GPSrChive Discussion Forum

Hello,

Does anyone else have any issues with their unit not returning results when 'spell searching' for cities?
My 700 finds a list of nearby cities in Where To>Cities, but when I try to, ugh*, 'spell search' cities from there, even ones that were in the previous list, I get nothing but the endless circle of waiting.

The unit return cities if I search for them in Where To>All POIs>Spell Search, and can find cities if I do an address search, so the cities must be in there.

Unit was updated to 4.70 as soon as it came out of the box, so I can't say if this is some new issue with that or just my machine. I'll be contacting Garmin tomorrow.

On a similar note, is it me/my machine, or is the 700 actually slightly worse at searching for POIs than the 450?

Mr Kaswa

*Sorry, reading and typing 'spell search' makes me feel like Garmin thinks were are all 7 year olds learning how to use a dictionary.

I just purchased a new 750 to replace an old 650 that needed some major repair about a month or so ago. I have the same issue (even had it on the 650). Like you, if I do a Where To > Cities a host of nearby cities pop up within seconds. If I instead try to do a "spell search" for the FIRST city in that same list, it "sometimes" takes forever -- spinning, spinning, spinning. If I try a "spell search" for the SECOND city in that same list, it comes up almost instantly. If I try searching for a city somewhere further away (in another state, maybe) it seems to take forever, or so long that I finally just cancel it. Whatever "spell search" routines Garmin is using, they pretty much suck. It's not just cities either -- it can be POIs as well. Frustrating if you're really hungry and looking for the nearest In-N-Out Burger joint and by the time your Garmin has found it in its list, you're not hungry anymore

Embarrassingly, and what should have been obviously, the problem was traced to some of the maps I had on the unit. I should have ruled them all out one by one but kept stubbornly overlooking them because they had not caused any issues with the 450.


I'm still not pleased with the way the unit behaves,...if it finds no results it says, "try adjusting your parameters." and the dumps you back to the list of categories instead of leaving me in cities...but at least it is doing what I imagine it is supposed to.
Mr Kaswa

Mr Kaswa, to clarify, you are observing the spell search of cities fail to return cities that are clearly present when 'other' maps are installed or enabled on the device, suggesting those 'other' maps are interfering with your search results?

gpsrchive wrote: ↑Sat Sep 21, 2019 1:14 pm Mr Kaswa, to clarify, you are observing the spell search of cities fail to return cities that are clearly present when 'other' maps are installed or enabled on the device, suggesting those 'other' maps are interfering with your search results?

Yes. I tried being more scientific about it, until I encountered another issue.
Two city navigator enabled caused the issue.
Some older topo maps enabled caused trouble with either CN.
BUT
It then seemed to be that none of the topos gave it grief when enabled with a CN.
BUT THEN
the spell search totally failed for all maps. even ones that had functioned previously.

At that point I popped out the SD card to let the unit load without the maps so I could then reboot it and load the maps again. Without the SD card the unit stopped booting entirely, getting stuck at the loading waypoints etc screen. Putting the SD card back in stopped the unit even sooner.

OK, sounds like maybe in the future, when users run into a map search issue, they should disable all but the map they are trying to search and try the search again.

Agreed.