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No power meter for me (yet) so doesn’t look like I’ll gain much from this update. I was hoping to see some fixes/improvements to the the Course area. One other feature that would be awesome would be either automatic changing of bike profile based on speed sensor or a quicker way to switch profiles.
Thanks for the update Ray! This is great news..
FYI, I first tried updating my Edge (previously at v2.8) using the “myDashboard” interface. This seemed like it was working, but then when I turned on the Edge, it still showed v2.8 and stayed that way through a few power cycles. myDashboard continued to tell me that my device was at v3.0.
So, I fell back to WebUpdater, as you originally suggested. This correctly identified the current version to still be 2.8, and installed the v3 update for real.
Summary: definitely use the WebUpdater!
Great news!
Any knowledge, thoughts, rumors about Garmin including hrTSS as well as power based TSS?
/Henrik
Curious what these updates mean?
– Made improvements to the power meter calibration process.
– Fixed an issue where Auto Zero was incorrectly displayed as an option when paired to the PowerTap hub.
Any chance of these metrics coming to the Forrunner 910xt in the future?
Hi Ray,
Do you know if and when the NP/TSS/IF will be available for the 910xt ?
Thx
as Josh found, myDashboard seemed like it worked, but not. Even though myDashboard currently says that the software is up to date.
Unfortunately I only have access to Macs. Any suggestions on how to get the update to install w/o access to WebUpdater?
@#7 – if you’re feeling adventurous, you might try a hard-reset of the device. I suspect that myDashboard does transfer the updated firmware to the device, it just doesn’t trigger the switch that causes it to be loaded…doing a hard-reset might force it…though I have no real reason to think so, it’s just a hunch!
Strangely, I’ve also just updated my Garmin Edge 500 with firmware 3.00 ———- and now I have the GPS version 2.40
update installed via web updater saw it being validated and on restart unit appears to be bricked, stuck on Garmin splash screen and not being recognised as connected to my Vaio via USB. Hard reset does nothing either. Joy.
firmware updated and
It doesnt restart if not after an hard reset!
“missing software” message, nothing probably can be done??!
Answers to various questions:
1) RE: What “Improvements to power meter calibration process” means:
In short, the Edge 500 will now only display power meter calibration functionality & capabilities relevent to the specific power meter being paired. In other words, previously it just treated them all basically the same. Now if the specific PM correctly advertises via ANT+ that it has additional capabilities, the unit will display that functionality. Don’t look for anything substantial in terms of user interface differences here, just minor items.
2) RE: Garmin with hrTSS
I’m not aware of any work being done here at this time. I’d love to see some of the other TP metrics as well, specifically NGP for running.
3) RE: NP/TSS/IF in the FR910XT
No answer there. I know it’s being worked on, but as I’ve said for the Edge 500 – it will be a ‘when it happens it happens’. I’ve kinda long since given up trying to predict firmware updates, since the dates are almost always incorrect. I really wish it was more stable. I like that Motorola with the Motoactv for example advertises a date, and then hits it.
4) How to deal with a unit stuck on Garmin splash screen
A) Turn off unit.
B) While holding down lower left button (Enter), plug into computer
C) After about 5 seconds, let go of Enter button
D) Within a few seconds, you should see the Garmin now show up as a drive on your computer
E) Delete anything within the Newfiles directory, it’s just duplicate junk
F) Eject unit, and try turning on again
G) If that doesn’t work, repeat steps A-D, then:
H) Move all Activities (in Activity Directory) temporarily off the unit to somewhere else (your hard drive), repeat for Courses as well.
I) Eject unit, try again
J) Failing all that, I’d have to recommend Garmin Support. But I think the above will fix it.
5) RE: Missing software message
Follow steps A-D above, then try and re-update the software via the WebUpdater.
Hope this helps!
There is a Mac version of the Garmin WebUpdater available at the following address:
link to www8.garmin.com
dubtap: My 500 appeared to do the same. I left it on for 5-10mins on the slash/boot screen, no change, I plugged it in to the USB cable, after a few minutes more the drive appeared. My 147 FIT files also had new timestamps from 12:49pm-1:02pm (just now). I can only assume there has been a change to the FIT file/format/something that it was processing, slowly, giving the appearance of it being bricked.
I copied my FIT files off the device, maybe not a necessity as the files has been updated(?) (due for a backup anyway).
It is now booting up as normal.
Couldn’t get that myDashboard thing working, I had to dust off Windows VM and use WebUpdater as wel.
Does anyone know if Strava are planning to add the NP to their ‘summary’ screen?
