garmin 2797 nearly out of space

First, you do not need to remove the big map file before an update. Garmin will do that for you.

I am very surprised that speech recognition files take up 3 GB. How many .asr files do you have and what are their names? The ASR folder on my 2595 is 865 MB.

Two thoughts:

-The 2797 is an 8GB device so it should not have just under 200MB of free space. A past map update may have updated several ASR files and somehow forgotten to delete the older ones. What we may need is another 2797 owner with the same current map, then look to # of ASR files, total MB, filenames, etc.

-Regarding the "no need to delete the big map file:" Yes, this is true if using Garmin Express and GarminMapUpdater for map updates. But if a map was ever installed to the computer, then installed to the GPS with MapInstall, that map and quite possibly other big files will need to be manually deleted. stan, when you go to your 2797's myMaps page, what maps do you see installed?

I agree with jgermann and CraigW, your space issue is the voice files (.ASR. There should not be 3GB of files there.

I suggest you go into your System\ASR folder and copy that folder to your PC as a safety backup.
Next in your .System folder, look at your map which is gmapprom.img and write down the date.

Now go into the ASR folder and look at the files.
Your only concern should be with files ending in .ASR and .SRX. The only two files you need will be those with the same date of your gmapprom.img file.
Whenever you download a new map version the ASR & SRX files are updated to correspond with that map. and the old ones removed.

Now delete any .ASR and SRX files that don't match the map file date. Disconnect your Nuvi from the PC and reboot the Nuvi. Check the Nuvi and confirm the Voice command is still operational.
Next connect th Nuvi to the PC again, You should have gained over 2GB of space. When completed you should only have one ASR and SRX file in the folder.

Since the new map 2015.40, should be released soon, after you download, it should replace those two existing voice files with new ones to match the map.
I would check the ASR folder after the download and confirm the old files were replaced and are not in the folder any longer.

I ran out of space too but bought the 8gb micro sd card on Amazon for $5.

Thanks for the help i see what you are talking about. there were files over a year old. i got rid of most of them but now i have 4 .asr files dated same as map just different times of that day and last letter is next in alphabet. which should i keep the latest one? they are all named 05CA6QRL.asr , 05CA6QRM.asr , 05CA6QRN.asr , 05CA6QRO.asr. I am going to reboot it shortly. I may have used voice recog 3 times on this unit.
Only had one map installed 2015.30

after rebooting it tells me voice command not available for American English. tried Brit also. Won't break my heart if it doesn't work but may sell it one day. It freed up 2 gb space

Ok after looking at the Garmin 3595 i got this week in backup folders i noticed there were 3 files in the system/asr folder i must have needed in the 2797 asr folder :en_US.srd , es_US.srd , fr_CA.srd. I may not have needed all 3 but it fixed voice command.
Thanks a bunch for all the help it makes my day to know you folks know so much about these devices and to POI Factory for bringing it all together...Thanks!

I'm glad you responded, it appears I was in error stating you should only have one ASR file in the folder. It seems like different models use more than1 ASR file. My 2460LMT only uses 1 to function.

I have been in contact through PM's with members jgermann and CraigW trying to get this figured out.
Member jgermann also has 4 ASR files and one SRX file. on his Nuvi 2595 which is similar to your 2597.
His ASR files are also lettered 05CA6QRL.asr , 05CA6QRM.asr , 05CA6QRN.asr, 05CA6QRO.asr.
His SRX file is 05CA6QRK.SRX. If you don’t have the 05CA6QRK.SRX in the Nuvi copy it back from your backup. Maybe that’s missing and the reason Voice is not working now. LEAVE those 4 ASR files on the Nuvi.

In addition, make sure the EN_US,srd is present on the Nuvi with the latest date stamp.
Now reboot and see if Voice Command works again.
I don't know how many files you removed but check and see how large the ASR folder is now, hopefully about 1Gig.

Oddly I have Full North America 2015.30 on my 2460 and have only 1 ASR file named 05CA6QKH, different name than your files.

My apologies for giving you misinformation in my earlier post thinking only 1 file was needed.

No need for apology you steered me in the right direction. My 2797 is working and has 2 gb free and i have learned something. I saved all the text from this as i am over 60 now and must keep notes or couple months and it's gone from my memory. Many thanks to you and everybody who helped. Stan

You are the youngest one here!

dobs108

I have the 2797 also, where do i find the .asr files ?

asr is a sub folder of system folder system/asr if you have enabled the device to show all files

My own memory is lacking since I’m 67 and brain cells are dying every day. I’m glad you are happy that you now have 2GB free memory, however the unit is not functioning properly without the Voice feature. Perhaps with the next map update being released shortly, it will install the ASR voice files needed to work again. What I suggest you do is make a backup right now of the ASR folder. Next do a property check on the ASR folder and write down how large it is.
After the map update, go into the ASR folder and see how large it is compared to your backup. Hopefully it will be about 1GB.
You can also check what files have changed and if the old files on the backup were removed.
Even if you don’t intend to use Voice Command you may want to do that procedure since the map update may add files and you’ll be in the same situation before with excessive ASR files.

