Disappearing features Garmin Nuvi 2597LMT

Given your SD card fix, I'll guess the most likely issue is dirty contacts on the SD card or Nuvi socket.

Your results when bad suggest to me that your nuvi is falling back on the device's basemap and not using City Navigator. With City Navigator missing, all map detail will be gone with only major highways and streets appearing because they come from the basemap. Without the detailed map, navigation, street names, speed limits, school zones, etc. will be missing.

I bet there's a YouTube offering advice on SD card and socket cleaning that's worth looking into. Good luck.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=cleaning+sd+car...

Sockets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIBPt2aHXaY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygrlO_VacsY

I love this guy's accent:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIBPt2aHXaY

Here's a thought. When the problem arises next, before doing the SD card popping in and out, go to your myMaps setting and see if City Navigator is listed and checked. If my thought that the map is lost due to bad SD contacts, I think City Navigator will be missing. If the nuvi doesn't see the new City Navigator, then the phantom update offer you mention could be the nuvi telling you that 2019.30 is available for installation.

It sees the City Navigator just fine, I suspect it's a software glitch that turned off a couple of features like background map loading and a layer of speed limit signs/school zones. The lack of turn by turn directions is truly puzzling though, I even changed voices to the turn by turn English female voice, who my wife HATES.
I tried the soft reset off the speedometer screen, maybe that will work.

I have essentially the same unit, except for a larger screen and do not have any issues.

How much free space do you have in internal storage? If the internal storage fills up, it can cause various operational problems.

I have a SD micro card installed. A couple of updates ago, the updater moved my maps to the card, so there's plenty of room.

If contact cleaning and a hard reset don't work and if the problems arose after the past map update was installed, have you considered reinstalling the new map?

SD cards have a finite number of write cycles. This is more often seen in cameras where the card is written to often, sometimes thousands of times. I would not expect this to be the case in a nüvi though as it probably sees write cycles only a few times a year. If contact cleaning and rewriting the files does not solve the problem, try a new SD card.

I had an SD card go bad/nuts on my 660....
Symptoms varied.... and I put up with it until next map update, which was fine.....

I switch between two different SD cards, using first one, then the other...

I didn't but should have swapped cards, as I would have found that it followed the card.... I didn't however....

When it came time to do next map upgrade (back on bad SD Card), that's when weird write errors occurred, and CHKDSK/F caused as much problems as it fixed....

I just copied the Good SD Card onto a new one, and deleted the maps, and it updated fine, and a year Plus from all this has been fine on the 660.....

Try another SD card...

p.p.s: I've tried Mode 6-10 cards as well as A1 SD Cards, full size and micro with adapters, and they all work on 660 so should be fine on your later unit...

Good advice!

A 16 GB Sandisk Ultra card is $10 at BB. You might be able to find something smaller like an 8GB but at my Best Buy it is not a brand name like Sandisk. Something called EMTEC at $5.

Don't buy memory off eBay, much of it is counterfeit.

Well, the soft reset brought back the speed limit signs and the school warnings and the turn by turn navigation. Still giving a "this feature not available blah blah" but that resolves with a map reload.
Maybe I should swap sd cards between this unit and the older unit with battery/connector cord problems.

I tried going back to the older unit with the cable from the new machine. So far (fingers crossed) no problems-no missing maps, no "this cable not compatible with charging/traffic", no this feature not available with American English, etc.

If you're going to put Maps on a SD Card, and navigation is important to you, don't go cheap on the SD card.

I have some high end video and photography equipment and the SD cards run about $80.00+ for the good ones but I could get cheap card that "fit" for around $20.

The cheap cards never live up to expectations or claims. We all like to save money when we can, but sometimes it doesn't pay. You get what you pay for.

Get the best quality, highest transfer speed SD card you can (up to the limitations of the device) and you'll have fewer issues.

As always, just my experience and YMMV

Not true at all! A 32 GB Sandisk Extreme Pro is currently $17 at Best Buy. That's for an SDHC card. Most Garmin's can't use more than 32 GB and the Extreme Pro read/write speeds exceed the capability of most of the GPS units. If your unit needs a microSDHC the Sandisk 32 GB Ultra Plus card is $13. 8 GB band name (Sandisk) cards of both types are less than $10.

Beyond buying brand name, the most important thing when buying memory cards is buy from a large source. I recommended Best Buy. Yes you will pay about $1 to $2 more than Amazon. But Best Buy at the corporate level buy the cards directly from Sandisk (for example). The memory is then distributed down to the retail levels as needed by the stores. There is no "middle" party in the distribution. There is an abundance of counterfeit cards on Amazon. Buyer beware. And never buy off eBay for the sake of saving a buck!

some are fake. Not that it can't happen at Best Buy or another major retailer but fakes are more prevalent on Ebay/Amazon.

https://www.diyphotography.net/psa-fake-sandisk-memory-cards...

What's the max memory this unit will accept?

See:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/14354

The article you cite does not mention any specific retailer. Rather they state "Buy from authorised SanDisk (or whatever manufacturer you prefer) resellers and reputable retailers." One of those is Best Buy.

I can tell you that in discussion with a BB Manager (a neighbor) that they purchase direct from Sandisk. There is no middleman, 3rd party, or whatever name you put on it. The card goes from the importer to BB and through the distribution direct to the store.