Can no longer see my waypoints

[CheminerWill]

I thought I might have messed up some setting somewhere. Now my unit will not display any of the personal waypoints in my .ggz file as it always has as recently as yesterday. I even tried exporting two personal waypoints and two regular geocaches from GSAK as a .gpx file and then copying that to the device in Garmin>GPX folder. The geocaches show but the personal waypoints do not show on the map or in lists.

I suspected maybe yesterday when messing with filters and such, I created the problem but now I am thinking not because I just put both the same .ggz file containing caches and many personal waypoints and also the .gpx file with two caches and two personal wpts on my wife's 66 and can not see the personal waypoints there either. I suppose I could have inadvertently changed a setting on my 66 yesterday to cause this. AND that setting just happens to be the same on my wife's 66. But I don't think that is the case because I have had both .ggz and .gpx files that contained personal waypoints on both 66 units in the past and the personal waypoints always displayed just fine.

I sure can not figure this one out.

[GPSrChive]

What exactly are you referring to as 'personal waypoints'?

[GPSrChive]

The test files you sent are displayed just fine on the map of my GPSMAP 66s, but not as waypoints. They are all displayed as geocaches.

[GPSrChive]

On a side note, why place a 'random' geocache or waypoint in device memory that contains your contact information in the hope that someone will find it and call you if the device is lost and found - when you can simply edit the startup.txt file to display your name and phone number (or whatever you desire) on the screen while the device is booting, every time? Certainly that is more likely to be seen by someone finding a 'lost' GPSr?

[CheminerWill]

That "geocache" point is from 15 years ago and I have just kept it on ever since. Once, many years ago it did get my 60csx back. But I did not know about editing the startup text file and that does seem a better way to do it. Except for that one with my contact information, I have them on there so that if I am in an area hiking again certain waypoints like nice lunch stops will automatically be available.

Some do display as geocaches I guess, but I remember most of them showing on the map as flags. Two of the five in the file I sent you are really just personal waypoints and the other three are official geocaches. I don't remember, but that must be the way I did it for some reason years ago. I have about 100 of them and they have always served their purpose until today when they stopped being visible on my 66.

But the real question is why can you see them on your unit and I can't see them on ours? To be clear when I put the five 'geocaches' in the file on my 66, either as a ggz or gpx, I can see on the map screen only the three that are true caches from geocaching.com. The other two no longer show although they always have for years. So even though they all display as geocaches for you, there must be something about those two that is different.

What I am trying to figure out is why today those two, along with all of my other "personal" waypoints, no longer show. The only things that show on the map screen now are official geocaches and waypoints created manually on the 66. None of my personally created ones are on the map, on any lists, or can be seen by the using the find button or navigation. When I put the file with the 5 records I sent you on my 66, the unit only sees 3 of them, the real caches. The question I am trying to answer is how did I manage that and how do I fix it?

[GPSrChive]

I suspect the answer to your issue is simultaneously simple and complicated.


Background:

Modern Garmin GPSr do not support (or recognize) all unique geocache types. Over time, Groundspeak will occasionally create new geocache types (Labs Caches, etc.) and also retire old cache types (Reverse Locations, etc.). Your GPSr supports the most common unique geocache types that have been around for a very long time.

When your modern Garmin GPSr encounters a unique geocache type that is not part of the supported group, it handles it the same way your older GPSMAP 60 did. as a Generic Geocache. Older Garmin GPSr (like the GPSMAP 60 series) treated all geocaches the same, regardless of unique types. They all displayed as either a closed treasure chest (unfound) or an open treasure chest (found).


Part I:

When you apply a Geocache Filter on any modern Garmin GPSr, you are instructing the device to only show specific geocache types while ignoring all others. And this is exactly what the GPSr does. The key thing to remember here is that any time this action is taken, not only will the unique geocache types you have chosen to hide be hidden, also, all generic geocaches on the device that do not fall into any of the 'supported' geocache types will be hidden. This is all good, as it achieves exactly what the user requested, to only display a specific subset of geocaches.

Later, when the user decides to display the previously filtered geocaches again by enabling them in the Geocache Filters page, the GPSr is being instructed to again display each of those unique geocache types, which it will do as requested. So far, so good, right?

Now here is the catch.

Even with all geocache types enabled in the Geocache Filters page, there is no option to select any of the 'Generic Geocaches' loaded on your device, so once hidden, they remain hidden indefinitely.

