Author Topic: Garmin withdrawal and frustration  (Read 8278 times)

fuaran

  • rothair gasta
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #25 on: 28 July, 2020, 12:57:49 am »
Oh god, validation... probably just as well there is no AUK validation right now or many people would be bemoaning the fact that Garmin are depriving them of valuable points.  ::-)
I used to just take the gpx file off the Garmin, zip it, and send it in on the auk uploader. Isn't that still an option? Or won't the non-Etrex Garmins do that? Or was it impossible during this outage, and if so why?
Yes, that still works fine, for just about all Garmin models. Except most of the newer models record in FIT format instead.
Think the AUK uploader will accept FIT files? Or it can easily be converted to GPX if necessary.

Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #26 on: 28 July, 2020, 01:09:05 am »
There's an argument for looking after the stuff you care about, whatever the medium.

Digital data has the advantage of being easily and flawlessly duplicated to prevent accidental loss, and takes up minimal physical space[1].  And then we go and ruin it by trusting it all to a single delicate short-lived piece of desirable-to-thieves hardware, or putting it in the hands of some short-lived internet company.  And then shrug when we lose it all in an entirely predictable way.

I think the 'digital dark age' is a real problem, but it's not really because storage devices are unreliable.


[1] Which matters when your housing is overpriced and insecure, in a way that older people with sheds and attics and things don't really grok.
The digital media is certainly reliable for medium to long term storage but hands up who still has a DVD reader on their computer. How about a threeanabit drive?. Fiveanabit? That weird high capacity zoom drive? How about an 8mm tape drive? A VHS? VHSC? Etc etc. We’ve probably all got lots of Backups and archives of our treasured data, but only the most dedicated hoarder will still have the right tech available to,access it all

DVD - yes
DAT Tape - in old case, no PCI slot for the SCSI card.
3.5 floppy - in old case no mb connection

Could i rebuild the old box. Yes as the boot disk is still there. As it stands the bigger issue would be drivers or software to read the file types.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #27 on: 28 July, 2020, 01:23:48 am »
There's an argument for looking after the stuff you care about, whatever the medium.

Digital data has the advantage of being easily and flawlessly duplicated to prevent accidental loss, and takes up minimal physical space[1].  And then we go and ruin it by trusting it all to a single delicate short-lived piece of desirable-to-thieves hardware, or putting it in the hands of some short-lived internet company.  And then shrug when we lose it all in an entirely predictable way.

I think the 'digital dark age' is a real problem, but it's not really because storage devices are unreliable.


[1] Which matters when your housing is overpriced and insecure, in a way that older people with sheds and attics and things don't really grok.
The digital media is certainly reliable for medium to long term storage but hands up who still has a DVD reader on their computer. How about a threeanabit drive?. Fiveanabit? That weird high capacity zoom drive? How about an 8mm tape drive? A VHS? VHSC? Etc etc. We’ve probably all got lots of Backups and archives of our treasured data, but only the most dedicated hoarder will still have the right tech available to,access it all

That problem's easily solved.  You don't create digital data and put it in a shoebox under the bed on whatever storage medium happens to be fashionable at the time.  You keep it on a live, actively used computer system with appropriate redundancy and backups (possibly someone else's - AKA 'the cloud' if you don't want to do all that unisex spaceadmin stuff), and migrate it as necessary when technology changes dictate a forklift upgrade.  This has become *much* easier since computers reached the point where they could make use of internet technologies for file transfer.

I've got files in my current home directory that originated on a 3.5" floppy based Amiga, and/or contemporary early-90s Windows systems.  I don't have to care about reading old floppies, just the file formats.  (And if necessary, you can spin up an emulator.)  I've no idea if the CD/Zip100/DDS4 backups I have from the early 2000s actually work, but it doesn't matter, because that data's right there on my current computer.

ob-xkcd

Meanwhile, I've lost all the C64 and DOS era stuff, along with assorted dead tree and analogue recordings (photographic film, audio cassette, Hi-8, VHS) because I didn't think to rescue them when I became unwelcome in my parents' home.  Over the years I've lost many files to hardware failure (mostly crap floppies, the occasional coaster or hard drive with dodgy sectors) and user error (deleting things by mistake, that time I accidentally overwrote an entire hard rive partition with some boot image, that sort of thing), and a small amount of data to malware.

I've been around long enough to know what works, and become sufficiently paranoid[1] about backups.  But sadly it seems to be the sort of thing that people only learn by experience.  If they're computer-savvy enough to be able to learn it at all.  There's also a scaleability problem if you're in the habit of routinely creating gigabytes of high-resolution images or video, rather than documents, images and code:  Having grandchildren seems to guarantee data storage problems.