Based on my communication with member’s jgermann and CraigW it definitely appears that the amount of ASR files and file sizes differ between models, including file names and the amount of files. I believe this is due to the different features the various models have.

They are in the .System\ASR folder. That folder should be less than 1GB.
Your 2797 uses MTP mode so it may not be visible in Windows Explorer. Read the link below on how to change
MTP mode into Mass Storage mode.
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/41416

stan393, let me be the first—whoops, maybe the second—to apologize to you in this thread. You reported a nearly 3GB ASR folder which many of us instantly found suspicious.

My apology is for my figuring your issue to be very rare to unique and may even somehow have been self-inflicted and so, like others, thought we were only going to help you gather more free space before the next map update.

To my horror, in communicating behind the scenes with some others, I was very shocked to find that of the three nuvi models I own that offer Voice Command, two of them, an 855 and a newer but still fairly old 2460 contained a total of three old unneeded sets of srx/asr files which did nothing but take up space. And with each set of old files using about 775MB of space, even one set of these unneeded files may force an owner to switch from internal map storage to SD card storage. This is an issue that the entire community of voice control GPS devices needs to have fixed or at least be made aware of. Even users with the affected devices who don't use Voice Command are affected as they will be losing internal storage forcing a switch to SD card map updates well before it should be needed. Since the issue affects voice command devices as old as the nuvi 855, mid-age 2460s, and your quite new 2797, this may affect a substantial number of Garmin owners, and since there's no consensus about the cause (use of GarminMapUpdater, Garmin Express, WebUpdater, clone technique, etc., etc.), we do need to figure this out—or at least alert users to check their ASR folder now and after every map update to ensure that older srx and asr files are not being left behind.

Thank you so very much for bringing this to our attention. I also note that it was the detail in your original post that attracted all this effort: your mentioning that the ASR folder was about 3GB in size.

Good deal i guess we all learned something and i believe that is one of the purposes of POI Factory. Glad we can all jump in and add whatever we can..just makes it all better...us, the devices and the website. I had for awhile wondered why a gps should fill up and need a memory card added unless Garmin was making maps bigger and bigger. I do install mem cards on my gps from the start just in case i may need one. When i noticed the 2797 was nearly full i decided to go thru each folder and see which was taking up that much space. I knew only how to get so far and that is where you good folks stepped in and i am grateful

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/44348

I'm reminded of a physics lab many (many!) moons ago... I said something like, "that's weird," and the lab teaching assistant told me, "Please record degree of weird -- it may be important!"

Thank you for recording and reporting degree of weird! It's helping us catch a nagging problem!

Hello all this site has been a great help trying to get some more life out of my 2797LMT's.

I only have 680MB free space and would like some more room.

Can I delete all of the files in the ASR folder if I don't want to use speech recognition? (I don't use it anyway). Over 1GB in there now.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Best,
Andy

680 is more than ample room, why are you seeking more?

With memory cards so inexpensive, why is this even a concern? The SanDisk Ultra PLUS 16GB microSDHC UHS-I Memory Card is $11 at Best Buy.

I agree with the previous two comments from sussamb and John from PA. But if you really want to delete the ASR files, I believe you can. It will be kind of a hassle though when you do map updates as the ASR and SRX files will be reinstalled. If you do this, I would leave the .SRD files.

Actually it is not a good idea to fill up device so it has no space left. There are two main reasons:

1. Every device needs some free space when running. It is being used for temporary and some additional files generated by running system. Where there is no space left device can start behaving erratically or doesn't work at all.

2. As all GPS's are using solid state memory running low on free space will wear off this memory way faster than intended. So it may fails sooner than expected.

Additional card is a good solution, but if you have to move it to external card do it before you feel all free space on device.

Decided to check my Nuvi 2597 and this was the results.

4 asr files and one srx. All dated the same date I updated latest maps. To date no sd card has been needed.

I run some pretty long rallies and I am always concerned about the GPS not being able to calculate a long 6 day route without crashing. This fear may not be well founded but I would like to free up internal memory as much as possible.

I have an 8GB SD card in the unit but as we all know Express won't try to use it until the internal shows full during an update.

I don't and won't use ASR so freeing up the space seems like a good idea to me.

Best,
Andy

I wouldn't worry, calculation of routes is done on internal user memory that you can't see, and gpx files don't take up much room

Having said that, trying to calculate long/complicated routes can cause issues, and I certainly wouldn't want to try to calculate a 6 day route!