For me the same :((
update installed via web updater saw it being validated and on restart unit appears to be bricked.
Garmin 500 not being recognised as connected to my PC via USB. Hard reset does nothing either.
it doesn’t switch on!!!
Completely dead!
Help me!
Thanks for the update Ray.. new field to play with on a sportive this weekend. Incidentally, that will involve me using the dreaded course functionality too. Any more info on what they claim to have “fixed” for courses in this update please?
Oddly enough I have little problem with courses on 2.80 provided that I lock in the zoom to about 500′ rather than auto. Just the odd crash
Thanks
Adam
FYI from Geert (thanks for sending in reminding me about Linux users):
For those who can’t use the Garmin-provided update tools (ie., Linux users), just download the firmware directly at link to www8.garmin.com, and store it as gupdate.gcd in the Garmin/ directory on your device. It will install the update when started.
I had the apparently bricked symptom described by a couple of posts above, but it just needs patience. After what looked like a normal upgrade, turning on the Edge 500 just showed the Garmin splash screen. After maybe 10 minutes it suddenly proceded to normal operation, and now works fine.
As suggested by a previous post, it looks like it may be updating the stored data files (I have many). You just need to be patient.
How many Bikes are possible with this New Version?
My Edge 500 also showing Software Missing message and the recommended fix by Rainmaker not working – PC will not find unit after following instructions. Any other ideas?
It supports the same three bikes unfortunately. Wish it was expanded.
On the Garmin waiting screen – that is indeed correct from the word I got from the support folks. Essentially anything that’s in the NewFiles folder (which, it turns out, could possibly be basically everything after the update) will get injested back by the unit. In other words, it has to process that all. Eventually it will finish, it just make take 5 minutes, 50 minutes, or potentially longer.
One way to avoid this is to temproarily move the files noted above out of the various directories.
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Do we know what changes to courses were made?
Updated ok yesterday. Checking through all my settings afterwards it reset my bike profile to the first on the list and had reverted back to ‘Smart Recording’ of data. So if you have a power meter you need to switch this back to 1sec recording. Data captured on 1 hour ride seemed spot on but I will check against values reported in Wko.
Same problem as matteo… mine is completely dead. JohnW
Further to this, managed to get a response from edge 500 by pressing PWR+Enter+Lap, hold, then release. At that point the Garmin logo appeared and message “validating software update” appeared. Thereafter edge switched off for a few minutes and then restarted with version 3. Will go for a ride and revert if all working. Not nice!.
Update worked perfectly here. Using a mac, went through the carmin website and updated it, disconnected the device, booted it, it updated, then it started the loader. It then took about 2 to 3 minutes to update my 27 activities and boot into version 3.0.
After doing the update to 3.0 I went for a ride and got back and the .fit file is corrupt. Nothing would read it. I’ve seen this before. I had to do a hard reset of the device by holding power, start/stop, page/menu until the Garmin logo appeared and then disappeared. The device resets and you lose your history and you’ve got to set all your screens back up but at least now it records data. :\ Non-optimum situation. For those of you updating do this before you go ride and save yourself a lot of grief.
Same problems as some of the above posts, software missing error. I’ve reported to garmin support, but I think they need to act quickly here, their update process seems prone to problems and leaving it out there without any warnings is very unhelpful.
Did the update on friday night. It sort of bricked it. It took hours and hours of playing with buttons before I was able to get it to come back on and complete the update. I was PISSED during this process but after using the RESET feature and holding the POWER button down for a couple of seconds multiple times it finally turned on. I feel your pain if you had this update problem…
Strange and a bit disappointed we didn’t see the option to setup more than three bikes. The 901XT has 4 bikes and its not even bike specific.. In face it doesn’t even work that well on the bike. link to forums.garmin.com
Maybe I just have too many bikes though it is scientific fact that the optimum number of bikes to own is the number you already have plus 1.
Anyone find a fix for the missing software problem?
Only way I can get mine to turn on is to hold all 4 buttons and release, but just shows software missing.
I just got a refurbished unit back due to my last unit being covered under warranty. First thing I did was update it to 3.00. My GPS version is now 2.40, not sure why yours is 2.30.
another one BRICKED after updating to 3.0!
This is ridiculous!…
A very expensive product and this is the sh*t you get… The worst software ever made by Taiwanese kids or wtf it is made by…
Lots of issues reported by user years ago still are to be fixed!
This is unacceptable.
none of the recommended fixes here work! I can’t get the unit to do anything unless beeping and displaying software missing.
