Garmin BaseCamp App Reviews

So this software is on version 4.2.2…. Really??? This runs like bad beta software. It is alomst unusable with constant crashes and restarts. I think the longest I have been able to run this software is maybe five minutes between crashes and restarts. And the really fun part is that some of the last changes to routes you were working on are lost, so not only do you get to wait while the software crashes and restarts, you get to redo some of the work over and over again. If they would ever get serious about fixing this it may become a good application… please fix this soon….

I was trying to plan a short MTB trip, the app crashed 30 times in an hour. After about the 5th time, I learned to quit the app periodically so it would save the work Id done between crashes.

I love BaseCamp. We use BaseCamp with our Garmin Nuvi 500 all weather GPS on our snowmobile. We hav the Garmin hardwire vehicle mount so it starts up when ever the enging of the Ski-Doo is running, it works flawlessly. We have been using our Nuvi500 out door GPS on our Ski-Doo in weather from -40 and up to about +20 F. Even on the -40 days after a few minutes of receiving power from the snowmobile electric system the Nuvi always wakes up. An amazing product. We depend on our Ski-Doos here in the Minnesota northern Tundra areas as much as out cars from November to April We use the RedPine Snowmobile maps that now have complete coverage for more then 250,000 miles of snowmobile trails in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, MI and more. HERE IS MY BIG COMPLAINT: GARMIN BaseCamp, the great app to plan your routes and transfer them from the Mac to the Nuvi is BROKEN IN MAC OS X 10.9.1. PLEASE FIX IT. So far I have posted to Garmin and Apple with no response. ZERO to get BaseCamp updated. PLEASE GARMIN & APPLE GET BASECAMP FIXED SO WE CAN EFFICIENTLY MAP OUR ROUTES LIKE WE HAVE DONE IN THE PAST WITH ZERO PROBLEMS!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks Very Much

Basecamp does not function properly on my MacBook pro. Each time i hook my Garmin Monterra up the program indicates a problem reading the maps. Basecamp crashes on a regular basis. Wondering what can be done?

Garmin continues to disappoint when it comes to the whole user experience. BaseCamp is a clunky, difficult to use, failure of a user interface. The simple act of parsing an address is an exercise in frustration. Why not an option for a data field approach? Why can’t the user simply enter data in a traditional way? Street number, street, city, state, zip — all in a clear to understand dialog box. Instead there is an open field without any specialization. There is a menu with little in the way of navigation. There is unwanted integration with bloatware adventures and yelp. An address search can blossom into hundreds of useless suggestions in every direction but the one wanted. Sometimes with no sensical reason for it. I am typing for Dallas and I get information about Missouri? The process ought to be as simple as possible so the user gets to using the hardware. SIMPLE, MAKE IT SIMPLE!

Routes ctreated on BaseCamp and then sent to my Garmon GPS are not editable or reversible when on the GPS device. So if I have a route with several waypoints, and I want to make a change, I can’t. Also, if BaseCamp edits are touches a route created on the GPS device, that route is no longer editable or reversible on the GPS device. The only way to have an editable and reversible route on the GPS device is to create the route on the GPS device and never touch it with BaseCamp. It is very difficult to create/maintain routes with many waypoints on the GPS device, hence the alleged usefullness of something like BaseCamp. But BaseCamp is useless to create and maintain routes for it hobbles the routes once on the GPS device. I could go on and on and on and on...

Oh Basecamp, how you temp us in with promises of trip planning and data collabration, only to be this odd mess of half-baked and partially-excecuted ideas. Carashig aside (of, there are crashes!) I’m left wondering how yu want me to use you. I got lucky and created a trip once. It wasn’t perfect, but it was close. Then, I couldn’t seem to recall the magic incantations to do it a second time. What must we do to appease you? Why the sorcery? Are we but members in a long lost Sartre play?

I have used Base Camp on the PC for years and on the I-Mac. The interface is a very good 1980 Windows ME product. Unfortunately it has not seen much improvement in the last 30 years. Finding a place using the address is artificially difficult because there is no place to simply enter the address. I motorcycle so my interest is in scenic roads, rather than either the fastest or shortest route. You can set preferences to avoid highways, tool roads, etc. and get a first approximation but tweeking the route requires you to create way points and include them in the route. Often the software will “drive” down the road to the waypoint and then U-turn and return to the highway, Another problem is that you cannot get the minor roads to show on the map when viewing at a large scale. When you get “close” enough for the gravel and unpaved roads to show you are viewing, at most, a couple of miles on the screen. This makes it very difficult to create a point-to-point route for a 200 mile ride when you only veiw it a mile at a time. If this were not the only game in town it would not be successful. There are ways to use Goggle Maps to design the route and then export the route as a Garmin-compatible file but it is painful. In an ideal world Garmin, or someone, would provide easy to use imports so that one could use better mapping software. That said, you have no other real choice. Join the club and continue to lobby Garmin to make software as good as their very good hardware.

This is an excellent case study in what happens when a company puts hardware first and software last. The product management apparently decided to shoehorn in all the features you didn’t ask for and severely compromise the features you actually wanted. In addition it will constantly nag you to buy maps for devices. For some reason it also decides to not sync data from my admittedly older Edge 305 from time to time. Oh and it also doesn’t sync my heart rate data for some reason. If you want to use your garmin device during workout and come home and look at your stats this is not a good tool for that. Luckily you can still download the older “Training Center for Mac” software from garmin’s webpage which does what you want and works really well. Come on Garmin, don’t give in to the slick product management types and stick with a product that actually works. Less is more!

