Nuvi 750 Favorites

The best way that I have found to load geocaches on a nuvi is to use the GSAK (Geocaching Swiss Army Knife) application program. GSAK takes the Geocaching.com Pocket Query and installs it in a data base. There is an installable macro plugin for GSAK called "Garmin POI GPX Export" (file name is GPX_By_Cache_Type.gsk) that converts a selected portion of the GSAK database into GPX files suitable for loading to the Nuvi with POI Loader. You end up with a few importable GPX files, each containing multiple geocaches by type. These contain all the cache information including description, hints, cache type/difficulty/terrain, and the 5 most recent logs. This is all available for viewing on the nuvi, and of course you can use the Where To > Extras > Custom POI to view and select a specific geocache to navigate to. Using this method you can store thousands of caches on the nuvi because they are custom POI's instead of Favorites. I have used this on both of my nuvi's (755T and 855) and it works great.

The specs for the 750 show it can hold 500 waypoints in its Favorites and 10 routes.

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?pID=37419

If you need to load more than that you need to create custom POI files to load into your GPS Extras.

I am familiar with this spec. However my question did not deal with how many files could be stored in the GPX folder. Rather, of the files in the GPX, is there only a portion of them that will actually be displayed in the Nuvi favorites listing that appears. In other words, I have many GPX files I know are in the Nuvi but are not be displayed via the favorites menu.

Thanks for you response.

The nuvi displays 52 (13 pages of 4) Favorites closest to your current position. You can alter this by using the "Near" button (Where To > Near > (make selection) > Favorites

Interesting. What happens if you search (Spell) for one of the non-displaying Favorites? If it can't be found, then I suspect it wasn't loaded. If it can be found in a search but can't be displayed, that'd be odder.

I had thought that possibly Favorites worked like Custom POIs and only the nearest 50 would be displayed, but I see that I have 104 Favorites and I can page through them all on my 750.

Good luck and if you find an answer, please let us know what you found.

alandb, on my nuvi 750, I have 104 Favorites saved and all can be seen (I have 26 pages of 4). So for my 750, I can see at least 104 Favorites and probably more. I don't have more than my 104 loaded so I don't know my max.

Two more thoughts:

-laker2, do you have the latest firmware on your 750? I believe my 5.40 is the latest. Older firmware may have a limit on the number of Favorites that can be displayed.

-I think that the nuvi 750 is a rare nuvi in that it was manufactured over time with one of two chipsets. I thought the chipsets had to do with finding the various GPS satellite signals but maybe there's a difference in operation related to Favorites. Doubtful, but I'll throw this out since we're all confused right now. My 750 has GPS SW Version 3.00s which I think tells folks more knowledgeable than me which chipset I have.

for the correction CraigW. I thought the 750 would be the same as the 755, but maybe not. And to be honest, it has been a long time since I have had that many favorites on my 755T, so maybe it will show more too. I assumed it worked like POI's ... I shouldn't assume anything

...even though I doubt this is an issue here:

http://www.gpspassion.com/fr/articles.asp?id=259

If I do a spell search for a GPX file that is in the Garmin GPX folder but is not displayed under favorites, the search comes up empty. I guess that the bottom line question is: how can a GPX file be in the GPX folder but not shown under favorites?

Could it now be a function that it can hold only 500 waypoints and you are over that limit?

I hope I am getting closer to understand what happens with the [garmin nuvi]:/Garmin/GPX/cuttent.gpx file, but others help me out.

Let's start by agreeing that "Favorites" are kept in the GPS internal memory and each time the GPS is turned on, it will look for .gpx files with a time stamp greater than the last time the GPS was turned on. If it finds such .gpx files (and that includes one named "current.gpx" - even though this seems inconsistent with Garmin's own FAQs), it will inspect them and "add" new Favorites that are not currently in internal memory. If the newer .gpx file(s) has a entry with a name identical (case sensitive) to an existing Favorite, a new Favorite will be created with a number suffix (eg. "Jills" exists and a new "Jills" will be added as "Jills 1").

Note that is one of the newer files was named "current.gpx" and it has had entries deleted from the previous "current.gpx" file, that will not have the effect of deleting Favorites in internal memory. To delete Favorites, one must do Tools > [down arrow] > My Data > Delete Favorite(s) and either do a
Select All
or
individually check the Favorites one wants to delete.