My unit was also bricked, and the computer wouldn’t even recognize that the unit was plugged in. But I was able to get help by calling customer service. They emailed me a couple of files that I was able to use to get the unit running in 3.0. Give them a call. They are probably dealing with a lot of these.
Please do you have any information on what issues Garmin has fixed relating to Courses.
I updated a new Edge 500 from firmware 2.80 to 3.00 and the course function is still faulty and the course line frequently disappears for seconds to minutes, firmware 2.40 on an older 2009 Edge 500 shows the course line at a zoom of 50ft 100% of the time.
link to forums.garmin.com
To properly do the update on Linux, you have to put the gupdate.gcd file in /Garmin/NewFiles and restart the Edge500.
For the record, I just managed to successfully update my Edge 520 in linux after a few initial attempts where it appeared to merely delete my gupdate.gcd file (without apparently freeing up space on the device).
1. I’m not sure what it was that did the trick in the end, but I *didn’t* haven’t to place gupdate.gcd under /Garmin/NewFiles – only /Garmin
2. I did do a factory reset beforehand.
3. When I went to unmount the device in USB mass storage mode (the Edge 520 automatically connects that way) from my computer, I didn’t unplug it. I let it boot up first (not sure if I needed to press the power button but I did that anyway), it did its update, and then turned off again. Only then did I unplug and boot it up.
For one reason or another, that seemed to do the trick!
For other stragglers out there, I suggest trying steps 1 and 3 first without the factory reset. Otherwise, make the obligatory backups, as well as the screenshots of your data fields (using the Lap button).
Found this Bug:
With Version 3.0 you can’t delete a single Activity on the Garmin.
That works with Version 2.8
Could you please post the files you got from garmin to fix the software missing problem?
thanks
At post 40, I noticed that today. I tried to delete an activity, and it wouldn’t delete. I had to connect it to a PC to delete it.
here are the files to re-flash your edge 500 when there in a “software missing” problem.
link to sendspace.com
Does this work with MAC?
Yes, those are just the base firmware files – so they’re cross-platform capable.
@Sergio
Thank you very very much!
Now that NP, IF and TSS are included in the Edge 500, is it still preferable to disable the auto-pause feature and manually stop/start when stopping for traffic?
Thx.
I love the added mettrics, but can’t seem to get my FTP set on my Garmin the same as I have it set in training peaks. Don’t know if anyone else is experiencing this. I have it set at XXX in training peaks and went into garmin connect, also set it at XXX and sent it to my device.
However, when I ride, it will show my IF at .85, but when I upload it to training peaks, it will show my IF at .78.
Is there something I am missing?
After the update, my edge 500 won’t upload to the GC site. It get’s stuck on “reading activities…” indefinitely.
Manual upload of .fit files work, but automatic upload doesn’t.
Any ideas?
Applied the software update.
Edge 500 became dead. Wouldn’t turn on, couldn’t mount as a USB drive.
Had to do a hard-reset (hold down POWER + PAGE + START buttons) to start the unit. Software validation starts as expected then the message “loader loading” appear, then unit turns itself off and becomes dead again.
Has this software been through a quality control process?
What a joke. I only bought my Edge 500 less than a week ago.
I bricked mine too. @Sergio, thanks for the software to re-flash. Awesome – easy to use and saved me from sending my Edge 500 back to Garmin!
So my Edge 500 disappeared right before this update was released. Theoretically, it’s in my house — but after seven weeks I’m starting to think I set it on the car and drove off or something.
What are the chances that a new Edge model will be released in the coming months? The Edge 500 was released three years ago — If I buy a replacement, will I immediately get buyer’s remorse because an Edge 550 (or something) is announced?
Anyone know what Garmin’s typical product cycle is for stuff like this?
Given your shoes, I’d wait. I don’t have any inside information – other than just very consistant historicals.
Garmin is pretty lockstep on releasing updates every 2 years for fitness units, and always at Eurobike/Interbike coming up in about 6 weeks. If something’s going to happen (and I suspect it will), it’ll definitely happen then.
Just my two cents.
Updated both of our Edge 500s before a big race. The computers worked fine for the whole race. When I went to upload the data, it only had 14 seconds of data. Is the data really gone? What was it doing while I was riding. Of all rides for these to crap out on was a difficult Gran Fondo…Grr
Anonymous said…
“After the update, my edge 500 won’t upload to the GC site. It get’s stuck on “reading activities…” indefinitely.
Manual upload of .fit files work, but automatic upload doesn’t.”
