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Has anyone else found that a deleted route, either via Tread or the XT2, that has completely gone from both libraries will reappear some time later? These are routes that have not been imported to the XT2 via cable so they are not in the ‘hard-drive’ of the unit. Merely imported to Tread then synced ie. cloud routes.

Apologies if this is an old topic but I’ve searched and not found an answer. Is there anything that I should be doing to stop this happening?

It’s not a major problem but a little annoying sometimes when you don’t know which of your duplicated routes to use.

Regain wrote: ↑Thu Mar 27, 2025 11:02 am Has anyone else found that a deleted route, either via Tread or the XT2, that has completely gone from both libraries will reappear some time later? These are routes that have not been imported to the XT2 via cable so they are not in the ‘hard-drive’ of the unit. Merely imported to Tread then synced ie. cloud routes.

Apologies if this is an old topic but I’ve searched and not found an answer. Is there anything that I should be doing to stop this happening?

It’s not a major problem but a little annoying sometimes when you don’t know which of your duplicated routes to use.

You are using Tread, and this may be part of the reason. I have to say that I don't know the answer to your question, but I have spent enough time looking at how the XT2 behaves and how Tread behaves to be able to make suggestions.

Routes and Waypoints synch between the XT2 and the Tread app. You might think that since the phone with the App is in your pocket and the XT2 is in your hands or on the handlebar, that the conversation is between those two.

I don't believe that is the case. My take on it is that the XT2 talks to your Tread App in order to be able to use your phone's data to transfer your route etc from the Tread App, over the internet to the Explore Database - which you signed up for at explore.garmin.com. This information then gets relayed back over the internet when your Tread App on your phone asks for it. It then relays that information by BT to the XT2.

The reverse happens when changes are made on the XT2.

Sometimes the transfer is hit and miss. The route is encoded with time and has a special code for the route itself. But I have noticed that on occasions, I have made a change on the app on my phone and it doesn't get updated immediately - if at all - on the XT2. If you make changes at the other end, I think that the timing gets out of synch. The unit and the app are both saying Hey - I've got a change to make - The software needs to know which to do first. I'm inclined to think that it makes the later change first and doens't alway bother about the earlier change.

I may be wrong - that last paragraph contains just my thoughts from my observations and nothing else. All I know for certain is that something odd sometimes happens. I hve just deleted 6 routes from my XT2. I restarted the XT2 and one of them came back. I checked what I was looking for, deleted the one that came back and restarted again. Another one came back.

The only way that I could get them to disappear properly was to make sure that I deleted them from the XT2 itself - using the optiosn in with the Explore App on the XT2 screen. I do not have the explore link set up when this happened.

When I did have it set up - I found it necessary to wait - some signifcant time - after making changes in one device to ensure that those changes were showing up on the other device before I made any other changes. Sometimes that was a long wait. Soemtimes it never happened.

One of the many reasons that I do not synchronise my data with the Tread App any more. I just use it for the weather, traffic, up ahead places, and alerts fro my phone.

Thank you for your very detailed thoughts. It’s certainly a challenge to work with cloud based systems sometimes and Garmin seems to have struggled a little to implement them.

However, I’m now fairly happy with the MRA-Tread-XT2 combination and I want to keep it for the ease of planning on the fly and wireless transfer.

I think Garmin Explore uses a Google cloud and there’s some degree of latency in any deleted routes finally disappearing. I’m told they are classed as ghost data. Interestingly, you say that deleted routes still reappear on your XT2 even though you are not synced with Explore through Tread. Why then do they keep coming back if they are not ‘held’ somewhere?
In my case, these routes are not imported to the XT2 hard drive (I’ve checked) so it would be good to know any method of destroying the ghosts.

Like I said, not a deal breaker or even a real problem just a little annoying. Maybe a call to Garmin next week unless any tech wizards can shed some more light.

