Zumo User Forums

Chris_T wrote: ↑Thu Jun 08, 2023 7:21 pm Although this describes exactly my situation, annoyingly I can't get the fix to work.

I have both a Zumo 550 and a Navigator V.
........................
I notice that City Navigator Europe NT 2021.2 is now also installed on BaseCamp, so maybe its successful at updating the PC, but only with an old map, and fails to update the Zumo 550, although the Zumo 550 appears to be working fine with and reports that it has CN Europe NT 2021.20 installed.

Any ideas anyone ?

Go back and load the new maps to your computer.
Attach your Zumo 550 to the computer and run Express with the Computer Only option. This will run quickly since the new map is already installed but it will create the Unlock code for the 550.
Run Mapinstall and install the new map to the SD card on the 550.

That's how I update my 450 and 550.

I suspect the clue to this behaviour is in the map names. The Zumo 550 runs CN NT maps which as far as I'm aware are no longer updated. The later devices such as the NAV V run CN NTU, the U apparently standing for Unicode, which is a 16-bit coding for characters and replaces the older 8-bit ASCII. I did once hack a CN NTU map to run on a device designed for CN NT and it worked but only displayed the first character of every street name. If, as I suspect, CN Europe NT 2021.20 is the last edition of the CN NT mapset your options are to live with it or try OpenStreetMap which will be more up-to-date but isn't good at UK postcodes or speed limits.

Thanks everyone, really close but not quite there.

Express doesn't allow you to select just a few areas, although Mapinstall does.

Tried to use Mapinstall. Selecting the internal memory, received message no unlocked maps, even though I was expecting an un-lock code to be generated when the 2021.20 maps were saved to the computer.
Selecting card, it allowed me to procede with the later 2024.1 maps, and I selected just under 4Gb to transfer to the card, Portugal to Italy, not enough space for any of Eastern Europe.
This took 6 hours to transfer. Data successfully sent, but got “can’t unlock maps” message when I switched the Zumo 550 on, so a waste of time.
Can’t select 2021.20 maps on Mapinstall as only 2024.1 seem to be available to be selected.
Tried a small map section on Mapinstall to speed up checks, used Scilly Isles. This took 2 minutes. Data successfully sent, but got “can’t unlock maps” message again when Zumo 550 switched on.

Took SD card out and Zumo 550 works fine showing map data is 2021.20 maps.

I can of course decide to use the Zumo 550 without an SD card, and just have UK & Ireland installed, but having some European cover on the SD card would be a big advantage. Reminds me of using my Street Pilot III in 2001, and having to load a "corridor" through France hoping I didn't stray too far on the 256K card !

Chris_T wrote: ↑Sun Jun 11, 2023 7:00 pm
Express doesn't allow you to select just a few areas, although Mapinstall does.

Tried to use Mapinstall. Selecting the internal memory, received message no unlocked maps, even though I was expecting an un-lock code to be generated when the 2021.20 maps were saved to the computer.

Did you try what I suggested in my earlier post? Load the maps to the computer. Attach the 550 to the computer and install maps to the computer again. THAT should generate your unlock code. Unlock codes are specific for each map. 2021 unlock codes won't help you if you are trying to use 2024 maps.

Hi Michael,
Yes, but I'll do it again while logged-in, and write it up as i go along, hopefully with screen shots :
1) Zumo 550 off, remove SD card
2) Plug Zumo 550 into PC
3) Garmin Express opens. Click on Map Details
4) UK & Ireland 2021.20
5) Click on Map Options
6) Click on Install to Computer
7) Time to download file predicted at 1 hour 6 minutes
8) Within a few seconds, receive message saying There was an error installing the update

The strange thing is, once I take the SD card out, the Zumo 550 works perfectly normally.

I can load one of the regions offered in Garmin Express, e.g. UK & Ireland and the Zumo will report 2021.20 maps loaded.

I can then connect it and run Garmin Express again and load a different region, e.g. France, and again it will report 2021.20 maps loaded.

I can do this any number of times with any region, going back UK & Ireland whenever I like.

I just can’t use the SD card to get more map coverage than one region.