I’m having the EXACT problem. I contacted Garmin and they recommended a hard boot, which I did, but it didn’t help. Anyone have any ideas yet? Thanks for any help.
What do you think they would add to the 500? I could use one pretty much right now, and if they announce one now it won’t be in stores for several months (if not delayed). I’m tempted to just to get the 500 because it’s a pretty solid and well-known unit.
Even if they announce at Interbike/Eurobike (which I’m getting the feeling they won’t), then you wouldn’t likely see it until just prior to Christmas.
I’d go out and grab a unit now and enjoy the rest of the riding season.
Well, the reason I thought of waiting was that you told Anonymous on July 11th to wait, and it makes sense. It would make sense for the replacement to be announced this month.
Why do you think they’re holding off now?
Just rumblings in the woods.
Well, drat. I’m the guy who lost his Edge 500 over the summer, and I’ve been riding with my clunky Garmin GPSMap 62sc ever since.
No new “Edge” announcements at either Eurobike or Interbike.
It’s been 3 years since Garmin announced the Edge 500 — I’m surprised they didn’t have an upgrade for such a popular model (I was predicting a Fenix-like map display and wireless data transfers via an ANT stick).
Maybe the Edge 500 is destined to become a favorite “classic” device, like the HP 12C financial calculator (still sold new today after 25 years).
I’m sorta committed to Garmin Connect at this point, so I guess my only options now are to spend $250 on old technology I already bought once before — or try to survive the Winter with the GPSMap and hope that Garmin puts out something new before Spring.
How aggravating.
DCR, any idea on how to get TSS and the like on the Taiwan version of the 500?
thx
Hmm…absolutely no idea.
However, I’ll track down the Garmin dude or dudette tomorrow at the ANT+ Symposium (likely an engineer) and see if that’s an option.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Thanks to JohnW who posted this back in May 26:
“Further to this, managed to get a response from edge 500 by pressing PWR+Enter+Lap, hold, then release. At that point the Garmin logo appeared and message “validating software update” appeared. Thereafter edge switched off for a few minutes and then restarted with version 3. Will go for a ride and revert if all working. Not nice!.”
After I updated the software today the Edge was dead after it was completed. I waited like an hour and nothing happened. Then I did what jonhw recommended and it worked!!
more on the line of #58.
I bought an Edge500 one year and a half ago, it had two major problems:
– courses functionality is buggy, the edge looses randomly the track every few minutes making the functionality useless
– every time the temperature changes abruptly (beginning of the ride when the edge is warmer than the surrounding air, you stop for a break) altitude jumps which makes altitude data rather unreliable.
after 1 1/2 year nothing has changed. I can’t believe Garmin has spent any quality time on edge support.
There are loads of posts on the Cycling, Edge 500 part of the Garmin forum concerning the Disapearing Course line bug, but in short…
The disappearing course issue has been known by Garmin since firmware 2.60 was released in december 2010, courses that displayed ok using firmware 2.40 at a zoom of 50ft will not display reliably under a zoom range of a quarter mile, using subsequent firmware. to date Garmin has refused to fix this.
Having to wait for this to be resolved since December 2010 is ridiculous.
Personally I would not like to guess why Garmin have not fixed this and are still selling the Edge 500 knowing it has the aforementioned fault.
A possible explanation of the course issue can be found in this post and confirmation by Garmin Europe further on in the thread.
link to forums.garmin.com
Thanks anonymous for the backgorund, it is even more shocking to know how this malfunctioning is a well known fact.
I wonder whether Ray has ever had any chance to discuss the topic, it is rather unexplainable behaviour from a company with the financial and human resources of Garmin.
As another user says on the Garmin website:
As Garmin customers, no one should have to complain about this issue for the best part of 16 months to try to get a large company like Garmin to actually do something to fix what they have broken on the Edge 500, that we paid money for.
It is something I’ve had painful discussions with Garmin about. Both their firmware quality (release standards), as well as follow-up and monitoring of the forums themselves.
I talked with their Executive Vice President about both two weeks ago in person, and I think it’s clear he definitely agrees heavily and understands the problem. It’s probably just going to take some time to fix.
I wish I had a better answer – but it is something I’ve been hammering them on lately (quality in general). Need only look at my Fenix review and continued comments in other posts about the software being beta-quality.
Are there any news, when they will fix the Bugs of 3.0 Firmware .
and another half year has gone by. and still no solution.
looks like Garmin doesn’t need returning customers.
Unless people like buying defective stuff for a premium price.
And expect the next purchase to be flawless.
