Free mandatory Garmin GPS software update for nuvi 7x5

by about 30 seconds!

Miss POI .. can you combine our posts? - DJS

I have just installed this update without letting the unit get a satellite lock. Restarted and 3.60 installed without a hitch and it seems stable. Can anybody confirm this?

I can confirm what happens if you don't update...A DEAD GARMIN!! See other Post on Nuvi 765 locked up with Black Screen. All 7x5's are affected.

I avoided the bricking of my 755T thanks to this site. Boy am I glad that I make it a point to check in every morning.

I installed 3.60 and everything seems to be fine. I need to take a ride today but it kept contact in the house until power drained out last night.

As big of a mistake that this was I need to give Garmin some kudos for the quick response. I suspect some software engineer has explaining to do!

No issues as yet

i never had an issue with my 755 yet except for the battery, i sent it back to get the battery replaced

My 785t was affected by the recent problem and it became a brick. I found a fix that works if you can remove 2 tiny screws. Find a very small flat tip or torx screwdriver (I used a flat tip) and remove the 2 small chrome screws on the back of your unit. carefully un-snap and lift the cover up and you will see 3 wires coming off your battery and they plug into a circuit board. Simply un plug it and wait 5 seconds and plug it back in. Power on the unit and quickly hook it up to you computer and do the 3.6 update. This worked perfect for me. If you don't feel comfortable doing this then I say don't but I do feel it is an easy fix. It sure will save the 2 weeks or so Garmin will have your unit.

I agree they should compensate those who were affected.

Some are going to get fired just because of the amount of complaints and costs of replacing bricked units.

Just sprung for a new 255W cause the 755WT went dark.
No way to ck daily for Garmin flubs. So mine bricked. I'll return it when I get home for a replacement. I was not planning on that expense at this point in our summer vacation. But now I'll have a backup.

With all the problems Garmin has with software, and there are many, how can anyone give kudos to a company that needs to fire all their software people and hire a new batch?

To list the software problems and the models would take more bandwidth than POI has.

All Garmin is going to do is open the units up, pull the battery connection, reconnect it, and flash new firmware - so unless something else is FUBAR, there won't be a need to replace too many units.

Just did the battery pull for myself Happy I once agin have a functioning 755T.

Have any 760 (or 250) models been affected by this to anyone's knowledge? I haven't used my unit for a few days and just came across this. I was contemplating updating to v4.80, now I think I'll just leave it turned off for a few days until the dust settles.

No! Your safe with 4.8, I works fine on 750/760/250

Grab the new voice files while you're at it. No more stutter but it does occasionally run some words together (not a big deal). I realized today that every time I've caught it running two words together is when the first word ends with the same character that starts the second word. It also doesn't happen all the time.

OK, thanks. Last thing I need is for it to blow up just before the vacation season.

There are lots of threads about funny street name pronunciations, but in addition to that I have commonly observed both my 350 and 760 to do what you are talking about. I think it's more commmon when the words start and end with a hard consonant. Seems to do that a lot when the second word is Road. Something like Hart Road gets spoken as Har Troad. You get used to it. And occasionally it comes up with a humorous combination.

I got the 'attempting firmware' bug on my 755. But I did not have any power problems. I updated it to v3.60 and that did fix the firmware problem. This is good....

BUT, now I occasionally see a new problem that I did not have before. When I am enroute to a location, and insert a 'via' point that is 'off-road', the GPS gets lost after going to that via point. It seems to still have the destination, but loses how to get there and is just "very confused"... To correct it, I have to stop the trip and re-enter the destination again. Then it is happy again and takes me on down the road. I guess they were so rushed to get the big fix out in a hurry, they inserted a new bug....

I, too, have found that my 775T does not "like" waypoints after this update. I have had to reenter the final destination after reaching a waypoint.

