I guess I need to share this with others that may face the same problem. I was really annoyed when my Garmin Colorado 300 started to get stuck in the “Loading Maps…” screen forever, after starting up the device. I tried to hard reset the device, I updated the firmware, I downgraded the firmware, I tried different maps and different GPX files. Nothing helped. I could switch the power off when it was stuck and then on again, but I was not happy with that. Sometimes not all geocaches loaded, etc.
Well.. After spending roughly two evenings with the issue, I finally found the problem. It is because I had started to use my Mac OS X laptop with the Colorado. Mac OS X infects whatever external drive you connect with its funny hidden folders, like .Spotlight-V100, .Trashes, etc. Those are of course not visible in finder (the GUI file manager of Mac OS X). After figuring out how to remove those before disconnecting the Colorado, I don’t have the problem any more…
Here is a script I use, simply copy it to e.g. “garminumount.sh”, run “chmod 755 garminumount.sh”, and every time after you have connected your Garmin (Colorado) to your Mac, simply run “./garminumount.sh”, and then disconnect the cable. You may need to change the volume names to match your device and its SD card, but you got the idea. Enjoy.
#!/bin/sh
# Clean Spotlight
mdutil -i off /Volumes/GARMIN
mdutil -i off /Volumes/GARMIN_SD
mdutil -E /Volumes/GARMIN
mdutil -E /Volumes/GARMIN_SD
rm -rf /Volumes/GARMIN/.Spotlight-V100
rm -rf /Volumes/GARMIN_SD/.Spotlight-V100
# Clean other Mac OS specific stuff
rm -rf /Volumes/GARMIN/.Trashes
rm -rf /Volumes/GARMIN_SD/.Trashes
rm -rf /Volumes/GARMIN/.fseventsd
rm -rf /Volumes/GARMIN_SD/.fseventsd
find /Volumes/GARMIN -name ._* | xargs rm -rf
find /Volumes/GARMIN_SD -name ._* | xargs rm -rf
# Unmount volumes
umount /Volumes/GARMIN
umount /Volumes/GARMIN_SD
