World relief disappears/reappears

[BackpackerGirl]

I just got an etrex 20 and I'm doing my best to figure it out (as I am rather computer stupid...).  But one thing I simply cannot figure out is why sometimes it shows the relief map, sometimes it's just a plain blue background (even in the same location).  It is always set to "show shaded relief when available," and I've tried toggling that on/off, powering the whole thing on/off, etc.  When I first bought it and had no maps on it (except the base maps it comes with) the relief didn't show up at all (just blue background) then when I loaded a state topo and the trails map from here the relief showed up...now it's gone again and nothing seems to have changed.  Is there something I'm missing??  It seems like it should be something simple...

Has anyone else had this problem?  Any suggestions? 
I'm using a Mac if that matters.....

Thanks so much for all the great help, advice and tutorials...I couldn't have even gotten this far without it.

[maps4gps]

Is that the shaded-relief which is part of the built-in world base map, or the world shaded relief .kmz file downloaded from here?

...when I loaded a state topo and the trails map from here the relief showed up...now it's gone again and nothing seems to have changed.

Might be that profile issue.  Try changing profile to recreation, to something other than recreation and then back to recreational.

[Boyd]

Make sure that your basemap is always enabled in the map settings. Any terrain shading on your unit is coming from the basemap - if it is enabled then the shading will be applied to other maps.

There aren't any third party tools for making maps with shaded terrain, so the only way to see it is to enable the basemap along with the map you downloaded from here. Real Garmin products, like US topo 100k and the 24k state topo maps include shaded terrain but GPSFileDepot maps do not.

Also, I'm not sure but it may be that the shaded terrain will only be visible when you zoom out to a certain point. The terrain data in the basemap is very low resolution and would probably look bad at close zoom settings.

[Seldom]

Also, I'm not sure but it may be that the shaded terrain will only be visible when you zoom out to a certain point. The terrain data in the basemap is very low resolution and would probably look bad at close zoom settings.

On my Etrex30 shaded relief (set to auto) doesn't show at 2 miles or closer. It's smeary at 3 miles, so I generally leave it turned off.

[BackpackerGirl]

I am talking about the shaded relief from the basemap that comes with the unit, not any additional .kmz files.  What is interesting is that it did NOT show when I first bought the unit (and only had the basemaps on it...both enabled), but then DID show up when I installed a topo and the trails map from this site.  Then it just disappeared again the next day...without installing anything else or changing anything (that I know of anyway...)

And it doesn't matter the zoom setting - the shaded relief is definitely not showing.

I'll try the profile switch...that is something I haven't thought of yet. 

This just seems so silly, like it should be such an easy fix.....

[Seldom]

This just seems so silly, like it should be such an easy fix.....

Have you tried Setup|Map|Advanced Map Setup|Shaded Relief?

[Boyd]

This may simply be a bug in the device firmware, and in that case your only option is to contact Garmin support, since it involves their map and software instead of the maps on this site: http://www.garmin.com/us/support/contact