(Of course, this assumes you're storing your data in a file or bitstream on something you can reasonably manipulate.  If all you have is a front-end to data on someone else's proprietary system, you're largely stuffed.  I'm not sure how to easily back up all my YACF posts, for example.  I suppose I could scrape My Posts with a script...)


[1] And, to be fair, well-off enough to afford that second disk or VPS or whatever.

ElyDave

  • Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society member 263583
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #28 on: 28 July, 2020, 06:07:27 am »
External DVD player, external hard drives, All my 3.xx diskettes were backed up to the hard drives and are now used in my office as coasters.  DVDs are next to be done.

Losing my spreadsheet log for this year and having to recreate from scratch has reminded me to be more vigilant around backups to the external drives.
“Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him.” –Charles Dickens

Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #29 on: 28 July, 2020, 06:51:53 am »
Hmm: not quite the direction that I was expecting but interesting nonetheless.

I have a working external DVD writer still as well as a lead to connect sata drives to USB ports.  Makes backup onto large old drives possible.  I also have a drive caddy in both of our desktop machines in place of the once ubiquitous 3.5 inch drive which allows me to hot swap in 2.5 inch hdd's or ssd's.  Incredibly useful for data backuls as they are co ne ted to the main board sata interface.

I have used Strava with privacy modes set as my Garmin backup for now.  I am considering digging out an old training log spreadsheet and updating it from the start of this year.  Will I be dedicated enough to maintain it?  I really don't know.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #30 on: 28 July, 2020, 08:55:38 am »
Will I be dedicated enough to maintain it?  I really don't know.

That's another thing. Pressing start when you set off and stop when you finish a ride is quicker and easier than writing down all the details when you get home.

That said, I do write stuff down after most rides, in the form of a brief description on Strava to say how I felt and what the weather was doing, and any other interesting details of note, plus occasionally a picture or two if I took any.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #31 on: 28 July, 2020, 09:17:16 am »
You don't create digital data and put it in a shoebox under the bed on whatever storage medium happens to be fashionable at the time.

Indeed, especially as each backup medium has a finite lifespan. Writeable DVDs are supposed to have a lifespan of anything from 25 years (DVD-RAM), 30 years (some manufacturers low-end estimates for DVD) all the way up to 100 years.

Of course, in the same way that it doesn't just go *ping* exactly after 30 years you may find some DVDs don't even get to 10 years before they are unreadable. It all depends on the process, the quality of the disc, the quality of the equipment used to write it, storage conditions, etc.

As Kim says, moving to a more recent storage system every once in a while is the best idea, especially as it helps you know that your backups are readable, and storage is always increasing in a capacity and, in general, getting cheaper. (Obviously this is countered by data becoming more dense. 10 digital photos from 20 years ago take up a lot less space than 10 digital photos taken now.)
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

Ben T

Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #32 on: 28 July, 2020, 09:19:17 am »
If [cloud logging provider of choice] goes down, you haven't "lost" any rides. You still did them and have memories of them.

I was going through my old brevet cards the other day. Half of them I'd forgotten I ever rode....

What was it about the other half that made them memorable on their own merits?  :)


citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #33 on: 28 July, 2020, 09:56:33 am »
What was it about the other half that made them memorable on their own merits?  :)

Weather and scenery, usually!

"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Ben T

Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #34 on: 28 July, 2020, 10:25:34 am »
What was it about the other half that made them memorable on their own merits?  :)

Weather and scenery, usually!
So why would you want to remember the ones that didn't have weather and scenery?   :)

LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #35 on: 28 July, 2020, 10:34:50 am »
Who you were riding with, for one. Meals and other snippets along the way. Prompts like stamps (even water stains!) on brevet cards can aid the recall of all sorts of long-forgotten memories.
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #36 on: 28 July, 2020, 10:40:10 am »
Yes! And also, the heart-warming kindness of organisers and helpers.

Ben T

Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #37 on: 28 July, 2020, 10:50:55 am »
I’d remember that anyway without the card.

LittleWheelsandBig

  • Whimsy Rider
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #38 on: 28 July, 2020, 11:34:19 am »
I've been doing brevets for nearly three decades totalling hundreds of rides. Your memory must be better than mine to recall every incident and situation.
Wheel meet again, don't know where, don't know when...

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #39 on: 28 July, 2020, 06:34:36 pm »
There seem to be three uses of Garmins, Wahoos and similar:
  • Data – speed, calories, etc
  • Record – validation, experience, memory, etc
  • Navigation

As someone whose use of an Etrex is almost entirely the third with a little bit of the second, this whole outage is a bit of a huge FWP, but clearly there are enough data-driven users to make it a PITA for a significant sector. (Obviously some use cases overlap these broad categories and sure someone can come up with some that fall outside completely.)
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #40 on: 28 July, 2020, 06:36:05 pm »
Thing is, if you've got the record (GPX file or equivalent), it can be converted into data whenever you like.

