Error message trying to send waypoints to yellow eTrex

[Trekkin and Birdin]

I used to be able to send waypoints via GSAK to our yellow eTrex. When we got the nice Garmin, we made the changes needed to load to that.

Now when I want to load to the yellow one, I get messages like “cannot initialize COM1”

I have a serial to USB cable for the etrex. I have unchecked that box. I have removed all the extra waypoints like gas from the choices. What is going on? Thanks for any help. I’ve tried USB connections on the front and the back of the computer, to no avail.

[Jeremy]

Sometimes (especially if you plug the adapter into a different USB port or reinstall the drivers) a different COM port is assigned to the USB to serial adapter. If you have other choices (COM2, COM3, etc.), try them. If you go to Control Panel -> Device Manager -> Ports, you should be able to see whether the USB to serial adapter was found and the COM port number assigned to it by Windows.

Also, a program can grab access to the COM port and not release it, which prevents GSAK from using it to download. One program that does this is the Palm HotSync manager when the “Local” sync type is selected. I’ve also seen other programs do it, so if you have anything else running that could possibly use the serial port, shut them down.

Finally, you could have accidentally changed the serial port communication settings on the eTrex itself, but they are so buried in the menus that I highly doubt it. If you want to check this, the interface type should be set to “Garmin”.

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