Regain wrote: ↑Fri Mar 28, 2025 10:35 pm I think Garmin Explore uses a Google cloud and there’s some degree of latency in any deleted routes finally disappearing. I’m told they are classed as ghost data.

Interestingly, you say that deleted routes still reappear on your XT2 even though you are not synced with Explore through Tread. Why then do they keep coming back if they are not ‘held’ somewhere?
In my case, these routes are not imported to the XT2 hard drive (I’ve checked) so it would be good to know any method of destroying the ghosts.

This is an old phenomenon which used to happen with the 590, 595 and XT (and I guess the 34x and 39x versions of Zumo).
If you deleted a route, unless you got rid of everything in the correct order, the system would reinstate its 'internal copy'. I never found out where that copy was.

I do not have Tread set up to synchronise with the Explore Database Management System. So the only place these files can be held, is on the XT2.

It is normal in computing to downlaod any program form storage and place it into Directly Addressable Random Acess Memory - this can be accessed and processed much more quickly. I assume that the same thing happens with the route that is currently being navigated. I guess that somehow, this copy is still floating around and still available when the XT2 is turned on again. I'm guessing - I have no idea how the Zumos work, but that is a computing standard approach - or it was a few years back when I knew what I was talking about !

When Tread is involved there are three places where the data is held. In the Tread App on your phone. In the Explore database on Garmin's Cloud server. In your XT. Change any one of them and the new data has to be sent out to bring the old data up to date in the other two places.
That puts a heavy BT and Wifi toll on your phone, and updating in both directions can take quite some time. It certainly is nothing like instant.
If one part of it fails, then there is still some data somehwere that doesn't match, you have an old copy of the route and a new copy of the route. The old ones have to be updated at some point. So even if you delete a route on your XT2, I can see a way where the server is saying I've got a new copy of a route - is yours the new one too ? - Oh you haven't got one. Ok - I'll copy it back again !

To be sure I have got rid of data I tend to delete it on both the phone app and on the XT2. You can also use explore.garmin.com to delete some data - but that App does not see all of the things created by the XT2.

GPX File route data: JFH wrote:GPX files coming in to the XT2 via the USB port are placed in the GPX folder.
When the XT2 starts up, it reads the GPX files and carries out some organisation:
Waypoints are added to the Waypoints section of the XT2
Tracks are added to the Tracks section of the XT2 and removed from the GPX file.
Routes are used to create and associate .trip file.
The GPX definition of the route is added to Current.gpx

The routes have to be imported and placed into a collection.
This may involve recalculation
Changes to the route are reflected in both the .trip file and in the Current.gpx file


When the route is loaded into the XT2 it uses the information in the .Trip file - it is here where all of the routing information is stored and where timings and route segments, route sections, and mini sections are stored.
Typically on loading from external sources, the route has to be recalculated. If this happens the route changes have to be accepted and saved.

The route that is stored in Current.GPX is altered to reflect any changes to the route.
The appropriate .trip file is altered to reflect any changes to the route

Now - if you use the File explorer to delete Current.gpx and the .trip files then it is possible that when the XT2 starts up again most of the routes will have gone, but one or more of the routes will re-appear. Current.gpx has been recreated, and so has the .trip file.
From the time stamp on the file - the .trip file has been recovered, and the Current.gpx file has been constructed from it.

The only way to be certain of deleting everything properly is to use the XT2 to delete the files first. And then connect by USB cable and delete Current.gpx. The .trip files will have already been deleted. Then restart the XT2.

Tread Route Data: JFH wrote: I'm not sure about this - but I'll put it here as a placeholder and come back to it.

Thank you again for your extensive knowledge. I have deleted current gpx files from the XT2 hard drive before after cable transfer. You wouldn't think this to be necessary for cloud data but you never know.