I am very curious about the cause of the original problem. The guy I talked to at Garmin (after a 45 minute wait!!!) said that they do not download software over satellites, but could not explain how all the units went bonkers at the same time. It sure sounds to me like a Trojan horse that was planted when the software was designed. If this is the case, what guarantee will we users have that this won't happen again?

I was lucky to have a laptop and USB cable along on this trip so I could download the new software, but I really hate to take all that junk along on every trip just in case the GPS fails again. Oh well, at least I didn't have to buy a new GPS on the road as one poster did.

okay my 2cents, I haven't been on here in some time but, I must add my comment. I have a 755t that also went nuts this week. I'm a otr driver and wanted to wait till I got home to contact Garmin. I've about had it with nuvi. this is my 2nd one and both have had issues. I will try the fix and let you know.

I am very disappointed that the lack of software verification is still a major "feature" from Garmin.

That's funny, I had the same thought when it happened. Maybe one of the code writers knew they were leaving and set the bomb for a certain date if the unit was in use on that date. It appears that people that were not using their unit at that time were not hit with the problem.

If it aint broke, don't fix it.

My nuvi 755T is still working fine, although I have used it very little since I got it last week. It's been sitting on my desk most of the time tethered to my laptop awaiting me to download more waypoints and sounds to it for a big road trip.

I'm afraid to update the firmware to fix one problem if it will introduce a host of new ones.

Any success stories to tell?

As the problem seems to affect only those units that were turned on on the dates (6/21-22?) I wonder if it wasn't a logic bomb left in the code. My 885T was supposed to be one of the affected units, but as I had just purchased it, it hadn't locked onto any satellites as I was setting it up and building the POI before letting it "see" the birds.

Mine did see the birds after the "magic dates" and worked fine but I updated anyway.

Over at GPSpassion there are a number of success stories.

IMHO, not installing a MANDATORY update is the bigger gamble.

What makes it "mandatory"?

Will Garmin's jack-booted thugs break into my house in the middle of the night, pry the nuvi from my grip, and connect their whizzy magic downloader to it to force a download?

If mine craps out, I'll take action. But others have reported that they have to kick it after they reach a destination in order for it to continue on the route; they didn't have to do that prior to the update.

I recall the "rollover bug" years ago which affected units that miscalculated the time stream from the satellites; think of it like the Y2K problem after a fashion. A firmware update solved that problem. So maybe this is a similar class of problem that only was seen on that one day, as previously mentioned. Nothing to get alarmed over.

Garmin is using alarmist language to push users to action, but after reading about their other software blunders I'm sticking with what works until it stops.

What makes it mandatory is if you call Garmin with a problem, whether it be for this problem or another, the first thing they will ask is if you have done the update. If you haven't, they will tell you to update, then call back when you finish. End of call.

I just wanted you to know, how very much i appreciated your work-around. I Had my 785 brick on me today. Didn't know what happened, till i checked on this site. Your Advise saved the day. Thank You Very Much.

And we thought MS had some real bad bugs!

Got the warning on my 780 today as well.

Was that the "Updating Firmware" warning? I thought the 7x0 series didn't have this problem?

Thanks for nothing Garmin. Their update was released while we were on vacation, and as luck would have it, my 755t completely died on me in the middle of my vacation. When I called customer suppoort they said " send it to us for repair". I "not so politely suggested to them that "real" customer support should have offered to overnight me a "loaner" gps to my hotel until I got home. After all, the reason I bought the damn thing was for traveling, and obviously a dead gps on vacation is useless.. I'm getting ready to send my unit back but I have a question for you. Will they repair "my" unit or with they send me a refurbished one? I asked customer support and they said it would be "my" unit, but obviously I don't know whether or not to believe them.

Roland
Dead 755T

Roland - if you read through this thread there are detailed instructions on fixing the unit yourself. All you need to do is open the case and remove the battery for a few seconds. Then reassemble the unit and run webupdater. From what I've read it only takes a couple of minutes to fix the unit yourself. (I can't speak from personal experience, I only have a 750)

Remove the Torx screws (may be a size 4, 5 or 6 Torx) - carefully pop the back off... battery & speaker are attached to the back, so be careful... disconnect battery wires from the board for 30 seconds... reconnect, reassemble; plug into computer, run web updater and install new firmware. You should then have your unit working again.