I am not sure of the context of

but the trick is likely to be the timestamps of .gpx files. Once they have been read, they are treated just as if they are not there. So, you are just as well off to delete them once they have been added to internal memory - although I think one can reactivate them by changing the timestamp.

YOU DO HAVE A BACKUP OF YOUR UNIT, I HOPE, before deleting anything the unit.

I assume that the Garmin FAQ below has not changed

Appreciate the many posts that have been made on this topic. I am closer to understanding what might be going on but yet not completely. I should add that in spite of Garmin's tech assistance reputation, that has not been too helpful. The questions to which I am seeking answers seemed a bit beyond the individuals to whom I talked.

The Nuvi 750 can store in its internal memory up to 500 favorites files designated with the suffix "gpx." However the maximum number of favorites that can be viewed under the "My Data" menu seems to be a maximum of 320. The favorites that will be displayed are stored in a folder called "current.gpx". If one keys in an address through the device itself, and indicates that it should be saved as a favorite, that address seems to be put into "current.gpx" and a gpx file from "current.gpx" that had been previously downloaded is removed. In other words, the maximum size of "current.gpx" would appear to be 320 files and if you add additional files to "current.gpx" via entry through the device itself, it has priority in "current.gpx" over any gpx file that might have ended there via a downloading process. This makes sense to me as the gpx downloaded file is not really removed from the internal memory of the device. I'm sure that some where in this process time and date tags are added to the file but I still am trying to understand how this might be done.

For these reasons I have now adopted the practice, so long as I seem to be maxed out on the number of gpx files that can be observed via "favorites", to rely more and more on direct entry of the geocache's coordinates and name and not through a download. Cumbersome, yes, but much less frustrating.

Thanks to the many for their comments

I think the problem is loading the geocaches as separate GPX files (one geocache or one favorite per GPX file). If you can combine them so you have multiple favorites in a single GPX file, I think you will eliminate the restriction. You could do this with a pocket query. You might be able to combine the separate gpx files with a 3rd party utility (maybe EPE?). Or you could use the current.gpx on the Garmin itself. Using this last method, you would need to load the GPX files two or three hundred at a time. Once the first set shows up as favorites, make a backup of current.gpx and rename it to temp1.gpx, then delete out the favorites and do the next set of several hundred the same way, renaming it to temp2.GPX. Repeat this process until you have all of your files stored in a few temp?.gpx files. Put those few files back on the nuvi and you should now have the complete set.

I tested creating a pocket query of 1000 geocaches and putting it directly into my nuvi 755 as a single .gpx file. I rebooted my nuvi and all 1000 showed up as favorites. Then I went to tools > my data > delete and all 1000 of them showed up there also.

Note that this test I did also proves that I was incorrect in my assertion in my earlier post that only the closest 52 favorites would show up on my nuvi 755. CraigW was correct (as usual ) in that I was getting favorites mixed up with POI display restrictions.

but I do it a little differently. I don't have a premium account so I can't use pocket query. I also don't geocache a lot. I download them as .loc files and then import all of them to EPE and save as a .gpx. That is then put in my 1350 as a poi file with a bmp and sound so I get a warning as I drive.
And yes, I know that I lose a lot of info in a .loc file. But if I need something more precise I will add it to the file using EPE.

a good approach pwohlrab. I forgot that you can't do a pocket query without a premium account. You could probably use your same method to load them as favorites instead of POI's (like laker2 wants to do) to eliminate the restriction of only displaying the nearest 50.

I have been following this thread because I have an interest in doing another Beginner's Exercise on EPE (Extra POI Editor).

Something seems to have changed recently about the way that my 765 handles current.gpx. Other threads suggest this may apply to other Nuvi's also.

I can use EPE to edit current.gpx and add a new "favorite" (I'll call it that because that is what goes into current.gpx). I can let EPE save the file to the 765, safely disconnect, power up the 765 and the new entry will be there. What this means is that ALL .gpx files (including current.gpx) that have a time stamp greater than the previous time the 765 was powered up will be read as input. In the case of the current.gpx file, a comparison is done with internal memory (which was the source of the old current.gpx) and only the new "favorites" are added (and I have tried asking EPE to delete old favorites and that did not work)

The only way to delete favorites is through a master reset or through the nuvi (all or check those one wishes to delete)

What this means specifically is that you don't have to fool with temp.gpx or current1.gpx and such

My daughters used to geocache but they were just printing out 8 or 10 sheets from some site and then off in the car. They would manually enter coordinates into a handheld device they had.

