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

Just successfully loaded into internal memory a 2019.10 north america unlocked map on a DNX5190 that had previously a 2012 map with no options from Kenwood/Garmin for a new map.

First I updated the kenwood DNX5190 with the latest available firmware from kenwood site.

I did not have any sample .unl or .gma files so just made 2 dummy files using MSword and renamed them gmapsupp.unl and gmapsupp.gma

I used a blank thumb drive and let the DNX5190 write the Garmindevice.xml info file to it. To that garmin directory I added an unlocked gmapsupp.img of 2019.10 NT North America (2.802 Gb in size), and made two dummy files using MSword called gmapsup.unl and gmapsup.gma. Once those four files are in the garmin directory, the head unit happily loaded the map from the thumb drive when I selected update on the Kenwood. After completion, i reset the head unit and it now the map info shows it has the new 2019.10 map loaded.

The DNX5190 does not have a SD card slot or rear mini USB. It only has the single USB port on a cable. I was surprised it accepted the dummy .unl and .gma files. I thought they might "brick" it. After loading the new map, the unit has just 296.5mb free space according to the garmindevice.xml file where prior to the 2019 map update it had 1.479 Gb free space.

This site was a huge help in getting this to work and I joined just to post my success and help out by adding one more model to the list of units Kenwood says can't be upgraded, but obviously can if you know how.

I just updated my maps on my Kenwood DNX994S. Was on the original 2017 maps and loaded the 2020.30 NT North America maps. Using the method that stickweld shows. I renamed the unlocked map image file to gmapsupp.img and created two empty files: gmapsup.unl and gmapsup.gma. This was all done on an SD card. I did initialize the card on the head unit to create the Garmindevice.xml file. Thanks for posting this information!

Jr!

I tried this on my 994s and have been trying it for a bit since I got the head unit more then a year ago wanna go into details about what you did?

Just did my 994S and had the same problem you did. What I did to fix it was started with a fresh formatted SD card and then added the needed files. Something on there was keeping the update from going into the unit. Not sure what "extra" file there was but it kept the card from working.

can you list the files that where on your card?

Garmin folder
JCV folder
PNX folder
SID folder
garminDevice.xml
gmapsupp.gma 0KB
gmapsupp.img
gmapsupp.unl 0kb
gmaptz.img
trafficprovider.xml

The 0 kb files are empty made with notepad