Archive GPX Files

A hard reset seems to wipe the Favorites into oblivion. I've experimented with this trying to figure just how the Favorites are stored on the nüvi, at least on the 750, other models may be different, but I suspect they work the same way.

This is how I think it works: The nüvi keeps a working copy of Favorites within an user inaccessible area. As you add, modify or delete Favorites this hidden file is updated. A copy of this internal file is named Current.gpx.

If you have ever copied Waypoints from MapSource to the nüvi, they become Temp.gpx and those are merged with the working copy. If one of these points has the exact name of an existing Favorite, a number is appended to the new one, e.g. My Spot and My Spot 1 now both reside in the Favorites and also in Current.gpx as it contains the combined Favorites.

If by chance you had uploaded your Favorites to MapSource and saved them there. You could ship them back to the nüvi and Temp.gpx will repopulate your Favorites.

Alternately, if you had copied Current.gpx to your PC you could then copy it back to the nüvi, rename it as Temp.gpx and that should get you back.

You said the you had moved the original Current.gpx someplace else. I'm not sure what might be in there, but you could try to copy it back and rename it as Temp.gpx and see what happens.

If you want to check this out before experimenting, open a .gpx file in MapSource (if you have a copy) and you'll see the favorites displayed on a map. Alternatively, you can obtain a free copy of Extra_POI_Editor and Google Earth. Open the .gpx file in EPE and then press F9 to display the Favorites on Google Earth. Now, you'll know whats in those .gpx files.

Hopefully, copying Current.gpx back and renaming it to Temp.gpx will get you back. Good Luck... Maybe someone will have some alternate solutions.

is an output file. Try renaming it to temp.gpx and cycle the power. It should read the temp file and restore the favorites that were in that file.

What are the archive gpx files..I have 43 of them numbered 1 thru 43 with different dates and sizes...I thought as I added favorites it may of kept a copy but I guess not..I also have one named position. gpx

Position.gpx is your last location when you removed your device from the cradle with power on. It is saved as a single Favorite. This is a handy feature if you park your car in a stadium parking lot and take the Garmin with you. You can then use it to find your car after the game. Also could be used to point the direction of the trailhead where you parked your car to take a hike in the woods.

I did a search on my 750 and can't find a trace of any files named archive. I am not familiar with it. It may be something your model does, or do you use other applications to connect to your 205?

Have you tried copying and renaming your Current.gpx to Temp.gpx in Garmin\GPX? If the Archive#.gpx files are sequential by date, you might copy the latest to Garmin\GPX and rename it Temp.gpx and see if that fixes your problem.

I too have a GPX folder called archive on my 765 and have a series of sequentially numbered GPX files. I have identified that these files have track information indicating where I have been.

Currently I have three files named 1.gpx through 3.gpx. These files collectively contain tracks to every place I have been where I have used my GPS. I acquired my GPS 7 months ago and 7 months worth of tracks are in these files.

My current.gpx also includes tracks but only the most recent ones.

There is some overlap of dates and tracks between the archive gpx files so as of yet I do not know what criteria Garmin used to create them. I do suspect there is a connection to the dates when I performed a master reset on my GPS while troubleshooting it but this has not been confirmed.

The following applies to my nuvi 265T. The current.gpx file contains my favorites and most recent tracks. The archive files do not contain favorites but do contain track history with the oldest being named 1.gpx. I occasionally copy the current.gpx files and all archive files to my computer. I always do this before running webupdater as I know that any update to the unit could cause a loss of user data. If I lose my favorites or want to transfer them to another gps, I copy the most recent current.gpx from my computer to the unit and rename it to something else such as changes.gpx. That will cause my favorites to be updated to the unit as others have mentioned in this thread. I had a faulty unit that liked to hard reset and this approach saved my data for me. I have used a program to combine the tracks in the archive files and displayed the track history in mapsource and google earth. As I travel a lot it's handy having a record of what roads I've been on. I hope this helps a little.

I purchased my 2460 gently used and in looking around inside found the folder GPX/Archived. Since all but one of these files are previous to my ownership, would it be safe and reasonable to delete these?

I delete mine from time to time on my 765 because I need space.

Note that the previous post in this thread was in 2010.

Sometimes I forget to look at the date, but overall the majority of the information is still relevant.

thanks,

If you kept a copy of your POI's file in your computer it would be easy to download the POI's from your hard drive to the GPS or if you register your GPS with the Manufacturer site you might as well have a backup of your GPS there as well.

I posted on this thread in 2010 regarding my Nuvi 265T. I am now using a Nuvi 2495LMT and, to the best of my knowledge, the prior posting still applies.

The "current" file contains favorites and recent tracks. The numbered "archive" files contain older track history. By keeping a copy of the "current" file on my pc I have a backup of my favorites and can easily restore them or move them to another gps.

I posted on this thread in 2010 regarding my Nuvi 265T. I am now using a Nuvi 2495LMT and, to the best of my knowledge, the prior posting still applies.

The "current" file contains favorites and recent tracks. The numbered "archive" files contain older track history. By keeping a copy of the "current" file on my pc I have a backup of my favorites and can easily restore them or move them to another gps.

Yes you could delete them. I delete on my unit and it give me over 200mb of free additional space

Correct as long as you rename the saved current.gpx file to some other name before you copy it back to your GPS.

Good clarification. Also, I seem to recall that the time stamp on the new file must show that it is newer than the "current" file. It's been a long time since I've had to restore.

The reason one cannot use the name "current.gpx" is that the software treats "current.gpx" as an output only file, so it will not read it regardless of a timestamp. That is why Garmin says that you need to rename a "current.gpx" file to something else (and they recommend "current1.gpx) if you want to use it to reload or transfer Favorites/Saved Places.

Whenever a .gpx file is added to a Garmin (and it can be anywhere on the device), it will be read during boot-up and the contents of the .gpx file added to Favorites/Saved Places. The device remembers the file names it has read and will not read them again (because doing so would result in multiple additions of the same locations - not what one would want).

However, if the timestamp of the filename is changed to be more current than the last time (before the current boot-up) that the file "current.gpx" was written, then the contents of that file will be read even though it was a filename that the unit had seen before.

You contradict yourself in discussing what happens with current.gpx. If you look at the device.xml file, you see that current.gpx is listed as input/output. As you also correctly stated, the file is output from the OS partition as a file, but the time-date stamp is also checked. If the date on the file in user accessible memory is later than the date in the unit's memory, it is read into device memory and saved.

You can copy current.gpx from an older unit and transfer it to a new unit and it will be read and added to what's in memory. I used this to update my new unit from my 885. I deleted current from the 3597 and copied the current file from the 885 to the 3597 where it was read and added to the default contents Garmin had on the new unit when doing a cold start. I guess the "trick" is to delete the copy of current from the target unit and replace it with the file containing the locations you wanted and doing a cold start. Using temp or current1 (as examples) requires you to delete those files after rebooting to keep those locations from being overwritten should you edit current and change any of that info.

The unit writes "Current.gpx when it boots up.

There is a file called "GarminDevice.xml" on all units. This file contains the information the unit needs to make the unit act according to the choices you have made. It contains data that should look like this

A Garmin FAQ says