Thread: Kenwood DNX9990HD: Loading 2014.30 Maps on Internal Memory - It Works!

Thanks Boki_Srb,
I downloaded Notepad++ to use in the future.

I am trying to update a Kenwood DNX6180 and it seems all I need now is the map image file.
Since DNX6180 is not supported anymore, Garmin won't let me download the map image I paid for(City Navigator North America NT PART NUMBER 010-D0743-00), to be used with this device.

I do have a Nuvi200 that is functional, and it would let me download the map image that I paid for(City Navigator North America NT PART NUMBER 010-D0743-00), under this device in Garmin Express
So my question is, would downloading it that way allow me to get the map image file and then use it to update my DNX6180?

@jollyjohn
Provided you haven't downloaded it already for any device, Garmin will refund you for the map you paid for seeing you can't download it for your DNX6180. In fact it shouldn't have been sold to you at all for that unsupported device but their checkout system doesn't seem to ask you what device it's for if you buy via their website's "Purchase New Maps" which is only meant for buying out-of-area maps (i.e. other than your factory-loaded map area, such as buying South America for your NA device). If you'd tried to appropriately use the site's "Update Maps" (as you should) it'd refer you to GarminExpress for purchasing an update and GE may or may not allow that purchase depending on whether the device continues to be supported. But the DNX6180 is not supported as you've found out. Certainly you also wouldn't be able to buy an update via the Kenwood site because the DNX6180 isn't listed in the 'Select Model' dropdown of supported devices.

So get your money back and forget about trying to get any assistance from either Garmin or Kenwood to update maps because if GarminExpress refuses to allow you to purchase then that's the end of it.... unless ... you 'fake' a GarminDevice.xml with the Kenwood's UID and a supported device's other details (don't try it because if they catch you doing it they'll get very nasty). However, the dismissive and 'don't-care' attitude from both Garmin and Kenwood kinda excuses you using other less than legit methods to update your device imho. Your DNX6180 is no more than 10 years old i'd reckon and i'm still updating maps legitimately for ppl on lots of Garmin devices from early-mid 2000's so there's no good excuse for Garmin to drop support for your DNX6180 as far as i can tell.

DNX6180 uses NT mapping data format the same as the nuvi 200 (incidentally, that device was released in April 2007 so is quite a lot older than your DNX6180). To use an IMG file from your 200 you'd need to at least have an UNL file with a correct code linked to the Kenwood's UID however if later firmware has also added GMA protection then the IMG will need 'unlocking' with gimunlock. You won't get direct help in this forum with that, but it's quite ok for us to talk about it as long as we don't DO anything or supply links to tools or unlocked maps. A simple google search for "gimgunlock v0.04 download" will find it but make sure you download from a safe site, like one of the other GPS forums such as N A V I T O T A L or G P S U R L. Good luck.

Now you tell me. LOL. Just kidding sort of.

Thanks for all that information, it really is good info.
I wanted to pay Garmin for the map data so that's why I went to the purchase new maps area instead of using Garmin express.
Wow, I was really clueless to this whole process but am figuring it out with help from this forum and the helpful people on here. It is a shame that Kenwood and Garmin are not helpful when it comes time for them to "push" older units behind them, instead of being helpful.
I figured I would at least update my old Nuvi200 if I couldn't do anything else, so the money would not be wasted.

Last night my computer got some bad stuff in it but I used malwarebytes and windows security to clean it up. Today I had a breakthrough and discovered the first "other site" you mentioned (before I read your post) and they are legit after trying three times.
First I had to install a web browser extension which I later uninstalled, then I got something called happy ocean but disguised as another name. It looked like it was doing something when I dropped a file on it. I deleted it later and the third time was the charm. I was able to test my results with a broken Nuvi205 so I used the Nuvi200 and 205 to test things. My 205 wont respond to the touch screen but it boots up and shows the current map installed on the external SD card inserted in the slot. Funny thing is the Nuvi 205 let me go into the touch screen calibrate function by holding the power button on for 30 seconds and when I went to calibrate it I just chased the dot you are supposed to touch over and over again and it never finished. LOL. Both of these units were just sitting in my glove box for years and that's how the 205 ended up this way but at least the 200 still worked. But I digress.