In case of Garmin this is clearly not the case.
I now own A garmin edge 500 with software bugs that aren’t fixed, a Garmin zumo 550 with well documented bugs that are n’t fixed.
I guess my next purchase won’t be Garmin
perhaps by now it may be a good idea to reveal the email adress of this executive VP and start sending him some emails every day, to get this higher on his priority list.
thanks for trying hard to represent us, it is a bit encouraging.
As someone has said seems Garmin is intent in getting new customers but seems also to consider a given existing customers like me will stay with them.
As a non-professional user i guess i might switch to a smartphone as soon as a “mini-iphone” will come up on the market.
After the new installation of 3.0 the cardio doesn’t work no more!! Is it a bug? I also tryed to change the battery but nothing…. Please help!
I was wondering if anyone else has a speed problem after updating their garmin edge 500? My speed was a solid 0.0 if the unit was sitting still. Now after the update it constantly has some speed registering even with the unit is sitting on a table outside with good satelite reception….Thoughts?
I’m getting a pretty weird issue on my garmin edge 500 i have been out for a training for 2h30 with my battery full and when i arrived my battery life indicator was stuck at 99%, what the hell is wrong?
Btw my garmin firmware is 3.0.0
Mine has had the same problem lately. Have you figured out how to fix it?
If your 500 is stuck at 100% or 99% try this:
Per the manual, turn auto power shutdown to off and then drain the battery till the 500 turns off. Then recharge it with the included wall charger overnight.
Any updates from the Garmin folk?
I just tried unsuccessfully to update my Edge 500 with the new 3.2 firmware. It bricked my 3 week old unit. Someone in this thread talked about getting stuck at the “loader loading” screen then it going blank, and that is exactly what happened to me. I was on the phone with Garmin support earlier today and after multiple tries at hard reset, and a reinstall of the firmware, it is still bricked. Support told me to return it to my local bike shop where i purchased it to get a new unit, faster than returning the bricked one to them and waiting 2 weeks for a new one. This is ridiculous. The unit was operating flawlessly until this update. Had I ignored it, things would still be fine. How they can release firmware with obvious bugs in it is beyond me, and it appears this is an ongoing problem. If anyone knows how to fix this, please post!
Just for information: I updated my 500 from 3.0.0 to 3.20 on my Mac using the garmin Dashboard web site and plugin. It didn’t take too long and everything worked fine. YMMV!
Same here. Tried to update Garmin 500 firmware from 3.0 to 3.2. All seemed to be okay, until the unit got completely black and wouldn’t start up or do anything. Then I checked my trusted DCRainmaker and got through all the comments above. For my device, the method of JohnW posted on May 26, 2012 was completely accurate. It seems that this update again will give all the problems of earlier updates. DC: it seems that Garmin’s EVP didn’t get your message right, they are still not serious about their customers !
just updated from 3.00 to 3.20 thru Garmin website dashboard. at the moment everything seems fine, i’ll do some test in a few days.
Anch’io ho un problema:
dopo aggiornamento firmware, alla prima accensione esce “conv. agg. sw” poi “loading loader”, poi si spegne e non va più!
Come si può risolvere?
Garmin Edge 500 firmware update 3.0 to 3.2…. I’m glad I took that anger management class, mr. garmin almost got tossed. I have a gran fondo in a week and now the thing is dead as a door nail – I was ready to put my CatEye back on the bike. Luckily I stayed calm and read further — do what JohnW posted on May 26, 2012: Hold down POWER + ENTER + LAP simultaneously for about 10 seconds then let go. Garmin logo comes up and goes through the process again — don’t touch it — screen goes blank — don’t touch it — wait a couple minutes and hopefully you will be happy again. It worked for me. No software updates planned for this puppy for a long time. JohnW – thank you !!!!
Updated mine from 3.0 to 3.2 and it failed. Tryed the POWER + ENTER + LAP reset. Now I got a message saying “SOFTWARE MISSING”. That’s it, nothing else. I only did a few rides with it. So not really a great start.
I had the problem with “software missing” first time around using the Dashboard method. I think it may have been due to a reset of the device while it was still trying to do the update (update was taking a while and looked like the devices had switched itself off).
Followed the tip at the URL below and was able to get an older version loaded onto the device while it was saying “Software missing”. After that I was able to use the WebUpdater app to update it fine. Second time though I kept pressing the Up/Start/Stop button to make sure the thing stayed “awake”. Got to loading loader and it goes blank for a while, but eventually gets past it and reboots. Now running fine.
link to bicycletips.com