Montana 650 - Can't find Canada

[Montana Mike]

Have a weird problem with my recently acquired Montana 650. I have several Canada US maps installed, including 2022 Canada/US Garmin Road map, some US/Canada Open Street maps and some other topo maps. The 'Where To' functions seem to work, except if I try to put in an intersection or an address, it first asks me to spell the country. If I type in 'Canada' it responds: 'No results found'. If I enter 'C', it only finds countries in South America, i.e. Chili, Columbia, Costa Rica (the unit came with a South America map installed). Is there something I'm not getting? I could delete the South America map - but I'd like to keep it if I can - you never know.

[GPSrChive]

If you visit GPSrChive > Montana 6x0 > Maps, you will discover that the Montana 6x0 series can only process 4,000 map segments at any given time.

Each Garmin map is a collection of map segments, and each map will have a varying number of segments.

You can load as many maps as you like to internal and microSD card memory, but the Montana 6x0 will only use the first 4000 map segments it loads into memory.

It may very well be that you have exceeded this number with all the additional maps loaded, and even though you can see them, they may not be fully loaded into memory.

Do not delete the South America map, simply rename the *.img file in the Garmin directory using a different extension, like *.map, or something similar, and the Montana 6x0 will not index the segments in that map on the next boot sequence.

You can also use JaVaWa Device Manager (see GPSrChive > Montana 6x0 > Software or GPSrChive > How To... > Software) to analyze the total number of map segments you have loaded to your Montana 6x0.

[Montana Mike]

If you visit GPSrChive > Montana 6x0 > Maps, you will discover that the Montana 6x0 series can only process 4,000 map segments at any given time.

Each Garmin map is a collection of map segments, and each map will have a varying number of segments.

You can load as many maps as you like to internal and microSD card memory, but the Montana 6x0 will only use the first 4000 map segments it loads into memory.

It may very well be that you have exceeded this number with all the additional maps loaded, and even though you can see them, they may not be fully loaded into memory.

Do not delete the South America map, simply rename the *.img file in the Garmin directory using a different extension, like *.map, or something similar, and the Montana 6x0 will not index the segments in that map on the next boot sequence.

You can also use JaVaWa Device Manager (see GPSrChive > Montana 6x0 > Software or GPSrChive > How To... > Software) to analyze the total number of map segments you have loaded to your Montana 6x0.

Thanks for the JaVaWa device manager tip - I used it regularly to check the map status on various GPS units that I have. JaVaWa shows 2697 Map segments in main memory (4) maps, and 2271 Map segments (11 Maps) on the SD card. Wouldn't disabling the maps stop their segments from being loaded? In any case, I'll try renaming the map extension in main memory and see what that does - but first, I'm going to try moving (using JaVaWa) the maps in main memory to the SD card and move the Garmin Road map to Main Memory.

[Montana Mike]

...but first, I'm going to try moving (using JaVaWa) the maps in main memory to the SD card and move the Garmin Road map to Main Memory.

Ya, that's not going to work. Even with the maps moved, there's still not enough memory for the Garmin Road map in the main memory.

[GPSrChive]

All maps are indexed during the boot sequence. If the map segment limit is reached, map indexing stops. Enabling and disabling maps just tells the device which maps you want displayed, and only indexed map segments can be displayed.

[Przekątny]

The 'Where To' functions seem to work, except if I try to put in an intersection or an address, it first asks me to spell the country.

Don't take it literally, Enter a country for maps of one country can mean a map.

Do not enter anything, accept, after displaying the list, select from the list a map item on which Canada is definitely located.

[Montana Mike]

Do not enter anything, accept, after displaying the list, select from the list a map item on which Canada is definitely located.

I couldn't verify this because after I moved all maps to the SC card, the unit now comes up with 'Canada' as a country choice right under the 'Spell Country' button. Still weird though, a city search only finds cities in Manitoba or Saskatchewan - so it seems to be only searching one specific map (didn't realize I had a prairie map loaded??). I'm going to try deactivating the maps by renaming the extensions as GPSrChive suggests.

[Montana Mike]

I renamed the extensions on all maps except for Garmin NA road map and a BC Backroads map (down to 288 total map segments). Now when I search for an address, it asks me to spell the province/state but just comes up with, 'no results found, try adjusting search parameters' no matter what I search for - including a blank search. Searching for other stuff seems to work fine.

[Przekątny]

I have a map of the Czech Republic in my device, to search for an address in the Czech Republic I have to enter Topo Czech, a country called Topo Czech does not exist.

If the map was not divided into country areas or a different name was used when creating the map, the device will not find the country name according to Spiell Country.

[Montana Mike]

I deleted and reinstalled the maps from their CDs and still no luck. Same behaviour.

If the map was not divided into country areas or a different name was used when creating the map, the device will not find the country name according to Spiell Country.

At this point, it's not asking for a Country any longer, it's asking: 'Spell State/Province' In any case, do you mean the 'file name' i.e. 'xxx.img', or the map name as it appears on the device?