The problem seems to come with the more fitness-oriented devices tying you into their web service as a means of extracting it.  Which is a compelling argument not to buy them.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #41 on: 28 July, 2020, 06:49:10 pm »
Not entirely. There's no way the gpx from my Etrex will tell me what my heart rate was or how many calories I used (beyond a rough gesstimate based on speed and distance).
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #42 on: 28 July, 2020, 07:08:03 pm »
Not entirely. There's no way the gpx from my Etrex will tell me what my heart rate was or how many calories I used (beyond a rough gesstimate based on speed and distance).

Because your etrex doesn’t do HR. If it does then HR will be in the GPX output.

Beardy

  • Shedist
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #43 on: 28 July, 2020, 07:29:58 pm »
As I have said elsewhere, apart from a small number of professional athletes, the garmin outage has been very much a FWP for the running community and Garmins response to us is going to be based on whether they think it will hit their bottom line or not. Garnim’s bigger problem is the aviation sector and garmin need to be seen to be doing something to calm the jitters. The aviation sector is very risk averse and if they perceive a threat to safety the users will dump garmin faster than you can say GPS navigation.
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.

Kim

  • Timelord
    • Fediverse
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #44 on: 28 July, 2020, 07:42:33 pm »
Shirley aviation GPSes are more like an old-school eTrex (you can transfer data to them if you really want to) and don't have the same internet-of-shit connectivity as the PE watches.

Main risk would be Garmin suffering financial consequences that leave them unsupported.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #45 on: 28 July, 2020, 07:45:42 pm »
Not entirely. There's no way the gpx from my Etrex will tell me what my heart rate was or how many calories I used (beyond a rough gesstimate based on speed and distance).

Because your etrex doesn’t do HR. If it does then HR will be in the GPX output.
Well obviously. I wasn't interested in that when I bought it, so I didn't look for one with capability. Though I think that Kim, who is an athlete and does have an HRM, also has an Etrex 30, which is equipped with ANT+, so presumably could receive data from her HRM, if it's compatibly fitted. Which it presumably is, cos she uses it and she, unlike me, is a data geek (in addition to being a silver-medallist athlete).
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #46 on: 28 July, 2020, 08:04:32 pm »
The problem seems to come with the more fitness-oriented devices tying you into their web service as a means of extracting it.  Which is a compelling argument not to buy them.

Well, I'm pleased to say that it was very easy to extract the data from this evening's run from my FR620 and upload it to Strava, despite the GC app still being down.

Not sure if it would be the same for my wife with her FR35 - I have a strong suspicion the proprietary USB charging cable doesn't have a data connection. That would certainly have made me think twice about buying it for her if I'd known.  :-\
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #47 on: 28 July, 2020, 10:25:23 pm »
The problem seems to come with the more fitness-oriented devices tying you into their web service as a means of extracting it.  Which is a compelling argument not to buy them.

Well, I'm pleased to say that it was very easy to extract the data from this evening's run from my FR620 and upload it to Strava, despite the GC app still being down.

Eh? It's been back up all day for me. The app does say there's maintenance going on but it doesn't seem to stop me using most of the functions.

The website has been fine all day too.

Most things are working: https://connect.garmin.com/status/

It's just some bits like syncing a workout onto a device that is still not working (Ironically I wanted to do that today after not needing to for 11 months...).
"Yes please" said Squirrel "biscuits are our favourite things."

citoyen

  • Occasionally rides a bike
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #48 on: 28 July, 2020, 11:02:53 pm »
Eh? It's been back up all day for me. The app does say there's maintenance going on but it doesn't seem to stop me using most of the functions.

Tbh, I just saw the notice about “server maintenance” and assumed that meant it was still down. Didn’t even bother trying to sync.

Either way, I uploaded my run so all is well in the world.
"The future's all yours, you lousy bicycles."

Beardy

  • Shedist
Re: Garmin withdrawal and frustration
« Reply #49 on: 29 July, 2020, 09:11:41 am »
Shirley aviation GPSes are more like an old-school eTrex (you can transfer data to them if you really want to) and don't have the same internet-of-shit connectivity as the PE watches.

Main risk would be Garmin suffering financial consequences that leave them unsupported.
I’m sure the devices used in flight will be independent, but the very fact that Garmin was compromised and thus offered a potential pathway for ‘infecting’ those devices will have alarm bells ringing. We know from reports that those devices lost some functionality and connectivity, although I’ve not seen specific details, but it will be the perception of increased risk that will have many users looking to alternatives. Garmin need to address those concerns urgently
For every complex problem in the world, there is a simple and easily understood solution that’s wrong.