Garmin nightmare

stevett

I've had it with the Training Centre software packaged with my Edge 305. Having spent nearly a year building up a history and courses it just doesnt communicate with my pc anymore, apparently due to a corrupt file.

The Garmin people are not interested in refunds.

To me it smells of poor software development - to have one corrupt files that brings down a whole years history is just not good enough. If money had been spent on development, it should alert you to a corrupt file and then you enable you to isolate it and continue with the rest of the files you've produced. I feel completely let down by them.

Does anyone have an alternative software package that does a better job?

James_London

Presumably you back up more frequently than every year? If so you should be able to salvage something.

Training Centre is shockingly bad I agree. I only use it as secondary backup. I use WKO+ which is mostly aimed at analysis of power data but it does everything else you need too. Available from Bob at www.cyclepowermeters.com amongst other places.

There are lots of other options including-
http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/SportTr ... Shots1.php
http://www.topofusion.com

From memory a number of others have been discussed here - Try a search.... :-)

stevett

Thanks. I'll take a look at those.

I have a copy of all previous data saved on my desktop, but how do I know which file is corrupt? Plus I dont know if a course is corrupt or the history from which its been generated

Horton

Try Garmin connect - it's online so accessible from any computer as well. FWIW, I use both as I found Garmin connect threw up some slight anomalies (like telling me I reached 200mph once) That was probably more to do with how I'd set the actual unit up though as I was trying to save memory rather than being 100% accurate. TC is definitely the poorer cousin to Garmin connect. There are other sites like sporttracks out there but I've never used them.

James_London

SteveTT wrote:

Thanks. I'll take a look at those.

I have a copy of all previous data saved on my desktop, but how do I know which file is corrupt? Plus I dont know if a course is corrupt or the history from which its been generated

You could try reinstalling TC and then importing your workout files in batches until you find the duff file or load the files into one of the other programmes and see if you get the same corrupt file issue.

Garmin Connect is also handy as a backup but I found quite a lot of anomalous data as the previous poster pointed out. In WKO+ or SportTracks you can fix these things easily if you're so inclined.

stevett

Ok

I have tried re-installing and then adding the courses one at a time, but the point at which the software fails is not consistent. Sometimes a course will cause a failure, other times not. This is what I dont understand.

padonbike

Crumbs what a lot of software! Isn't all this stuff defeating the freedom or going out on a bike ride?
Do you really need to know more than what a basic speedo tells you: speed, av, distance, time?

Horton

padonbike wrote:

Crumbs what a lot of software! Isn't all this stuff defeating the freedom or going out on a bike ride?
Do you really need to know more than what a basic speedo tells you: speed, av, distance, time?

Not so much "need" to know as want and can. The garmin gives the ability to log all your rides so you can come back to old rides and see how much you're improving etc. as well as making it much easier to share your rides/routes with other people.

If you want freedom, why do you even need a basic speedo? I rarely put my computer on my mtb, but always go out with it on my roadie.

cougie

Are you improving ? Or just collecting stats. The only clubmate I know who uses his Garmin religiously clocks all of his data - on the one or two rides a month he does.

Horton

Both, but I don't need anything more than a watch and a good memory to tell me if I've done one of my laps quicker than before.

I was just trying to make the point that it is more than just a speedo, and that if you enjoy the "freedom" of biking, why do you even need a computer at all? As it happens, with our recent lovely weather, the road bike has been attached to a turbo trainer and I've been out on my mountain bike more. (Couldn't tell you where though, left the garmin at home...)

BTW Have you tried rolling back your computer - system restore type thing in case it was a windows update that has somehow corrupted something.

hammerite

thumbs up for Sportracks, used it for about 3 years, and never had a problem. Excellent piece of kit, and you'd expect it to have come from a large company, not a one man band.

Even better is that it's free.

GF22

Does anyone use their 705 with Sportracks? I imported my data over when I had a 305 and absolutely loved Sportracks. However, it appears that the file format for the 705 data is different and now I can't seem to import ride data into Sportracks.

Can anyone help me?

Thanks,

GF

magliaceleste

GF22 wrote:

Does anyone use their 705 with Sportracks?

Yes, it works perfectly! Make sure you are using the latest version. In order to automatically import from the 705 you also need to install an additional piece of Garmin Software the Garmin Communicator plugin. You can get it from here:

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download ... sp?id=3607

To the OP. I had the same problem. Switched to using Sportstracks, Garmin can't write decent software IMO. You could try editing the XML by hand in Wordpad or whatever, it's a lot of trial and error but it's what I did in the end.

GF22

Magliaceleste, thanks for the link for the download. However, I have downloaded it but the problem still persists. When I try to export my history from Training Centre it will only export it as a .tcx file whereas when I had the 305, it was exported as a .hst file. Sporttracks doesn't appear to recognise .tcx files but did recognise the "old" .hst files. I can't seem to find any way of converting the .tcx files into .hst format.

Does anyone do it in a way I am not aware of? Am I doing something wrong or missing something?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Gavin