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Zumo 595 Issues? Questions and Solutions

mylanc

New member
I'm finishing my first week owning a Garmin Zumo 595LM paired with an iPhone 6 and Sena 20S. Let's just say that the honeymoon has been rocky. I've been traveling in Quebec last week and this week around the Gaspe Peninsula up from Maine (great trip - perhaps details in another post!). I've had the unit suddenly stop giving audio turn-by-turn instructions usually remedied by turning the Sena off and then back on, Zumo freeze-ups necessitating a reboot by holding down the power button for 12 sec, and most annoyingly, the unit freezes at the "Garmin Screen" and I can't reboot or turn off -- the only way to turn off the unit is to remove the battery. I've touched base with Garmin several times by wifi phone this week -- they're responsive and professional but haven't had many answers. I've spent a substantial part of my vacation evenings reading manuals and searching the internet. I'm inclined to do a factory hard reset when I return home next week and check in again with Garmin. Any others out there had experience with this device? Problems? Suggestions? Have to also say that Garmin Basecamp leaves a bit to be desired, too -- I've watched the videos they provide, but I find the program a bit quirky as well.
 
Do you have the latest firmware updates applied? If so, then a hard reset might be your next step. I'm running a pair of 20S units, 590LM paired to my headset and iPhone paired to 590LM. My wife and I have had good results with this package, my only real complaint is that I cannot adjust volume on the FM radio if I have my earbuds plugged into the 20S. Other volume adjustments work fine, just not the FM.

BaseCamp uses a very different data structure than what many folks are used to. There is a learning curve, but once you start to grok it BaseCamp works pretty well.

Good luck,
DG
 
Mylanc, if you are going to be in the Montreal area on your way home, Garmin's Canadian warranty and repair center is there. I can provide the contact info if desired.

Of the four Garmins I've had only one previous model got squirrely on me, and strangely enough it was in Quebec as well. Purely coincidence I'm sure but that is quite the coincidence. Anyway, you can normally do a "hard" re-boot of the unit by holding the power button down for an extended period of time. Seems to me that it is around 15-30 seconds. What you are looking for is to hold the button down until the unit turns off and restarts. That will sometimes fix an issue.

As was mentioned:
1) make sure you have the latest software (that is what fixed my old unit)
2) BaseCamp is a completely different beast and does take considerable familiarization.
Even then, I'm not sure I'll ever get to really like it due to it's difficult (for me) user interface. It has a ton of depth and breadth to it and can do some very detailed stuff, but I always have considerable difficulty getting re-acquainted with it's interface and have never been really comfortable using it. Always a challenge. :-(
 
Glad to hear that there have been good results for you, GTRider -- gives me hope that this will all work out.

Alan, thanks for the offer on the Montreal warranty and repair center. We're headed back into Maine tomorrow, so that won't be possible. Yesterday, in the middle of navigating, the unit seeming to work well, it crashed and was stuck on the Garmin startup screen. After multiple attempts to reboot, I finally got frustrated and held the power button down for about 30sec and multiple screen flickers and it started to work again!

I wonder whether there could be an issue with the device paired with my phone but having cellular service turned off and the Garmin app not running. We'll see tomorrow when I return to Maine. Regardless, my plan is to do a factory hard reset when I return home and contact Garmin with complaints. I'm hoping that either the return of cell service, the factory reset or Garmin will make things right.

Still interested in hearing what others may have to say on this. I'll post the outcome of my adventure so that others may benefit.
 
... After multiple attempts to reboot, I finally got frustrated and held the power button down for about 30sec and multiple screen flickers and it started to work again!

I wonder whether there could be an issue with the device paired with my phone but having cellular service turned off and the Garmin app not running...
I doubt that it is a pairing issue, as I've seen behaviour similar this several times in the past with TomTom's and with one of my Garmins. The TomToms were never paired to a cell phone when the issue occurred.

My feeling is that it is a GPS issue that is related to the system itself as a "hard" reboot typically fixes it either completely of for a long period of time or unfortunately, sometimes for a short period of time, My thinking is that there is an issue with the software or OS.
 
Returned home yesterday -- great trip!

So, today I set out to reset the device and start from scratch. Outcome: I have a completely useless GPS unit right now -- had to remove the battery to turn it off.

Backed up everything and then followed instructions in a YouTube video from a GPS vendor on how to perform a factory reset on the unit. That part was successful. Started it up and answered the two initial questions, one I recall was about language and country. Next, attempted to reinstall the latest map on the device. Successfully downloaded the latest version for North America. This took over an hour -- returned to computer (MacBook Air) to see a message that the device hadn't been removed properly (perhaps it auto-turned off?) I suppose this could contribute to the problem but there's a real design problem if the system is that sensitive. Started the device, now stuck on a dimmed Garmin startup page and Garmin Express didn't see that the device was plugged in. At this point, did a reset and the device eventually started up again -- so a problem quite similar to what I've been experiencing the last two weeks and attempted to remedy with a factory reset. Eventually got the the device restarted and plugged back into the computer and recognized by Garmin Express. Uploaded the latest version of the map and the device said that it needed to restart to finishing loading. When restarted, got stuck on the Garmin page and never went further. Then I tried resets, removed the battery again, tried more resets, and the device never went beyond the initial dimmed Garmin screen. Eventually removed the battery to turn it off and I'm now done for the day.

Plan: I have Tuesday afternoon off (8-30-2016) and will call both Touratech (from whom I bought the unit) and Garmin.

I must say that I'm very disappointed right now -- have another trip planned in about 2 weeks and would really like to have a functioning GPS unit. Hopefully customer support at one of the companies will be able to help me.
 
I had a similar problem with a 390...it would work then freeze and after a software update it became really slow and on a long trip out of town it froze up. I did all the restarts and resets...it would work for about an hour or so...and freeze up. Just call Garmin support...they were very responsive and helpful...I had a new unit within a few days and I returned the faulty unit. Very good experience in my opinion.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Looks like I had a defective unit - I say "had" because Garmin is replacing the unit. I spent 90min on the phone yesterday with Garmin trying various remedies and finding new problems - the rep was GREAT! They're shipping a new Zumo.

Interesting question we discussed, though: Could importing KML file from Google Maps to BaseCamp to create a route uploaded to the device somehow have corrupted the unit's software? Any thoughts on this from anyone? I suppose anything downloaded from the Internet has that possibility, but seems very low likelihood to me based on source and type of file.
 
Update 9-19-2016

Had a great trip to Nova Scotia last week. New unit worked very well with a few odd behaviors, which I discussed with Garmin customer support today. These were recorded and if similar issues are reported by others, their engineers will work on them.

1. After inserting a micro-SD card, the device reset as if it were new out of the box. Coincidence? Don't know, but didn't have the same problem for the rest of the week with daily use.
2. Just after starting Trip Planner for the first time, the device turned off and restarted after having initiated navigation. Didn't happen again for the rest of the week.
3. Plugged device into a MacBook Air, which started to recognize the Zumo, and then the Mac said, "disconnected without ejection" and the "orange computer screen" on the Zumo turned "dim white". I hit the power button and it did it again. I disconnected the device and turned it on and it worked that time. The Garmin representative had me change the device to a "mass storage device", which should work better with a Mac.

Again, Garmin customer support was highly professional and very helpful. Other than these three isolated issues, the rest of the week was smooth. So I'm very happy with the replacement unit at this point.

I want to put in a plug for for Ed Conde and Steve Bruning's tutorial on Garmin's BaseCamp on the New England Riders .org site. Very, very, helpful! See http://www.newenglandriders.org/Learn_BaseCamp.htm
 
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