapping tile in Mapsource as your gmapsupp.img file, renamed this to gmapprom.img and loaded it by using one of the methods described above you would only have that tile loaded on your GPS. In other words making a change to the mapping will overwrite all primary mapping that's already on the GPS. The same can be said for the secondary mapping, each load of this via Mapsource onto the device will overwrite the previous gmapsupp.img file. Loading routes and custom waypoints (favourites) from Mapsource is different, these do not overwrite the previously loaded routes and waypoints but add to them.

The primary mapping and secondary mapping are independent of each other though the memory for supplementary mapping is basically what's left over once the primary mapping is loaded. Sure you could load parts of your new mapping upgrade into the remaining 600MB or so of space but as your new map set is about 1.4GB it's plain to see that not all of it will fit on. Mapsource only tells you this once it's tried to load the mapping and taken an age to do so.

It is important that you reduce your secondary mapping to a negligible size before doing a primary mapping update. If your primary mapping memory is full and the update is bigger than the previous primary mapping install (they always tend to be) then there will be a clash and the update will fail.

A better alternative to Mapsource for loading supplementary mapping is to use Garmin Mapinstall, this will report on the available memory on your GPS so you can make a call on how many mapping tiles to load. This is the way I managed the mapping on my 2720 before I found out that I could replace the primary mapping using the techniques described in the SmellyBiker link in my previous post. I had the redundant US mapping as primary taking the lions share of the total memory and loaded parts of Europe into the supplementary memory as I needed them. Obviously this wasn't ideal, I preferred to have all of Europe installed as on the European model. Garmin, despite selling me the European mapping, said that it wasn't possible to replace the US mapping with European and I would have to load it into the supplementary memory space.

The hacks I describe are not for the faint hearted, whilst I'm sure they are not approved for public use by Garmin they wrote the software that is used. The command line stuff is there for them to use to do stuff that the end consumer isn't made aware of. The risks are low but there is a slim chance you could turn your GPS into an expensive paperweight. Even a failed update, I'm sure, can be recovered from. If you are not able to save the pre installed gmapprom.img file from your device overwriting it will erase it and it'll be gone for ever, no going back...

Please also note that the methods described will not circumnavigate (pun not intended) the unlock code. You must have a valid unlock code, purchased from Garmin, for the mapping and specific GPS unit your are upgrading installed in Mapsource. Failure to do this will result in the GPS unit not recognising the mapping and you will have wasted your time.
 
Thanks again, I did purchase the unlock code for the update. I just assumed the new mapsource version I purchased would be a complete updated map of europe and when downloaded to the garmin would completely replace and remove the old mapsource already installed on the unit. How else can you update your garmin to include all new roads and alterations that occur over a period of time. If you can't do this ( which you could on my old street pilot 111 ), then surely there's not much use in a gps with outdated information. Sorry if I sound a bit thick but I just don't understand.
 
Thanks again, I did purchase the unlock code for the update. I just assumed the new mapsource version I purchased would be a complete updated map of europe and when downloaded to the garmin would completely replace and remove the old mapsource already installed on the unit. How else can you update your garmin to include all new roads and alterations that occur over a period of time. If you can't do this ( which you could on my old street pilot 111 ), then surely there's not much use in a gps with outdated information. Sorry if I sound a bit thick but I just don't understand.
Yes, that's exactly how it should work, sorry I babbled on a bit which probably led to the confusion... I have a tendency to do that :jibber

I mentioned the unlock bit more for other readers of the thread rather than yourself so they don't get the wrong end of the stick.

I think the problem is that you need an update for the NavIII from BMW rather than the one from Garmin for their generic units. In a similar vein to my Garmin supplied European update totally failing to run the update process for the GPS with US mapping installed. It loaded onto Mapsource and could be loaded into the supplementary memory and used but the unit update just wouldn't run. It will only update mapping for the same map set type as previously installed. I'll wager that the generic update that Garmin have supplied you is refusing to update the GPS because of the BMW specific mapping pre installed on your NavIII has some different product identifier.

I would assume that you could update your mapping using the hacks as described. This worked for the differing regions problem that I had, I can't see why the same wouldn't apply. You've got to think of each region being a specific product and although the BMW mapping is the same region as the European mapping (although I believe there is some BMW dealership POI data in there) it is a different product.

However, you may wish to contact BMW and request an update from them though the unlock for the mapping provided by Garmin is unlikely to work and you'll need to pursue them for a refund or a free unlock for the BMW supplied mapping.
 
Thanks very much for the info, I'll contact BMW and Garmin again and see how far I get. Thanks again.
 