Now I need to find out how much space is available in the DNX 6180 before I do anything else. I have no clue how to do that yet but I am having good luck searching and reading!

So currently I have a usb drive with a folder named Garmin with these files in it.
GarminDevice.xml (from my DNX6180)
gmapsupp.img
gmapsupp.gma (empty dummy file)
gmapsupp.unl (empty dummy file)

This works on my broken Nuvi205 when used with it's GarminDevice.xml file if I put it on a SD card. It just runs off the sd card so there isn't any installation besides putting the card in the slot. Also works on my Nuvi200.

Posts 47 (pg5), 56 (pg6), and 109 (pg11) in this thread are the posts about the DNX6180.

Post 47 the user lists the same 4 files and states that the DNX6180 has to have the update function used. I wonder if these are the only four files needed to update my DNX6180?
The reason I wonder is because the original poster who has a different model has a lot more files listed on his post. I read something about looking through the device xml file to see what options my unit has which might require some of the other files, but I am not sure about this.

Again, I need to find out the storage size in my DNX6180 before going any further.

Post 56 the poster says he updated his dnx6180 as "described in this post" but I don't know if that means the first post or another one like post 47.

Post 109 says he has these extra files (plus what I have on mine) on his usb drive.
/Garmin/XX
- G2S/ xx.g2s
- JCV/ xx.jcv
- PNX/ (no file)
- SID/ xx.sid (7 files)
- SQlite/ xx.db

I wonder if I need these files, and if so would there be only one folder on the usb drive named Garmin and then a folder inside named XX with the five files inside it.

He states "All the xx files, were from the splitting of the unlocked gmapsupp.img file via gmaptool" so maybe I don't need any of them. I don't know what splitting with the gmaptool is for, maybe just something needed if the image file was downloaded from a different source then Garmin?

I have a lot more reading to do!

@jollyjohn
Kenwood/Garmin devices support a range of ancillary files for different functions depending on individual hardware and firmware capability. I don't know for sure which of the file types your DNX1680 will support but you can easily check by looking at its GarminDevice.xml file. Read here: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Thanks for posting that link. I went through my XML file and put this together to show what is in there.
Side thoughts:
I am wondering if running the update with just the GarminDevice.xml, gamsupp.img, gamps.unl, and gmaps.gma will update the Base, Pre programmed, supplemental, and time zone maps automatically?
Of course I will add the folder named Poi with the folders named CustomPOI, and Safety_Cameras_PROM_Provider_1 inside it.
Then the folder named Pnx with the folder named PreProgrammedPhoneNumberLookup inside it.
Then I just have to figure out what to put in them? Looks like there is a 01XV08W0.PNX file in the Pnx folder.
Also I may have about 2.2 GB free space on my internal SD card. (I might take unit apart to investigate/backup the internal SD card before trying to update this thing)

Folders in my xml file

Code:

Please Login or Register to see the links

Note: Inside my Pnx folder might be a file named
01XV08W0.PNX
At least that's what shows up in the xml file. (Garmin/Pnx/01XV08W0.PNX)

Also something labeled Free_space=2285010944 Name=Internal
Makes me think that is space on internal card shown in ?

Just wanted to update this thread since I posted a bunch in here. My DNX6180 seems to be working on the 2022.25 North America Map

