Why Is Garmin App Not Working
Juan Navarro
The wrist HR is not working, as in the lights on the rear of the watch are not on despite the sensor being 'on' in the settings. Occasionally it will start working, perhaps 10% of the day, and may come on when starting an activity, but will then fail randomly.
If they are up to date and you are still experiencing this, please reach out to your local Garmin Product Support agent. If you are passed the one-year warranty period, unfortunately you may need to pay an out of warranty fee.
I never found a solution. The HR on the watch is effectively useless now. The only response I received from Garmin was that I could pay to replace the watch with a refurbished one. I could purchase a brand new watch from another brand for that price!
My assumption is that it stops working after sleep mode is enabled but will need to confirm this in the following days. I tried everything to make it work the other day, disabled sleep mode, played a bit with all the options there, etc. I initially thought it was a hardware issue but after doing a factory reset, it started working again. So, the only fix for now is to do a factory reset each day which, of course, is extremely annoying for reasons we all know. By the way, the flashlight widget works as expected but the LEDs simply don't turn on.
I am sorry there is an issue. Although inconvenient, please reset your watch through your watch System > Reset menu to rule out any settings related issue and test your flashlight further. If your odd flashlight does not resolve, please reach out to Outdoor Product Support in your region.
Since it's a new watch and I haven't seen it working it might be a hardware problem so I'm thinking about returning it. On the other hand there seem to be a lot of reports on problems with the gesture on display not working so I'm hoping for a software problem and fix. Another reason why it might be a software problem is that setting the display to 'always on' also has no effect. The display keeps going of. Is this a know issue? Or probably a hardware problem?
One problem was that for some reason the watch was always in DND mode. Even if I turned DND off, seconds later is was back on again. It was by searching in the forums that it became clear that DND and sleep mode were causing this. I also suspect that the gesture only started working decently after calibrating the compass, but that can just be my imagination or be accidently with all the other tweaks I was trying.
Locate from Mapshare is no longer working for me. I hike solo mainly so my wife wants to check my location on Mapshare while I'm out. I don't use the tracking feature as I'm on the lowest tier plan and don't want to burn up my included message with tracking.
The locate feature can take quite a while to update. The device must have a clear sky view. When a locate is requested, the servers send a message to the device. The device responds, which updates your position. If the device does not have a clear ski view, the original message is missed. (Apparently this is not like a normal message, which is queued in the iR network until received.) The web site resends the request at intervals for up to 5 days (it says). The web site also mentions a delay of up to 20 minutes. I am pretty sure that 20 minutes is an outdated number, but I don't know for sure.
When testing it the other day I had the InReach outside on my patio with a clear view of the sky. I even did a successful test message on the device first to confirm both GPS and Iridium satellite communication. No location update after over an hour after requesting it from the Mapshare site though.
I just tried it. Twice. It worked both times. Note that you must wait for a message check to receive the locate request.. I confess to speeding up the process by forcing a message check after posting the locate request from the web. Also, I did this with a different device, not the M1. Should not matter.
To test this the same way I did, post a locate request from the web (map tab at explore.garmin.com, or MapShare or whatever). Request a message check on the device. Depending on what you did with the device recently, the head pointer may or may not move. (For example, if you sent a message a track point but did not move the device before attempting the locate, it won't move.) Whether it moves or not, it will show the location at which you triggered the mail check which received the locate request. If you click the head pointer, the pop-up balloon will show the time of the mail check - which is when the device received and responded to the locate request.
Not to put too fine a point on it, actively tracking has a lot of safety benefits (besides letting the family know where you are). In particular, if you are incapacitated to the point of not being able to trigger an SOS, the track points give SAR a starting point for the search (once somebody reports you missing or overdue). If your use is seasonal and you are not using a monthly "freedom" plan, you might want to do the math to see if that is cheaper than the annual plan for seasonal use. Even on the safety plan, track points are 10 cents each. Your life vs. 60 cents an hour?
