Garmin Smart Watches Frozen - Global Problem Late January 2025

Hi Beth,

As I understand things, the problem was caused by a corrupt or wrongly coded “almanac” or “ephemeris” data file download, which occurs fairly frequently when the device is connected to the orbiting satellites. (In the case of these smart-watches specifically when their GPS function is activated in order to start a new “activity”.

Watches that had GPS dependent activities initialised whilst the errant almanac/ephemeris data was still being transmitted, would be affected, whilst watches which didn’t have GPS dependent activities initiated during that period would continue to work as normal.

In my case, since I unknowingly initialised a new “hike” activity during the problem period, my watch completely froze. Re-syncing it manually the following day, via cabled PC connection and Garmin Express software (by which time the errant file must have been corrected), enabled it to once again function correctly.

I suspect that when you went for your walk, your watch would, at the time, have held a previous and correctly working almanac/ephemeris file, and that by the time you initiated your new walk activity, the errant file had been replaced, enabling your watch to use the latest almanac/ephemeris information and continue working correctly.

I haven’t seen any mention as to whether any of Garmin’s dedicated handheld GPS devices were also affected. – Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately! ) I didn’t take any of my handheld’s with me on the hike where my watch froze. – It would have been interesting to find out whether any of Garmin’s handheld’s had also been affected!

Regards
Mike.

EDIT

Actually, giving the situation more thought, I can’t see how a corrupt almanac/ephemeris file would only affect certain Garmin devices. – Since it would be the same file that was being transmitted by the satellites to every GNSS device in use worldwide at the time. – And, presumably, all such devices should have been affected accordingly?

I’ve just checked the firmware version on my watch, (which was uploaded to it when I did the manual resync.). And it is stated as version 16.11, which was apparently introduced over six months ago. – So it can’t have been a firmware problem, unless Garmin have tweaked it without saying anything!

Hmmm, I will be very interested to see if any definitive answer as to what caused the problem is ever provided by Garmin!