I took my dnx6180 apart and removed the SD card.(micro SD)
It had two partitions on it, a very small FAT16(only about 8 Kbs) and the rest of the 4GB card was exFAT.
I had an 8GB SD card and created two partitions on that, the FAT16 I made somewhere around 16 MB(larger than 8Kb in original) and the rest exFAT.
Testing has gone good so far, I was able to duplicate the original SD card and then ran the update on that. This way if I brick it I can just put the original SD card back in it.
The Update seemed to work.
I only had
gmapsupp.img
gmapsupp.unl
gmapsupp.gma
and an XML file I created after installing the 8GB SD card.
After running the update I now have the 2022.25 maps to use. I verified by searching for a FiveGuys hamburger place that wasnt there back in 2010 (old maps on my head unit). This was under points of interest/food etc.
The map showed exactly where I know the place is.
I did notice that speling a point of interest was slow and cumbersome. When you selected a letter it would beep like normal but would then freeze for like 15 seconds before showing that selected letter on the screen.
The spelling feature was always a little slow anyway but this seems a bit more exaggerated.
Everything else seems to work fine.
I pulled the 8GB SD card back out and examined what the update changed.
It changed the gmapsupp.img, gmapsupp.unl, gmapsupp.gma and ....
It added a blank JCV folder. My old card didnt have that folder, and when I had the DNX6180 in engineer mode it had a screen that showed 4 boxes and one was Junction View and it had four zero's in it and said Missing.
The 8GB SD card has a PNX folder with nothing inside it, where the original had a file named 01XV08W0.PNX in it.
In the SQLITE folder I see two folders that were changed, system.db and user_strings.db

No other changes were made to any files inside by the update.
I have more experimenting to do and more things to read about and learn from. I'm guessing the original map was compressed but I dont know anything about compressing maps yet.
Also I want to try to find the fastest 8GB SD card and see if spelling for points of interest gets any faster.
I need to read about the file that was in the PNX folder and find out if that needs to be updated.
In my original and 8GB SD card there are two more maps, GMAPTZ.img and GMAPBMAP.img I dont know if they are supposed to get updated or just left alone.

The update would not fit on a 4GB card, without some compressing or something. When I was experimenting with partitioning the SD card I tried the 8MB FAT16 and 4GB of exFAT and the update said not enough room to install.
At least I know it wont try to install when there is not enough room on the SD card.
The 2022.25 map is at least double in size too, compared to the 2010 thats in there.

Thats all for now.

You should try a reset of the device as that may solve the slow registering of characters problem. Backup any favorites first if you want to restore them later.

The gmaptz.img is a world time map. It will be updated by GarminExpress/WebUpdater or can changed manually by overwriting it. However the basemap, gmapbmap.img, does not get updated by Garmin's software programs. If you have an older version loaded you can manually replace it with the most recent: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

I will try a reset once I get it back in my vehicle. Pulled it out for more testing.
I dont know how to back up my favorites yet so I will search for info on that, maybe tonight or tomorrow.

I dont think my old Nuvi 200 that I used Garmin Express on to download the latest map had a time zone map, at least I know that it did not update it because that map still shows the old date.
The other possibility is it didn't update because of the way I paid for the update from the device and later attached the Nuvi200 and used Garmin express to download the update to the removable SD card?
Garmin express still shows the Nuvi200 having an update and shows pricing, so that makes me think something went wrong there.
I will look into finding the timezone map to overwrite the one in my DNX6180.

Is there only one basemap since it is worldwide? (as opposed to different maps for North America and other places like EU?)
v6 is newer than the one in my files so I obtained it. I will compare the two file sizes out of curiosity.

Thanks for the info, it is helping me figure out what to search for to learn more.

First Generation nuvi 2x0/2x0W from 2007 doesn't use a TZ map because it's not supported in firmware, but the 2nd Generation 2x0/2x0W released in 2009 did have it and they are firmware-capable to use it. There weren't as many of the Gen 2 sold and they were actually 'detuned' renamed 2x5/2x5W devices anyway. Here's latest gmaptz.img in a ZIP file: [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

Some older devices had so-called 'regional' basemaps that were still world-wide but only had detailed information for the device's target market (Atlantic/Pacific/Americas). All recent basemaps are world-wide. In truth any basemap will work ok provided you have detail maps for proper navigating. The main purpose of a basemap is actually for scrolling while zoomed out rather than navigating in an area where no proper detail map data is loaded on the device. Even a very old regional basemap will work ok.