Can't transfer French maps onto SD card on 310D

TWHH · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 26, 2006 Posts: 48

Just had my 310D replaced as it died when it was just two weeks old. Garmin are now suppliying the 310D with an SD card so that you can transfer some of the European maps without having to fork out for an additonal SD card.

However, when I try to do this I can't get the maps onto the card. I go through the MapSource program and select all of France. The supplied card is big enough to hold all the maps.

It goes through the following processes:

"Building index files..." (takes about 15 minutes to complete)
"Building traffic files..." (takes about 10 seconds)
"Building map set ..." (takes about a minute)

Then it goes to "Transferring map set..." when I then get the following error:

"There was a problem communicating with the data card. The device is not ready"

Any ideas?

Thanks

willow23 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 14, 2006 Posts: 3

Hi,

New here - I purchased one of these on monday and am having an identicle problem!!!!!!!!

HAs anyone found the way to fix this???

I have spoken with Garmin and they have taken me through the process and still it is not working!!!!!!

I am off to France in under 2 weeks so would like someone's expert knowledge on this.

Paul

bootruss · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 17, 2005 Posts: 60

..have you loaded the drivers onto your pc so that the nuvi is recognised?

TWHH · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 26, 2006 Posts: 48

Yep, all drivers are loaded - I have no problem loading PGPSW Camera database.

It's just a problem with the maps.

Spoke to Garmin - 2 calls for an hour (half an hour to get through). First person I spoke to thought it was because the new unit wasn't registered. This proved not to be the case.

Spoke to 2nd person. He suggested reformatting the card and tranfering just one french map. This worked. So I tried to then add the other french maps. No joy. Tried reformatting and then tranferring all the french maps. No joy.

Chap from Garmin called me back and sugegsted that it MUST be the SD card. So they've sent me out a new SD card.

Yet to try it as the lack of Mac support means I have to do this as work on my shiddy WinDoze PC. I'm out of the office for most of next week so won't get a chance to try it out until end next week at the earliest.

Will post back to let you know how I got on. If anyone finds a cure please let us know...

willow23 · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jul 14, 2006 Posts: 3

Same here!!!!!

Got a new Sd Card still not working!!!!!!

Good old Halfrauds!!!!!!!!

at the end me me tether now - might just take it back and get a Tom Tom - shame really cause the Garmin is a lovely unit!!!!

TWHH · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 26, 2006 Posts: 48

As tossy as Halfauds can be, and living in south London I have to be near the tossiest branches, this is a Garmin issue. It's their kit that isn't working and their support desk that is unable to fix the problem.

ringill · Lifetime Member Joined: May 06, 2006 Posts: 5

I've no idea if this will help but I've just had a similar problem with my Garmin GPSmap 276C. I was loading it with updated maps and it would go through the building parts and started the map transfer but was failing at around 30% complete with an "Unable to Communicate with Device" error.

Obviously I'm doing this indoors so the GPS wasn't getting a signal and after a while you get the option of going into simulator mode or continuing to acquire satellites and I was choosing the latter. However when in desperation I chose the former ( I had to reboot the GPS every time the download failed) the map update worked fine.

Kevin

TWHH · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 26, 2006 Posts: 48

And so the story continues...

...got the replacement SD card through the post. However, it was half the capacity of the card that came with it.

So I phoned Garmin and after another 30 minutes waiting to get through I explained the whole scenario again to another person. I told him what I had been talked through by one of his colleagues and that it had made no difference. He went away and came back a few minutes later saying that I would need to get the unit replaced as it was the unit that was faulty.

Nice chap he was - he even offered to send me an SD card with the French maps (I'm off there on holiday next weekend).

So off I went to Halfords again, armed with an e-mail from Garmin saying it was OK to get it exchanged.

I now have my 3rd Nuvi unit in 4 weeks. Have to wait until I plug it into my WinDoze excuse for a computer at work tomorrow to see if I can get the maps on there.

Not sure the method mentioned above would have worked as each time I tried to transfer the maps I was doing so with the GPS switched off.

If you're having the same problem I'd suggest getting the unit changed.

Will post back to let you all know how I get on

TWHH · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 26, 2006 Posts: 48

Really starting to loose patience now.

New unit doing EXACTLY the same thing.

Either I'm doing something wrong, although I'm struggling where one can go wrong with what appears to be a really simple process, or there is a serious fault going down with these units, which given how popular they are I doubt as it would have come to light by now.

Then only other thing I can think of is that there is some bug in my copy of WinDoze. I'm using XP with Service Pack 2. Having said that I can transfer the camera database OK, it's just appears to be saving to the card.

I've noticed that when I complete a failed map transfer attempt that WinDoze decides to open up an Windows Explorer window that has a folder called Garmin in it. Inside this folder is a file called gmapsupp.img which is 0 KB in size.

PLEASE HELP

pandamedic · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 25, 2004 Posts: 50

i managed to transfer the whole european maps to a 2gb sd card....just used the garmin software, highlighted the whole of euro, and then transferred it to the sd card. Took several hours mind and it's best not to use the pc while it does this. I'm sure it would have been quicker if i pulled the sd card straight into the pc rather than the nuvi...checked to make sure it worked and it did

TWHH · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 26, 2006 Posts: 48

Well I'm thoroughly peed off with this.

I have now managed to transfer the French maps on to the 256 Mb card that was supplied with the Nuvi.

BUT the only way I could do this was to install the MapSource software on a different PC at work that has a built in memory card reader/writer.

It worked perfectly, which to me suggests that the SD card reader/writer in the Nuvi is, well, shite. This is the 3rd unit I've had and 2 have had the same problem.

I'm also a bit hacked off with Garmin. They are very nice people. When you get through. I've had to call them at least 5 times and the least amount of time I've had to wait for them to answer is 25 minutes, and nobody has been able identify or fix the problem on the phone.

So now I either have to get ANOTHER replacement unit or go and buy a memory card reader/writer stick. More expense. Would be nice if the people at Garmin called me back when they have promised to do so rather than me have wait half an hour trying to call chase them up.

Relieved I've got my French maps for my holiday next week, but not at all happy with my duff unit or the 'support' at Garmin. Shame 'cos it's a great product otherwise.

TWHH · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 26, 2006 Posts: 48

Final comment:

Spoke to Garmin again today (after a 25 minute wait) and they have said that they have identified a problem with MapSource in that it in some cases it has difficulty in communicating with a Nuvi 310D.

They have had a couple of people ringing up with the same problem and have tried transfering data from MapSource to Nuvi themselves and experienced the same problem.

They have said that they will be correcting the problem very soon with a MapSource update, although they didn't give an exact timeline for this.

So for now it's a case of filling an SD card by putting it in a PCs SD slot, or buying an SD card reader/writer.

At least they've acknowledged the problem and have said that they will be fixing it.

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