And since your 'Personal Waypoints' were exported to your device as geocaches that are not part of the 'Standard Supported Types', they were treated as 'Generic Geocaches'. And once you applied any geocache filter on your GPSr, ever, they were never re-enabled.

But do not lose hope. There is a way forward.

In the Geocache Filter page on your Garmin GPSMAP 66, select (Menu) > [Apply a Saved Filter] > [Show All] > (Enter). This action restores all geocache types, including generic, to visible status.


Part II:

"This has never happened before"?

If so, carefully check your GSAK export settings to find what may have happened there. I am not aware of exactly how your databases are configured or the exact process you use to export them.

AFAIK, GSAK can only export geocaches, not 'Personal Waypoints'.

This may have always worked for you over the last 15 years because for most of that time you were using them with a GPSMAP 60 series that does not recognize or filter unique geocache types, so they would have always been displayed.

But now you are loading them to a modern Garmin GPSr that does recognize and filter unique geocache types, and those 'Personal Waypoints' (that are not waypoints but are instead unsupported geocache types) are hidden when geocache filters are applied. And now you know how to restore all geocache types when necessary.

[CheminerWill]

That history is very interesting. Thanks! But unfortunately:

Even with all geocache types enabled in the Geocache Filters page, there is no option to select any of the 'Generic Geocaches' loaded on your device, so once hidden, they remain hidden indefinitely.

It does seem likely that this is exactly what happened as I was in the filter options a few times, for the first time, right before this started.

In the Geocache Filter page on your Garmin GPSMAP 66, select (Menu) > [Apply a Saved Filter] > [Show All] > (Enter). This action restores all geocache types, including generic, to visible status.

I did this from the Map Page by Menu>Menu>Geocaching>Menu>Filter>Menu>Apply a Saved Filter>Show All>Enter. I also went into the filter setup just to check that all types of geocaches are enabled for the show all filter and they are. The 66 is still not showing them. Maybe once what you describe above happened to the Generic Geocaches, there is no way to tell the 66 to show them again since they do not fall into any of the Type categories the Show All filter covers?

This may have always worked for you over the last 15 years because for most of that time you were using them with a GPSMAP 60 series that does not recognize or filter unique geocache types, so they would have always been displayed.
But now you are loading them to a modern Garmin GPSr that does recognize and filter unique geocache types, and those 'Personal Waypoints' (that are not waypoints but are instead unsupported geocache types) are hidden when geocache filters are applied.

It did work to display those generics with the 66 since I got it two years ago. It just stopped working Saturday after I used the filters for the 1st time ever. So I think your first point above is absolutely correct, but resetting the filter Show All does not fix it.

[CheminerWill]

By the way:

If so, carefully check your GSAK export settings to find what may have happened there. I am not aware of exactly how your databases are configured or the exact process you use to export them.

AFAIK, GSAK can only export geocaches, not 'Personal Waypoints'.

This has never happened before Saturday, after I checked the filters for the 1st time ever. The personal waypoints (Generic Geocaches), have lived in my main GSAK database for years and have always been loaded to my GPSr at the same time, in the same file, as all other geocaches. No settings have recently changed in GSAK. I really believe it is a result of what you said about "once hidden, always hidden". And getting them back by applying the "Show All" filter may not work as the 66 might not be including those Generic Geocaches in any of the Show All categories?

One of the two files I sent you was a copy from my 66 sd card if a ggz file export from GSAK using the Garmin Export macro, same as I have always done it. The other file was a .gpx file exported from GSAK to my desktop.

[CheminerWill]

Really it seems like I should revise what I set up 15+ years ago to handle my personal waypoints and to have then display them on the 66. I do have them all also in their own database in GSAK. I am willing to go through each of them and configure my setup differently. They do not need to be integrated into my main GSAK database of geocaches. I can do it however best.

What would you suggest as the best methodology to maintain a database of non-geocache waypoints and load them on the 66?

[GPSrChive]

I import, organize, filter and export my waypoints in groups as desired using BaseCamp.

Once I have a group of waypoints that doesn't change frequently, I save the GPX to a 'SYNC' directory, and I copy from that directory to all my GPSr as desired.

If anything within a group is updated in BaseCamp, I just re-export to the 'SYNC' directory and manually copy from there the next time I connect my GPSr.