Since my last post, I remembered I had the Tread app downloaded to my tablet in addition to my phone. Realising that I could not use the tablet to plan routes without connecting it to the XT2 (which I didn't want to do in case it muddied the water with my existing phone connection), I ignored it and switched the tablet off. Is it possible that a highway to this app remained open even though it was closed down? Also, the offending-reappearing routes were still downloaded from MRA to my iPhone files. Could it be that these two avenues were somehow keeping the data alive? Anyway, tablet app and files are all now deleted and after a few reboots of the XT2, no ghost routes have appeared. Coincidence maybe, we'll see.

You mentioned it happening on older Zumos but I can't remember it ever happening on my 396 and I put routes into that with a mix of cable and wireless transfer. Maybe I'm wrong as learning my way round the XT2 has probably resulted in a brain dump.

If you think about it, isn't the tread app designed to work on your phone even though it is 'turned off'. obviously it cannot work if it is completely shut down, but if it is off and in your pocket - like waiting for a phone call. Tread works then.

I had Tread installed on my ipad. It doesn't have a SIM card in it, but it can talk to the Garmin Explore Cloud server by wifi. I used the tread app on the phone and in the ipad editing the same routes. It worked - changes on one were eventually passed to the other. Which surprised me. But it wasn't updating everything every time.

I got a bit fed up with accidentally stumbling on ways that it didn't work as I expected.

Yes. I think that is a possibility

jfheath wrote: ↑Sat Mar 29, 2025 10:42 pm I got a bit fed up with accidentally stumbling on ways that it didn't work as I expected.

@jfheath, I recall the signature line you used for awhile that expressed frustration over finding another method that didn't work.

I equate this "phenomena" to the technology. I take a pic on my phone. Withing 30 seconds it's on my computer and my tablet. If I delete it from those 2 it just comes right back. It never goes away. Welcome to the cloud.

I had deleted routes reappear yesterday while using Trip Manager that @FrankB was kind enough to share with all of us. (It is a great tool.) I'm not using the Tread app at all - no syncing to Explore database.

I had created a route in a gpx file, then used Trip Manager's "Send to device" to send [only] a trip file to my XT2, [via USB cable connected to my pc). I restarted the zumo and opened the route, which recalculated it. All was well.
The zumo did appear to create a current.gpx from the trip when it calculated the route - that makes sense to me.

I decided to change my route, which I did on the pc. I used Trip Manager to delete the first trip file, then, as before, send the new gpx as a trip to the zumo. After restarting the zumo, I now had both the new and old (deleted) routes on the zumo. I reconnected Trip Manager and saw I now had two trip files, the one I had just sent, and one that had been recreated. The recreated one held the previous version of the route and had the normal cryptic zumo file name.
Thinking I might be losing mind, I carefully deleted both trip files, using Trip Manager. Then I made yet another route change on the pc and, as before, used Trip Manager to send the 3rd version of the gpx route to the zumo as a trip. I restarted the zumo and now had all 3 versions of the route, and 3 trip files.
Wondering if the zumo was somehow syncing to the Explore database through my pc, I checked my Explore account. The route were not there. I expected that to be the case, but wanted to be sure.

I then deleted all 3 routes, using the zumo itself, then checked with file explorer on the pc to verify that all 3 trip files were gone.
I then restarted the zumo and found the that 2nd version of the route was back again!
I poked around the zumo's file system, but could not figure out where the route(s) are being restored from.

I deleted the route once again, using the the zumo again, and it has stayed gone - at least so far!

So, apparently, when deleting routes, as the saying goes, "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again."

Things could be worse. Restoring unwanted routes is a lot better than losing wanted routes.

@smfollen thanks for that. I'm now thinking that it is within the bowels of the XT2 that these routes get recycled and regurgitated. I do use Tread as I want to keep wireless route transfer from MRA. Apart from this, so far so good. No matter how many times I open the Tread app on my phone without the XT2 connected, routes do not reappear. Only with the unit online does it happen - these can then bounce across to Tread. Whether it's because of a connection with Explore or because of your new evidence, just the unit, I'm not sure.

Like you say though, not the biggest of problems. I've not had any vanish. Yet!