Unable to “View in Google Earth” GPS tracks opened in Garmin BaseCamp or Mapsource – Solution

When I first installed Garmin MapSource (and later BaseCamp) I could open GPS tracks (gpx files) in it and select “View in Google Earth” and Google Earth would open and I would be able to see the tracks in Goggle Earth.

Like many of you, as my recent online research discovered, a while back I became unable to do that but instead I saw a message saying I had to have Google Earth installed (which I did). At that time the solution was as simple as opening Google Earth before attempting to “View in Google Earth” from within MapSource.

However more recently that stopped working and even after re-installing Goggle Earth I could not view the tracks I had open in MapSource (or BaseCamp) in Google Earth.

That is when I went looking online for solutions. The first solutions I found involved editing the Windows registry which I am very leery of attempting so I passed on that solution.

The solution I used involved uninstalling Google Earth and installing an older previous version of Google Earth which I found at http://www.oldversion.com/. The version I installed was version 7.0.2.8415 from http://www.oldversion.com/windows/google-earth-7-0-2-8415.

This returned the original functionality of being able to open GPS tracks in it and select “View in Google Earth” and Google Earth would open and I would be able to see the tracks in Goggle Earth.

This did mean that I did not have all the benefits of the newest version of Google Earth but that was solved by also installing the latest version of Google Earth Pro now available free from https://www.google.com/earth/download/gep/agree.html.

After saving the tracks in the older version of Google Earth I simply opened the latest version of Google Earth Pro and the tracks were there to view and edit or manipulate as I wished.

I should point out that through this troubleshooting process I uninstalled and re-installed Google Earth several times and never lost the GPS tracks I had saved in Google Earth and they were all available in the installed older version of Google Earth and the newly installed version of Google Earth Pro.

I hope this solution is helpful to others who have experienced the same problem as I did.

UPDATE 2017-04-18

Today the new Google Chrome only web-based version of Google Earth (version 9) was released.

On the basis of a preliminary examination I have discovered the following.

It does not appear to have the gpx file import (via MapSource or BaseCamp) nor the track editing capability that version 7 of Google Earth or Google Earth Pro does.

You can, however, get your tracks from Google Earth 7 into the new version by exporting them to your computer as kml files and then importing them into Google Earth version 9.

It appears I will still need to use the computer version of Google Earth (version 7) to create Google Earth view maps, though I may experiment with importing the tracks into the new version to see if there are any advantages to viewing them from it.

Backroad Mapbooks GPS Map Review (Ontario)

Read the review on my Richard's GPS Trail Maps site.

Easier Trail Mapping With My New GPS

Last year I started mapping the Greenbelt trails using my GPS unit. With my older GPS unit it was a long complicated process requiring that I avoid overlapping my tracks and involving extensive editing in Photoshop Elements.

I talk about how I became interested in maps and my map making process in an article in the MTBKanata Newsletter.

With my new Garmin GPSMAP 60Cx, which is much more accurate, the process is much simpler.

When I recently mapped Greenbelt Trails 11 & 12 I did not have to worry about overlapping tracks nor did I have to do extensive editing. All that was required was to input the data into Google Earth and MapSource Topo Canada and save an image of the track, and then add whatever text or labels I wanted on the maps.

These are the maps that I created.





All of my Greenbelt maps can be found here.