Big problem with Garmin 8616xsv (any 8600 i bet) bearing issue

[Atlantic48Zen]

@Gofastguy, Please do hit the Garmin support with this issue. Know this, they tried to tell me I did not know what I was doing for weeks. I just kept on them, sending pictures of what was happening and I finally got past the level one guys and got to someone that knew what was going on. That was when they started asking me to do very specific QA type work. They had me try all types of different settings and nothing worked. Then they admitted it was a system bug.

We should get a faster patch ff more people bother them.

Thanks

[J_Grove]

Yes, definitely the more people who put pressure on them, the better. The Garmin support guy I just spoke with (text chat, so I have transcript) said as much. I only today contacted Garmin for the first time myself to report the problem. What saved me a ton of time for sure is that I actually made a video when I went sailing a couple of days ago. As I said earlier in thread, somewhere in the unit's brain, the correct bearing is known, because when you look up the same waypoint you are currently going to in the waypoint directory, it gives the correct bearing, while the "current" bearing on the route is going kookoo if you are not directly sailing to it. I narrated all this happening on video and was able to sidestep a bunch of pointless futzing about with settings.

Given Atlantic48Zen's experience that they "are working on it", it worries me that my Garmin support guy said "they just opened a case on this yesterday". Wonder if that was gofastguy? Hmmm, there should have already been a case open weeks ago! Anyway, my support guy did another writeup on the case, and added my video. He wouldn't give me an internal case number, but said "the case is related to Bearing Calculation to Waypoint". So if anybody else reading this has this problem, contact Garmin to give them that case name to put pressure on them to fix ASAP.

I'm going to go to a couple of other sailing forums and spread the word.

[J_Grove]

Garmin recently released a software update to correct the bearing error described above. Here is the language used on the "Change History" webpage for my model and a few others I looked at:

- Corrected the calculation for the bearing digital data field.

I have not yet had a chance to update my unit and test. I will report back after I do - please do the same if you beat me to it.

[gofastguy]

Originally Posted by J_Grove

Garmin recently released a software update to correct the bearing error described above. Here is the language used on the "Change History" webpage for my model and a few others I looked at:

- Corrected the calculation for the bearing digital data field.

I have not yet had a chance to update my unit and test. I will report back after I do - please do the same if you beat me to it.

That is great news, thank you!

When I spoke to Garmin on the phone (2x, by the way) neither time they fessed up to the issue. Which led to me to make a video of the problem occurring on my boat. Now, to my mixed relief, the video is worthless hopefully as the problem has been fixed.

https://youtu.be/eip-s1sx2hE

[Atlantic48Zen]

UPDATE! If anyone on this thread is still interested - Garmin posted a patch and the problem seems to be fixed.

Install GPSmap 8616xsv v31.20 to get the patch. They posted this update about two weeks ago. I tested it yesterday (April 30th 2023) and Bearing now shows the course to your waypoint under both "Route To" and "Go To" modes.

I guess it pays to be a squeaky wheel.

Happy boating and thanks for all the input on this one.