Garmin Oregon 6xx firmware update

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Garmin Oregon 6xx firmware update

Postby keithy » Tue 19 Jan, 2016 5:54 pm

I forgot to post this earlier, but just before Christmas, Garmin released a firmware update 4.80 for the 6xx Oregon series.

Garmin state the changes are:
* Improved address search.
* Fixed issue importing adventures from SD cards.

For me it fixes one of the issues I was having with not being able to view GPX files on the SD card at the same time as having GPX files on the device itself.

Previously the only way I could get GPX files on the SD card to show up on the Track Manager was to delete all GPX files on the device itself. Now after the update, GPX files on the SD card show up together with GPX files on the device - the way it was meant to!

So now, if I am traveling without a PC and only have my android tablet, I can create a GPX route using Orux maps on the tablet, copy it to the SD card, and having the GPX route show up on my Oregon 600.
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Re: Garmin Oregon 6xx firmware update

Postby keithy » Fri 15 Dec, 2017 9:26 pm

Just an update warning for those with the Oregon. There have been a few firmware updates this year, a few recent ones.

5.10 was released on 08 JUN 17 - I did not see much change in this from V5.00
Changes made from version 5.00 to 5.10:
Improve NMEA sentence ouput.


5.20 was released 10 NOV 17 - This was a horrible update. The screen display was negatively impacted. Icons were there but there were errors in the display. Thankfully Garmin removed the firmware 11 days later on 21 NOV 17.
Changes made from version 5.10 to 5.20:
New GPS Version: 53001
Fixed potential GPS issue.


5.30 was released 28 NOV 17 - there may be issues with this firmware release.
Changes made from version 5.10 to 5.30:
New GPS Version: 53001
Fixed potential GPS issue.

I'm not sure what the GPS firmware update to 53001 did, or the "potential GPS" issue, but this 5.30 firmware isn't great at the moment. It appears to muck around the track logs. Tracks record, but the recorded distances do not change on the display. Anyone else experience this?

I would hold off on updating to this 5.30 firmware at this point in time.

While I'm happy Garmin keep firmware updates on a mature (now superseded) model, I wish their software guys do more testing before unleashing faulty firmwares on these devices. The user pool is fairly low, and a lot of users not regularly updating their firmware, feed back about the errors can take a while to get back to Garmin and for them to fix it.

So for me, as at December 2017, the best firmware for the Oregon 6xx series to be on are either 5.00 or 5.10.

As an addendum, those with Etrex 20/30s, a firmware 4.60 was released 4 Dec 17. It skipped a few (from previous 4.30) which usually means it was withdrawn by Garmin. There only seems to be minor changes:
Changes made from version 4.30 to 4.60:
Improved detection of USB connection to a PC.
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Re: Garmin Oregon 6xx firmware update

Postby bernieq » Sun 17 Dec, 2017 11:26 am

... and a follow-up to the addendum (re Etrex firmware) :
my Etrex 30x was at V4.5 so I applied V4.6 (as per Garmin's advised method via WebUpdater).

Restarted the GPS and none of my maps on the SD card were visible (only the default few Garmin maps). Restarted the GPS in storage mode to find all the maps still on the SD card (as expected, but with Garmin you never know). Note, this means that the SD card was readable in the GPS, as it was prior to the upgrade (ie seated properly). So, powered off, re-seated the SD card anyway and restarted - everything now available.

Maybe a second re-start would have done the same but .... 'Just one of those things' or poor software design ?

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