Zumo User Forums

G'day all,

So I've been creating a massive route for my motorcycle journey around Australia which I'm currently part way through (which is all on my YouTube channel).. However, I created a massive series of routes (4 of them) which cover a total of 25,000 km using Gaia GPS.. and I've saved the GPX files so that I could put them in to my Garmin Zumo XT which arrived the other day..

So I've come across a couple of issues.. One is that the Zumo XT really isn't very intuitive or user friendly.. adding a GPX file really, really, really is a painful experience... unless I'm doing something wrong, but I learned a lot of what I'm doing on this forum and through google searches.

The second issue is that after I've uploaded (after another time consuming and painful experience that garmin managed to completely get wrong) the files to the XT and now when I try to load them it simply starts off with loading 0% and then it never, ever seems to go up from there.. I kept tapping the screen to keep it awake last night for over an hour and.... NOTHING..

I spent the absolute fortune on this device because I believed it could do these things, and now I'm thinking I wasted a shit ton of money.. I could've just kept using my old phone running Gaia GPS and downloading the route maps as I needed them.

So look, Gaia GPS is great for creating routes, but now I'm kind of stuck with the next step to actualise them on to the Garmin.
Is anyone able to point me in the right direction or help in any way.. because all of a sudden, despite being a tech gadget geek I now feel dumb.. as it's just not working.

This post may not be in the right section of the forum, if not, sorry.. I figured as it began with other route planning software this was a good place to start.

Simon

I suspect the issue here is simply the length and complexity of the routes you're trying to upload. There are limits as to what Garmin devices can handle, how long are your routes? Are they routes or tracks? How many viapoints do they include? If you can give a better idea of what you're trying to do we can help further.

Ok, that's weird.. I didn't realise that they had a length or complexity limit.. my first leg of my journey is covering about a week/two of riding.. and it goes through all sorts of places.. 3,265 km long.

So as far as length and complexity limits though, I can grab the garmin right now and plot a route from the east coast of Australia to the west coast.. and it'll do it without a problem.. so I'm not a hundred percent sure why it could not do it from a gpx that has everything already done?

As for via-points, there is probably heaps as I dragged my file to fit on certain roads etc..

Let me know if this works for you to view it..

If it's a route a Zumo can only handle up to 30 viapoints in a route. I suspect if you're creating one on your Zumo you're under that limit.

Well, I just tried to get basecamp to create a route of 180 days long which is with a starting and ending point that's 283 km apart... and it took me straight up a motorway, all the way to another capital city, then back down the motorway, for 5 days..

I went through this the other day- transferred routes from Base Camp to my new XT SD card. Importing was laborious at best. Sometimes it locked up at 0%, sometimes something other than 100%, but it always locked up. I canceled the import on the XT then USING A LONG PRESS OF THE POWER BUTTON, I shut the XT down and let it sit for a while. I disconnected it from external power just to be sure. After a while, I turned it back on and let it sit. Then I imported a route again. This time it worked. So I imported another route. It worked. Then 2 more imports worked.

I'm thinking this XT is about as fast computing stuff as an old Pentium 386 desktop .

I've imported and deleted several routes since then, all have been fine.

rbentnail wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 1:32 pm I went through this the other day- transferred routes from Base Camp to my new XT SD card. Importing was laborious at best. Sometimes it locked up at 0%, sometimes something other than 100%, but it always locked up. I canceled the import on the XT then USING A LONG PRESS OF THE POWER BUTTON, I shut the XT down and let it sit for a while. I disconnected it from external power just to be sure. After a while, I turned it back on and let it sit. Then I imported a route again. This time it worked. So I imported another route. It worked. Then 2 more imports worked.

I'm thinking this XT is about as fast computing stuff as an old Pentium 386 desktop .

I've imported and deleted several routes since then, all have been fine.

Cheers mate, that's awesome info.. I'll give that a shot before I call Garmin in the morning..
I think you're very right that it feels like the XT is running on "REALLY" sub par hardware.. like really, really, really sub par..

Since that episode I'm not having any problems at all. It's quick to transfer and import now, no errors and no freezes.

rbentnail wrote: ↑Mon Apr 18, 2022 9:14 pm Since that episode I'm not having any problems at all. It's quick to transfer and import now, no errors and no freezes.

Bizarrely I've managed something of a breakthrough with mine too.. I've managed to get one of my routes to actually load on it.. it's not sticking to every road, but it is showing the general idea of what I've got planned.

I'm yet to see if it is going to accept others etc.

Sad really that it took 2 nights of trying everything under the sun to work it out. It shouldn't take any effort to sort this stuff out. Certainly not 2 nights!

Difficult to know why it took you 2 nights as I've never had any issues and without knowing your full workflow I can't explain why it's now working but glad you are making progress