That was a great point about the message check on the device, but unfortunately I'm still stuck on this issue. I just tried again with the InReach outside and requesting the location and then manually checking for messages on the InReach, but still no location update. I also tried sending a message from the mapshare page as well as the explore.garmin page and still nothing.
I totally hear you about enabling tracking. I'm on the safety plan so each tracking points will cost me. I'm totally fine with spending money for safety, that was the whole point of buying an InReach in the first place. But I have an issue paying extra for something that used to work, and should work with my current plan. So purely on principle I'd like to get the locate feature working again.
This begins to sound like it might be a problem with the device. Can you successfully send a message FROM the device? Can you successfully receive a message sent TO the device? (Check your Inbox at explore.garmin.com to be sure things are making it to/from the Garmin servers.)
GRegghead Hello, I have sent you a private message for some information. I also wanted to point out that when you use the locate feature on the explore website or mapshare page it can take up to 5 days to locate the unit if it is powered on and has a clear view of the sky. If you request the location more than once within the 5 days it will lock it out. Sending, Cancelling, and Deleting a Location Request for inReach.
The bad news is that this is a massive flaw in the Garmin Backend that is not communicated to its subscribers, and when an account is locked it's not communicated to the user. This is a huge safety issue! Safety is the only reason for someone to purchase an inReach.
Here's a scenario to consider: My wife submits a location request because I'm overdue on a hike. When getting no response she contacts search and rescue who then request my location again. So now at this point because there have been 2 requests within 5 days the location request feature is locked and nobody has been notified about this?! So again at this point nobody has the ability to location me via my inReach while I may be dying in on a trail somewhere unable to use the SOS feature myself?!
it displays the normal triangle first, but when this moves, the asterisk is still produced and left on the map. While it is possible to mark the asterisk and then select delete, it will stay on the map for ever. :-((((
I kind of have the opposite problem. I set Gesture--> ON but it does not work.
No matter how much arm flailing I do the Backlight does not come on.
At night I must press the light button but I'd really just like to "turn on the screen by raising and turning your arm to look at your wrist" like the manual says.
Any hope of resolution for this? Why would I buy a watch that the most fundamental function - SEEING THE DISPLAY - is not working as expected? The display itself, in my view even without backlight, is not as bright or readable as the previous FR235 I had for years. Generally I am disappointed in this purchase, though I used the course navigation recently for the first time and found that to be awesomely helpful.
I noticed that the gesture enable is working in my morning in the 9AM to 12PM range, though I am not sure about the exact window. This morning around 10AM I noticed this. Then by afternoon and continuing until now (currently 9:30PM), it is not working. Fimrware in the watch is 12.23 You have my permssion to contact me by email, you can access my Garmin account, and I live in the US
The function definitely works during the same morning time window every day. I just checked more carefully and it seems to have stopped working at 12 noon. I know just prior to this it was OK and now it is not.
So either this is a firmware bug or there is some setting, out of the extraordinary number of setting options, that is either default set to limit the hours this function works, or I set something inadvertently to cause this problem.
On The app , under Device> System > Backlight have you checked all the settings and there isn't maybe some issue with the sleep hours that may be incorrect here , especially since you mention a 12:00 cutoff issue .
S.M.R. Thank you! Based on your suggestion I checked the hours I had set for sleep. I mistakenly had it set for 12PM instead of 12AM as time to go to sleep. Changing this was the key to enabling gesture enabled backlight.
I'd probably debate the concept of linking the sleep time to when gesture enable works. Seems like it should be independent so if you wake in the middle of the night and want to know what time it is it would work then too.
Anyway, you get the gold star for explaining the link between sleep settings and gesture active mode!
The test "treadmill" activity that I put into Garmin Connect about 20 minutes ago synched to Strava at approximately 12:30pm US Eastern 03 March 2024. The synchronization issue may be delayed, but it is effectively "resolved". However, the race I ran this morning did not sync to Strava. As a last resort, I manually uploaded the activity into Strava:
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