Does disabling Proximity Point Alerts also disable my Icons?!

Welcome to posting at The Factory.

Maybe there's something new with the nuvi 50 and other new nuvi models, but for me and my older nuvis, I never receive alert beeps for any custom POIs unless I ask for them or for a couple special situations.

With the exception of Custom POI files like the redlight and speed camera files, POI files loaded with POI Loader do not have alerts automatically set. (One reason for hearing unexpected alerts is if the POI file's filename contains a numeral--are any of your POI files named something with a numeral, like Super8.csv, etc?) To get alerts, I need to run POI Loader in manual mode and manually set alerts and an alert distance or speed. Are you saying that you get an alert beep for your Custom POIs (like Rest Areas, Starbucks, Mobil stations, etc.) loaded with POI Loader in Express mode now? I've never seen or heard of this happening before unless the file was specifically created with internal alerts. What POI files are you using that have undesired alerts?

Two more things: just to make sure I understand your process, I assume you are loading an icon for some or all of your Custom POIs and they are successfully loading. For many nuvis, your map zoom level will have to be substantially zoomed in to have the icons appear on the map.

Let me know if my assumptions on alerts needs to be changed for at least some nuvi models.

[Update]
From your manual, page 20:

http://static.garmincdn.com/pumac/nuvi_30_40_50_EN_OM.pdf

it states that your alert enabling is for Safety Camera files.

Thanks for the welcome and your reply!

Now that I read your reply, I realize that I did in fact use Manual mode in POI Loader to get alerts.
My apologizes.
So NO, I don't get the alerts when I use Express Mode but at the same time I don't seem to get the icons showing up as well?! Or am I imaging things?

Does turning off the alerts disable both (1)alert beep, and (2)icons ?
Basically I want to see the Icons but I don't want the alerts (i.e. beeps). How would I do this?

To answer your questions...
- No I don't have POI files with a numeral in the name.
- I have all icons for my custom POI's and they are successfully loading.
- I can see the icons clearly whenever the alerts are on but don't see any icons when alerts are off.

Thank you.

Regarding using POI Loader's manual mode: you still won't get alerts unless you also activate the alert and set an alert distance or speed for each POI file when loading to your nuvi with POI Loader. If you don't want alerts--and for most POIs, most users here do not want alerts--simply don't activate the alerts for the various POI files when using POI Loader. I have audio alerts set only for redlight cameras, speed cameras, school zones, and highway rest areas--my other Custom POIs have no alerts (no default audio beep or custom wav) set and are used by me only as points to which I can create a route; i.e., Discount Tire, Culver's, Trader Joe's, etc.

It may well be your zoom level for icon appearance. Try being at a location (simulation through Set Loc or real-time live) where you know there will be a custom POI location where an icon could appear. Try zooming in and out with the +/- signs and see when/if the icons appear. There may also be an effect on seeing icons by changing your level of Map Detail or Map Layers in the nuvi's settings. It is a complex issue since the answer differs between nuvi model series.

Here's a bit of a discussion on when Custom POI icons may (or may not) appear:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/39927

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/9178

Also note that for some models, icons won't appear until you tap the navigation map (tap anywhere except on the vehicle) to be taken from navigation mode to the "panning mode" (some call it the "browse mode") map and be zoomed in to under about 200 feet. To go back to a navigation map from the panning map, tap the Back button.

On the other hand, you may have found something new on your nuvi 50 (and probably all of that year's Essential Series models) since you've already found that you can make your icon appear and disappear with the Enable Alerts button. In this case, I'm still confused with your problem since it seems to me that you want to have Alerts Enabled on your nuvi all the time--while you also only enable alerts for a very select few Custom POIs. It seems that you're saying that if you load the Starbucks Custom POI to your nuvi with POI Loader that you get Starbucks audio alerts--and this doesn't seem right to me unless you've chosen (when loading with POI Loader) to have Starbucks alerts--and if you don't want Starbucks alerts, don't activate them for Starbucks.

If you turn off the custom poi alerts is should having nothing to do with viewing the icons.Zooming in on the screen will bring them more into view.Now if you have set up a custom poi with a alert and you are driving to the location the icon will come into view on the screen when you get close to it.Is that what you are stating on your post?If that is what you want just do a silent alert message to get the icon to come up when you get close to it.Of course you have to be in the location of the coordinates.

Favorites seem to show up much better on the screen then the custom ones.

Did see in your owners manual you have a setting also for the amount of data showing on the map.Settings,map and map data lay out.

Icons and alerts are linked. Having an alert set for a POI will cause it to be displayed at almost any zoom level when the alert is triggered. Without an alert, the icon will only show IF it in the display radius of the display when you zoom into one of the lowest (or closest) settings.

As an example, I use an alert distance of 5300 feet for Mr. Ken's Rest Area POI. The icon will show no matter the zoom level often times before the alert is triggered. The caveat is that the POI has to be one that you would trigger while continuing on your current route of travel.