Upon initial startup, all was well. But subsequently running the program gives the error message “An error occurred loading your data. Your list data file is corrupted. Basecamp is loading a backup, but some data may be lost.” I reverted to version 4.2.4 & all is well again. Using Mac OS X 10.9.3.

On second run (works fine the initial launch after update), the app crashes with a data corrupt error. Id wait for 4.3.2... Time Machine to the rescue.

I wanted to plan a trip from TN to Chicago. I have a nuvi 2797LM. I try to put in the beginning addresss and ending address and it just doesn’t work! This is the crappiest software I have ever used. It wouldn’t let me delete a previous trip from base camp. It said I had to delete it from the device. Okay, I did that after taking forever to figure out how. Then when I connected the device to my computer it still had the old trip stored and wouldn’t let me delete it from base camp. I am not a novice with computer software. I was programming microprocessors back in the 1970’s. I currently write software in Matlab/Simulink to control robots. So, if I am having big problems how is the rest of the users getting by!!! If I could give it negative stars I would!

I read the awful reviews but proceeded to download the app to use with my Garmin Colorado. The app wouldnt even launch after download. I kept getting a failure message stating "Bad Map Installation". Why would you release an app that simply doesnt work? Youre better than that Garmin…or so I thought.

The easiest way for me to explain how terrible this software is is by including my letter to the Garmin CEO: In April, I purchased an eTrex 20 and a BirdsEye subscription. I used the eTrex on one trip, and it worked perfectly. I wanted to use it in May, but was unable to upload BirdsEye imagery to my eTrex, following the BaseCamp software update. I called tech support, and was informed that I should reformat the unit. I decided against this, and instead exchanged it for a new eTrex 20. I had the same problem with the new eTrex, and decided to follow the tech support agent’s advice and I reformatted the drive. After that didn’t solve the problem, I called tech support and was informed that I was given incorrect advice and that I had rendered the device inoperable. I was told that the Mac software developers were aware of the problem, and that the software should be fixed within 48 hours. I returned the unit again, and decided to wait on purchasing a new GPS unit. Instead of going with another brand, I decided to give Garmin another chance. I was told the software would be fixed. I bought a third eTrex 20, with the faith that Garmin would have fixed the issue. I was wrong. I called customer support once again. I was told by an agent that Mac users only constitute 5% of Garmin customers, and implied that I should just accept the reality that Garmin isn’t interested in fixing Mac software issues. I asked that the previous version of BaseCamp (the one that worked) be emailed to me, but an incorrect version was sent. This is when I decided to contact you. I understand that we live in a PC-dominated world. I also understand that some companies don’t offer Mac compatible products.This is part of why I was so patient with Garmin, and why I was willing to continue to give Garmin my business — even after two bad experiences. What upsets me most is the fact that Garmin claims to offer Mac-compatible products, but doesn’t deliver on that promise. Mac users may be a small minority of your customers, but please do us a favor and stop claiming that your company supports the Mac operating system. I would also like to suggest that your company change it’s ‘5% of our customers don’t matter’ policy.

Program quits every time I deselect “Autoname” so that I can name my routes. Went back to version 4.2.x. Going to have to wait until I hear the 4.3.x version is fixed.

Basecamp works perfectly. I don’t understand all the bad reviews!! We hike with our dogs, each of which wears a radio collar, and we have an Astro 320. I also own GPS Huntings topo maps. Everyday after our hike I download the data into basecamp. I can see where we hiked, how far each dog went, how fast they each ran, etc. Only thing I would like to see is the ability to draw on the map. To show fencelines. To show vegetation. Etc.

The 4.3.1 release was so buggy I just stayed away from it. In this release, 4.3.4, they fixed everything, I upgraded from 4.2.4 no problem. There are enough features to make this worth the update. This is one my most useful applications, thanks to the programming staff at Garmin.

From what I’ve been able to gather, this iteration is terrible. I’ve been trying to make a motorbike route to a point only about 100mi from my home in Portland and if I use it as the end point, it makes the journey 600mi long, routing me all the way to the coast and back. If I add another waypoint, about 25mi from my home, it routes me all the way around Mt. Hood, then west to 205 and then back around Mt. Hood. Then it crashes. Terrible program.

If you can not put in an address and ask the App to find it it is an annoying app. Searching for Arts Barber Shop in Greensburg, PA finds it and gives me the address: 1534 Broad St If I do the opposite - search for 1534 Broad St Basecamp can not find that address. Proposes 900 or 1800 Broad St. Useless for me. Strange that despite tie criticism for the earlier version that Garmin don´t either cancel this app or make it work for just one thing - navigation. Several times, I had to make a contact from Apple Maps to Contacts then transmit the contact to my Gamrin device via SmartLink. The Garmin ALWAYS recognizes the address but NOT if I try to punch it in directly to the Garmin device. I have lifetime maps and they are updated. AND Basecamp actually works fine in Yosemite with no crashes so Garmin has fixed the app to start but they forgot to make it perform.

Even with the update, its struggle to perform the most basic functions that any user desires. Load detailed maps, create waypoints and upload them to the device. Get that right and easy, then think about the bells & whistles.