The longest part of the process to fix is downloading and installing with web updater... fixed mine in less than 15 minutes.

I too got the warning on my 780 the other day. I continued to use it for the better part of the day and performed the update once I returned home. So far, I *think* everyting is working as it should be.

I am very glad this site exists so that we can compare "war stories" and make informed decisions regarding the installation of updates and fixes such as cracking the unit and pulling the battery leads off.

2600 miles from home and several days away from my last connection to the internet my 785T died. The next day we where supposed to go thru Maine and then into Boston - that was fun with paper maps and no GPS.
Anyways since I couldn't find a fix at the time and had all my poi's and route in my laptop, I bought a 765T and loaded it to get me home.
Now that I got home I find that a torx 5 and 1 minute of work will fix it and then a few minutes for the update.

Now I can decide which I like better the 785 or the 765. The traffic notification was better with the 785
but 785 doesn't find a fm channel for you to pipe the sound to your car speakers. I suppose that is actually dependant on the power cord features. I like the MSN features on the 785 but don't think they are worth the price where I live.

Guess I had better do the update for my wifes 780, I don't desire to hear the complaints if I don't
Thanks for the "How to" info on how tofix it if it bricks.

Virego53

This might be a "normal" thing if I do not get the 'via' at a point that I actually pass through. There was a discussion on this at http://www.poi-factory.com/node/23383 .

Today, Garmin released a free, mandatory GPS software update to correct a software issue that has been discovered to cause the nüvi 8x5 devices to repeatedly attempt to update GPS firmware, and then either shut down or no longer acquire GPS satellite signals.

Garmin nüvi 8x5 series products should download a firmware update immediately that will correct the software issue. This firmware update may be downloaded using Garmin's WebUpdater program.

We know our customers rely upon their Garmin GPS device(s), especially during the summer travel season, and we regret any inconvenience this situation may have caused. We are committed to developing products that are known for their quality and reliability and will continue to work diligently to earn the trust of our customers.

Garmin released firmware version number 4.60 on June 26th for this issue.

Are you saying this is a new update, if so what is the version number we should be looking for?

thank you

My 885T failed about 10 days ago. Returned to Amazon and ordered another. It arrived July 1. I immediately registered and updated OS and maps. The OS update was to 4.6. This morning I saw the email to use WebUpdater to apply an emergency patch. I did that but no patch was applied so I assumed it was in 4.6. I then went to MyGarmin and used software update. It said I needed a firmware update. I applied that patch without incident and reported the circumstances to Tech Support. I do not know how to determine the current firmware version. If someone will tell my how to determine the version number I will post the result. Unit appears to be operating normally.

Tools - Settings - System - About

The firmware version will be in the Software Version line, top left of screen.

It says 4.6

Mine updated firmware and turned itself off for good. Rest in peace. Got an RMA, sent it to Garmin, back in a week good as new - til next time. Got the email for the mandatory firmware update while the unit was enroute to Garmin. What timing.

I just removed the two screw but I have hard time uncapping it. Is there a trick to do it without breaking it?

sorry for the previous post, I just got it... was simply affraid to pull to hard.

It worked and i am very thanful to all of you. My unit broke during my first holiday and was going to go for my second trip next friday without my precious gadget..

I noted that GDB SW Version number was N/A without the FM/Power cord plugged in. To state the obvious if I tried to update the 885T without plugging in the integrated FM transmitter/DC power cord the computer does not see the GDB. I would surmise that the FM transmitter/DC power cord should be plugged in when updating. With it plugged in I see SW version 3.3.
885T with all patches.

ouch...

How many have sent their "bricked" units back to Garmin under the interpretation that they are getting an exchange. Only to get a repair?????