Forwarding coords to garmin drive app

[bongo]

for years, i used locus to forward position data to the garmin drive app using
share / other map apps
and selecting the garmin drive app.
this worked really well so far, but now, after not using this functionality for a few weeks, it does not work anymore, or does only work in 1 out of about 20 or more tries.
have there been any changes in the data format locus uses to send data to another app?
what i can say is that this worked perfect in january, but now it does not work anymore.

[Menion]

Hello bongo,
as far as I know, there were no changes in the way, app communicates with 3rd party apps. Can you please point me to the Google Play to app that does not work correctly? There is quite a lot of apps from Garmin, so I need to test the correct one. Thanks

[bongo]

hi menion
it's this one:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.garmin.android.apps.gecko

regards
bongo

[bongo]

looks like i found the reason for the failure, i.e. quite a clear hint when it works and when it doesn't:

when putting a finger on a location on the map, locus shows a rectangle which contains <road name>,<village name> (<height>m).
for locations where locus shows all 3 'values', transfer to garmin drive seems to work.
but wherever locus does not show a <road name>, transfer to garmin drive fails.

what's the reason for locus to not show a road name? (even in places where there is no road, locus usually shows a road name)

e.g. N47°10.108 E7°15.163 is a place where only the village name is shown and no road (although there is a road). and this position fails when transferred to garmin drive app.

if the road name comes from the map, would it be possible to force adding some dummy text to the location information sent to garmin drive, when there is no road name?

[Menion]

Hi,
thanks for the link to the app. It seems that without appropriate hardware, I can't even test it.

Anyway, what you wrote is unusual. The app, no matter if road+village or just a village sends as a single text parameter. So there should be no difference. This looks to me more like a problem in the Garmin app.

I'm double-checking specifications and Locus Map simply do it correctly.

Format app use and send is "geo:0,0?q=latitude,longitude(label)".

So sorry, I can't help here as it seems to be an internal issue of the Garmin app.

[bongo]

hi

not sure if the drive app only works when it knows a physical garmin device. at least once it knows a device, there is no need for the drive app to be connected to the device to communicate with locus (to get position from locus).

i don't know how i can monitor what locus exactly sends to the drive app.
when sharing a text message instead of sharing with other map apps, i can see that when the shared text is "route principale, orvin," this position works when shared with other map apps garmin drive, but when it is just "orvin," it does not work.

this for sure looks like a garmin issue, as it does not seem to be very tolerant to the label it gets with the coords.
unfortunately i don't expect a quick solution from garmin :-(

btw: where does locus take the label from, it adds to the coords?

and is there a way for me to monitor what exactly locus sends to the map app, to further debug and give a more accurate error description to garmin support?

[Menion]

Hmm, one alternative solution ...

Open the app > main menu > All features > Tools > Quick bookmark.

Here tap on "+" and choose "Add new".

As a URL template define whatever will work for you, but you should start with "geo:0,0?q={mapLat},{mapLon}(text)".

Target application at the bottom, choose your Garmin app, it should be available. If not, it should work even without it. Give it a try.

[bongo]

hi menion
doing it exactly like that did not help, but when playing around with this command, i think i found a solution (will test this for the next few weeks...).

with the quick bookmark configured as "geo:0,0?q={mapLat},{mapLon}(text)", the garmin app always failed, no matter what i wrote to the "text" field.
but when i wrote a real address to the "text" field, the target was always this address, no matter what coords  the garmin app got from locus.
so finally modifying the command to "geo:0,0?q={mapLat},{mapLon}", without giving further info in round brackets, solved the issue. now the garmin app only gets the coords, but no more address, and this seems to be accepted.

thank you very much for your support!

[Menion]

Perfect. I hoped you will be experimenting with it a little and find a working solution. With "Quick bookmark" in the side function panel, you have quick access to this functionality in two clicks ...

[bongo]

the workaround i mentioned above worked perfect for about 2 weeks, but since then, it does not work at all although there was no update of the garmin app since april.
looks like garmin did some changes in the background, i.e. on the server the garmin drive app accesses.
according to garmin support, it is a known problem but there is no solution available yet ;-(

[Menion]

Hmm, such a primitive task from my point of view. But maybe it is more complicated on their side then it looks. Wish you patience ...