HDS 12 Gen 3 Issues, need help

I need some help figuring out whats going wrong with my units. My HDS 12 at the console will not update with a sd card or by wireless. My 12 on the front, 2d sonar keeps going on and off. I need a Lowrance Guru.

If your gen3 has the original software version there was a glitch in it that required a sd card update, it would not update via WiFi. So most likely that’s your problem.


Second question is kind of vague. Did you select the right transducer in the installation menu? Tell more about it, which transducer is it and describe what’s happening.

Are you talking about updating the software? I can't help with wireless but it is pretty straightforward to load update via a micro SD card. That is what the previous poster suggests and that is what I'd do. I've done it numerous times with no problem. Stick the micro SD card in the slot then turn the unit on and follow the prompts. You may start by turning the unit on and verifying what your software version is. Turn off. Insert the card with update and turn on the unit. The unit will prompt for the rest.

And make sure you do the update entirely before turning off the unit. If you interrupt the process Lowrance warns you have to send the units back to straighten out.

Save all settings and waypoints etc to a card and do a hard reset on both units. Then try to do the update before loading anything back on them. Reset again once the update finishes

Make sure you are using a 4-8gb SD card. Same problem with my 12’s. Would work over WiFi even with an card in the unit. Bought 2 8gb downloaded the update and it worked perfectly.

2d turning off is probably because it is linked to the dash or the transducer settings. Select the correct xducer your using and go into device settings. Put your sonars for both units on local. This will keep it from switching secures between units. That one frustrated me for a long time.

Settings, network, data sources. Here you can change where the graph gets it info from. I have everything on local for each unit.

I'm going to dedicate the whole day on Monday to figuring out what i'm doing wrong or what the issues are with my graphs. I will try to get customer service to help me while i'm attempting to fish the issues. I've always been a humminbird guy so these lowrances are like learning a new language.

Well start by updating with a SD card before you waste too much time. The rest is in the settings.

I got everything updated and working! Was on hold with Lowrance for and hour before I spoke with anyone, then it took another hour to fix my issues. It turns out, you can’t use anything bigger than a 32gb SD card, I was using a 64. I bought the HDI transducer and installed it today, something is wrong with the build in transducer on my fortrex. The new fish reveal looks great and works great!

How hard is it to turn fish reveal off when you just want regular structure scan.

It’s a menu button, about as easy as it can get.

I had a ton of issues early on, kept downgrading my SD card from 128-64-32GB before it worked properly. But I don't think Lowrance tells you that in the specs anywhere that's easy to locate.