Hi again, I've not managed to contact BMW but have contacted Garmin ( 3 times before I got anywhere, hopefully anyway ). The last person I spoke to at garmin informs me that the only way to create more space on the unit is to reinstall the original mapsource onto my pc with the original unlock code. Then transfer 1map tile with not much info on it, ( like a piece of the sea ), to my gps. This will overwrite all other maps on my gps, just leaving a piece of the sea on my gps and nothing else. Theoretically this will leave loads of space to download the updated mapsource. I've just tried to do it and my cd reader has just packed in. I think I'll buy a road atlas
 
Hi again, I've not managed to contact BMW but have contacted Garmin ( 3 times before I got anywhere, hopefully anyway ). The last person I spoke to at garmin informs me that the only way to create more space on the unit is to reinstall the original mapsource onto my pc with the original unlock code. Then transfer 1map tile with not much info on it, ( like a piece of the sea ), to my gps. This will overwrite all other maps on my gps, just leaving a piece of the sea on my gps and nothing else. Theoretically this will leave loads of space to download the updated mapsource. I've just tried to do it and my cd reader has just packed in. I think I'll buy a road atlas
I'm really surprised at their response to be honest. I usually hold Garmin tech support in quite high regard but what they are telling you is not correct. Transferring mapping using Mapsource will not effect the primary mapping, only the secondary mapping and that's overwritten every time you write to it. Yes, writing a small tile will erase what's there, but this will not touch the primary mapping. This is by design to protect the primary mapping from accidental deletion, allow a large installed map which isn't effected (overwritten) when you want to add some other mapping for another purpose (i.e. Blue Chart or Topo) or other road mapping for another region (City Nav Nth America for that big road trip). I can see exactly why Garmin did what they did, creating the two distinct files, it makes sense as you'd otherwise need to load all of Europe to just load a few tiles to visit uncle Bob in Kansas which would take over an hour. With it the way it is you can do it in a few minutes.

Why they have intentionally prevented users from changing from one product to a different one I don't know. The only reason I can think of is market protection, preventing the sale of a unit in one region where it's cheaper and then it being fully converted for use in another. This, however, would be very much negated by having to buy the retail version of the mapping for the region moved to. The previous owner of my 2720 did just that but couldn't load it all onto the unit at once.
 
Well for me this is a serious problem. According to the last person I spoke to at garmin they up date mapsource about 4 times a year and to have to keep going through a complicated procedure to keep a gps up to date isn't acceptable. Yes I understand the reason for the secondary memory, to be able to add minor additions, routes, waypoints etc., but there should be an easy way to update the primary mapping.It only needs the program to ask if you're sure that you want to proceed to overwrite the primary memory before it allows you to do it. Even if you did accidently erase the primary memory the information is:-, a/ still on your pc and b/ still on your original cd. I don't think many people would pay £1000 for a Bmw gps system if in 3 months the info on it would be out of date and not easily updated, or am I on my own in thinking this.
 
Which I still haven't done. Garmin lost the first CN NT 2009 maps they sent, then sent another disc which I got, only it was CN 2009 not CN NT 2009, so now waiting for the disc still. I've got CN NT 2009 with unlock codes for Mrs Berin's Zumo, but I'm going to wait until I get the disc specifically for the Nav III from Garmin, as I'm expecting problems!

BTW, Silverfox, you can't see the Nav III as mass storage device on you PC. If you could, all of this would be easy.
 
Yes, just done that, he seems to be having the same problems as me. While I've got my grumpy head on, this is what the second person at garmin told me to do.
Go into ' my computer ' on the pc, double click on the garmin icon, a garmin folder will open, click on this and you will see either ' Gmap prom.ing ' or ' Gmap sup. ing ' delete which ever is there, then you will be able to down load the up dates. Tried this but the garmin folder isn't there. When I rang back and spoke to the third person at garmin he told me I'd been given the wrong advice. I'm not impressed by garmin at all.
 
When I rang back and spoke to the third person at garmin he told me I'd been given the wrong advice. I'm not impressed by garmin at all.

To be fair, the GPS you have is a BM one, it says so on the front :toungincheek

You should be upset with BM for producing a GPS and not having the back up for it. You have asked the dealer you got the GPS from for help?

Plus how many 2820's / Zumo's etc do you think sell compared to how many Nav 3's BM sells.
10 000 to 1 :nenau
 
Yes, it is a Bmw unit made for them by garmin. To be fair to my Bmw dealer they say that they are stumped by the problem and have been very helpful. Surely garmin should be aware of the problem and if there is no solution then just say so, instead you get a different '' solution '' from each person you speak to at garmin. May be no one who buys the unit I have bothers to update it, maybe they like getting lost.
 


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