Garmin 500 keeps losing course - is it Connect?

KnightOfTheLongTights

Forgive me if this is a well-known problem with Garmins (there seem to be several), but...
My 500 keeps losing the course I'm trying to follow (i.e., bleeping 'Off Course') even though I've manifestly not gone off course.
Sometimes it just finds course straight away; sometimes I have to press the button that makes it search again and it finds the course again - very slowly.
It cries wolf so often, when you actually do go off course, you are sceptical of it and that leads to all sorts of faffing... At the very least it's an irritating distraction.
Is it Connect? I've notice when mapping out a ride on Garmin Connect that if you let it autocomplete a segment it takes you down some crazy paths / routes - bridelways etc.
So is the headset just picking up that it's not exactly where the Connect route mapping is telling it it should be, because Connect is rubbish and has mapped off-road?
If so is there an alternative to using Garmin Connect?
Lastly, does it have anything to do with how far you are zoomed in on the view of the course? i.e., if you are zoomed quite far in or out it tends to lose the course more?

iron-clover

Mine says off course fairly often for a few second before finding it again. Usually it's because I'm under trees or it has lost one of the satellites meaning the accuracy drops enough to take me off of the GPS breadcrumb trail.

I've not had it go that badly off course that I've had to reset it, although I have had the unit shut down just after starting a route a few times.

Have you got the latest software for the unit installed? If you connect it to Garmin connect it will probably tell you if it's out of date. I found the update quite useful, although not really any more/ less technical problems.

londoncommuter

I've only ever used Google maps or RideWithGPS for plotting routes and the 500 drove me mad with saying it was off course. Just annoying a lot of the time but a real pain when you actually need it to help at a junction. Having said that, nobody buys a 500 for the navigation and so to be fair it's a great bonus.

Just upgraded to a 520 where I'm hoping the GPS/GLONASS combination makes a difference.

Vslowpace

I bought a 500 for navigation, I think it works reasonably well with a couple of minor exceptions.

Yes having it lose the course on occasions does happen and sometimes it takes some time for it to find itself again. However I never press any buttons to speed it up.

I always put it down to the accuracy of the route plotting software and the garmin. Slightly irritating but that's about all.

KnightOfTheLongTights

Ok thanks for all that. It just seems to lose it totally though - like once yesterday I went off course so I turned back in the direction of the breadcrumb trail and the next time it relocated itself I'd gone right across the course and was even further away from it.
Just gave up in the end and used the sun.

daniel_b

I found an article/post where someone had had issues with the trail dissapearing.

The solution was to use gpsies to plot it.
Save it as a TCX file, setting course points evenly, and using the medium algorithm (Under options)

I do also get the 'off course' alerts, but it immediately finds it again.

Bobbinogs

The main point is that the 500 is not an active routing device and it is best avoided to try and use it as such (and I would certainly not rely on it). I know the function is built in there so one might reasonably expect it to work but it doesn't, simple as that! If you want decent routing then you will need to spend more.

pastryboy

This is a well known problem with the 500 and it can safely be assumed it's never going to be fixed.

Whether it happens or not is down to how the route was created. I've done sportives and the downloaded files from the organisers kept having the course disappear - if I scrolled through the screens it would come be there for a few seconds then go again.

Using ridewithgps.com I've not had any problems with it disappearing.

The 'off course' thing happens now and then on any route and can be a pain but it's unrelated to the course disappearing off the screen.

ben-----

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19716517#p19716517]KnightOfTheLongTights[/url] wrote:

So is the headset just picking up that it's not exactly where the Connect route mapping is telling it it should be, because Connect is rubbish and has mapped off-road?
If so is there an alternative to using Garmin Connect?
Lastly, does it have anything to do with how far you are zoomed in on the view of the course? i.e., if you are zoomed quite far in or out it tends to lose the course more?

The random "off course" then "found course" beeps and messages, when you haven't gone off course, have got nothing to do with how the course was created I don't think (the route on screen disappearing for extended periods of time does though - but that's not what you're asking about).

It's a software bad/incompetent programming thing in the unit. I vaguely/possibly-incorrectly remember reading (when searching for a solution to another issue with Garmin 500s) that the off course problem was introduced with some software "fix" at some point, which suggests some older previous version wouldn't have this problem (but god knows what multitude of other problems going back to older software would throw up).

I've actually found that quite often the off course beep corresponds to a change in posture by me, eg getting much lower, or a car going past. It's corresponded to those things too often for it to be a coincidence I reckon. I think there's some slight tiny GPS signal interference that the 500 reacts to -- which it just shouldn't. Crap programming in relation to the routing on the 500. If you look at the recorded route on some mapping software after the ride where it said "off course" you can see it didn't go off course.

I never (at least 99 times out of a 100 don't) have a problem of it finding the course again though. Just one or two seconds later, with no action from me, found course. It is bloody annoying though.

It's incompetent, not caring programming basically. It's infuriating. Garmin/infuriating. That's what Garmin does.

The 200, although at a glance its routing aspect is exactly the same as the 500, is actually much better than the 500's routing. You don't get this problem for a start. So if you're not fussed about sensors, HRM etc., a 200 is probably a much better thing to have than the 500. It does have some routing problems I seem to remember but nowhere near as bad as the 500's routing.

What version of software does your 500 have?

When you upload the route you've cycled to Strava or whatever, a route you cycled where it went "off course" when you weren't, is there any visible going off course on the map? There's not for me but it sounds like you're getting it worse than I get it - the it not finding the route again aspect.

KnightOfTheLongTights

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19717184#p19717184]ben-----[/url] wrote:

(the route on screen disappearing for extended periods of time does though - but that's not what you're asking about)

It is - that's happening too.
Have latest software updates.

Thanks for all the replies - need to sift thru.

ben-----

"off course" and disappearing routes on screen are two different problems.

For the route disappearing on screen problem here's two solutions:

1
https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?223399-garmin-admits-the-problem-with-courses-and-created-a-resolution
I have no idea if Connect works OK or what the situation is with that.

2
Use ridewithgps to do your route. Then upload it to gpsies, in its per track options check the "set points evenly (every xx metre)" option, download as tcx. Cue points will be messed up at this point but course disappearing problem fixed (although it still disappears slightly sometimes but nowhere near as bad). If cue points are important I've written a bit of code to fix that. A bit of a rigmarole per course! What fun.

No fix for "off course", "found course" randomly when not off course though so far as I know. Apart from not use 500, use 200.