From what I know now, I could have used EPE to enter the coordinates, given each set of coordinates a specific name/date and sent a .gpx file to my nuvi for them to use. Maybe such a procedure would apply to this thread.

Please give me a idea of the procedure you are going through when you use the geocache site to produce caches. What does the site output? Is it .gpx files or what?

Lets start by giving you the site we go to, and probably your' daughters.
http://www.geocaching.com/

There is basic membership (no cost) and there is premium membership (cost associated).
With basic you can print out the information and download as a .loc file. As I recall I get a name and location (latitude and longitude) only. With premium (which alanb is using), you can query items and download as .gpx files (I believe 1 cache is 1 gpx). Alanb can confirm this.

Since I am a basic member and don't cache a lot lately, I download as a .loc and import into EPE. On each page of a cache I can copy out and paste into EPE what I want and I then save the entire thing (multiple number of caches) to 1 gpx file and then load as a poi file.

Alanb can give you more detail on how he uses premium.

EDIT: You need to be a member to view the caches information. It is free for basic.

thanks.

That is the site.

Explain a bit more what you meant by "import" into EPE. Since you used cut and paste, I think you had the .loc file open as well as EPE.

If one has .gpx files, then EPE has a "merge open" capability that would get all of one's recent downloaded caches together.

I mis spoke. It is the "merge open" that I use. I then "see" all of the .loc files and that is when I copy from Geocache.com and then paste into EPE the additional info I require. Since some of it could be extensive (comments and hints), I save everything as a gpx file.

Hope that clears it up. You most likely knew what I meant though.

As you correctly pointed out to me in a previous thread, you can push new favorites to a nuvi by editing current.gpx. This was counter to what several of us had learned previously and thought we knew, but it turned out to be true.

That said, it is not the best practice to do it that way IN MY OPINION. I think it is best to use the old tried and true method of using a file name other than current.gpx to import favorites. My reason is that the nuvi does replace current.gpx with a new copy every time you boot the device, apparently after it has read it to check for new entries. So if your imports did not work as anticipated, current.gpx no longer contains the source data. A gpx file of any other name is never altered by the nuvi.

As far as geocaching.com, you can download individual geocaches by just clicking a link on the listed cache to "send to GPS". With this method on a Garmin device, each geocache becomes a .gpx file. Or you can check multiple geocaches and download them as "waypoints" in a .loc file. This is a special format XML file that apparently can be input into EPE (according to Pwohlrab's post). If you are a premium member of geocaching.com, the preferred method would be to run what they call a "pocket query" and produce the output as a single zipped .gpx file containing a list of all the caches you selected via the query.

For a nuvi, there is actually a "better" way to download geocaches using the pocket query and the third party utlilty program "GSAK" along with a macro that generates GPX files specifically formatted for the nuvi as custom POI files ready for POI Loader.

If you do a lot of geocaching that would be the best way. Gsak is also a paid broken but does put it in the proper format with all of the info anyone would want to locate a cache. GSAK (geocaching swiss army knife) as I recall.

Unfortunately, we are getting off topic from the original question in this thread, but hopefully there have been some ideas presented that laker2 can try.

I agree completely with you.

That said, there may be certain times when a knowledgeable user might like to take advantage of the fact that current.gpx is treated as an input file. You can add one new entry by naming a one POI file current.gpx. Recall that it will be read, processed and then written to - leaving no extra .gpx file to later clean out.

Interesting discussion... I last used my Nuvi 760 for geocaching about 2 years ago. Dusted it off, cleared favourites, and tried loading 900 new waypoints from a .GPX file. My 760 displayed 499 favourites, both in the Where to and the My Data menus.

When the 499 maximum is reached, manual entry on the unit gives a Favorites Memory is Full error message. However, no errors appear when trying to add more with .GPX files, EPE or MapSource.

@laker2, I started out like you by downloading individual caches as favorites. This became difficult to manage as my geocaching increased so I signed up for a premium membership. Here's a mashup of screenshots I put together showing Paperless Geocaching in action.

As others have mentioned, using Custom POIs makes adding and deleting caches very simple. You can even use this method with a free membership. More information is available in geocaching.com's
Collection Of FAQs

I now do my caching with a tablet or phone, but that's another story... :D