Here is how I updated new maps on my older Zumo 550 (2006 model)
I have a 32GB SDCard installed in it with an older maps file (of east coast USA and east Canada only) call this file A
I connected Zumo to the PC Computer (Windows 11)
Opened up Garmin Express (current version 7.19.0.0)
On Express, I selected download of 2024.20 maps to Computer Only. (map version as of Nov.8/2023)
keep the Zumo connected to Garmin Express but just select download of maps to Computer Only
(this download file size is 5.17GB to computer only and is named City_Navigator_North_America_NT_2024.20.gmap) call this file B
These file B installed on C: drive in C:/ProgramData/GARMIN/Maps
With Zumo still connected to PC, opened the Garmin MapInstall program
In MapInstall, I selected under Find Device, the Zumo device SDCard (my computer showed this SD card as drive J, select that sd card on MapInstall)
Then using mapinstall I selected all the maps on eastern coast Canada only and eastern USA only. (approx. 25 maps in all)
Then continued in MapInstall to download these selected maps to the Zumo 550 SD card. this is file C
(Make sure it's going to the SD Card and not to Zumo internal drive)
MapIntall automatically replaced the older version map file A on the Zumo sd card with this new file C 2024.20 version.
I think by doing it this way you can still use the Zumo 550 but not with the whole North America and Canada (file B),
that file B size is too big for the Zumo to read, you have to just select certain regions that you need to keep the file size on the SD Card under the 4GB limit, I think it's 4GB or it might be smaller
The older Zumo can handle new map versions as long as you keep your selected Zumo SD card map file C size under 4GB, thus your Zumo is still usable and not become a paperweight.

Have you checked out the system software version installed on your 550 ?

The system software was last updated on July 5th 2012 - that was version 5.00.

SDHC capability wasn't added until v3.00 - but I have no idea when that was.
https://www8.garmin.com/support/downloa ... sp?id=1671


Larger capacity SDHC cards didn't become available until relatively recently. I do not know how the addressing system works with SDHC cards - but this might give a clue:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_card#: ... patibility.

It talks about SDHC cards having a capacity up to 4GB
Later it talks about the newer SDHC cards which can access up to 2TB - but these are properly referred to as SDXC or SDUC.

It is possible - but I don't know for sure - that a larger capacity SDHC card is not being read properly by software that was designed before the later style of SDHC cards was introduced.

I remember at the time that many people were saying that they put larger capcaity cards into their Zumo and that it read them OK - but that may be the case for the first 4gb of storage, but then fail for the memory beyond that.

Something like - it can access memory locations that are numbered up to 4Gb, but like a car odometer, when it reaches the maximum number of digits, it goes round the clock to zero. So memory location 4Gb +1 is actually back to memory location number zero. The data will then make no sense and it will never find the end of a file that it is trying to read. (ish)

I'd be tempted to check your software version on your Zumo 550 - make sure that it is version 5.00 and also try your Zumo with a lower capacity card, try that see if it works with smaller amount of data. Say initially with between 1 and 2Gb.

Then try it with between 2 and 4 Gb. Then see if it fails beyond 4Gb. I believe that SDHC cards have to be formatted as FAT32

OR

You could have a rip-off card - labelled as one size but actually containing much less available addressable storage. I doubt anyone would rip off a 4GB card nowadays with 256GB being readlity available. But if it is an old 4Gb card, it may be the case. 4Gb is a heck of a lot of storage space. Most people got nowhere near to storing that much data when they first came out !!

4Gb = storage for about 4.3billion characters. At 60 lines per page, 80 character wide, that is 0.9 million sides. If one side of paper was written in a diary for every day from the year 0, then there would still be enough space for the next 425 years.

Having said that, the amount of data in a modern routing map could gobble it up very easily.

This here is my current knowledge of the 550.
The Zumo 450 and 550 models can only read a file size that's 4GB or less. Either a file that's in Internal memory or on an SD card.
The SD card itself on the 450 or 550 can be either SD SDHC or SDXC and the physical card capacity itself can be larger then 4GB, but not exceeding 64GB in capacity. But the 550 model cannot read a file on that card that is larger than 4GB in size. This is why the entire EU and NA maps need to be on separate cards to keep the file size lower than 4GB.

The issue is not with the SD card type or capacity but is with models 450/550 internal physical hardware chip set limit for reading file sizes.
It's can't be fixed with a new updated 550 software system version.

My Source is SD Memory Card Capacity
https://support.garmin.com/en-CA/?faq=U ... pgAhUUCqp7

OOPS, just learned that after updating to 2024.20 NA maps to Zumo, displayed screen street names show as S.....R... with dots