Garmin Fenix 5 settings/alarm disappearing bug — updated Dec 11, STILL BROKEN! Just assume it will never be fixed.
December 11 update: Firmware v7.00
Still broken.
November 14 update: They said it was fixed, again. It’s actually worse.
A couple of weeks after I last updated this post, I got another reply:
I sent the requested info, and over a month later on October 27, I got this email:
Hello,
Thank you for your patience on the recent investigations into the troubles you have had with the Garmin Connect Mobile app.
I am happy to report that there has been an update released 3.22.4 to the app.To ensure that you receive the most current version, please update your app via the App Store on your phone.
Please let us know if you are still having this issue or have any questions.
Diane
Product Support — Fitness Team
Garmin International
It took a few days before my app updated, but when it did I discovered that once again, the behavior of this bug has changed (it is even more inconsistent now) but it is still not fixed.
I responded to Diane about this over a week ago and have not heard back.
Here is a rundown of the behavior now: Changes on the watch still do not transfer to the app. You can now change an alarm or setting on the watch and that change will stay through a sync where nothing is transferred, but the moment you…
- Sync an activity
- Change any alarm in the app
- Change any device setting in the app
… then all changes you made on the watch are overwritten. So making a change on the watch appears to stay but eventually still gets overwritten.
Here is a bonus bug related to this: Alarms that are set to “Once” go off every day. After a “once” alarm goes off, it disables itself (as it should). But then you do any of the above things and your alarms get overwritten by the phone and it is enabled again. Since I sync an activity almost every day, those “once” alarms go off the next day if I don’t forget to turn them off in the app.
So there you have it, this post is almost 6 months old. Garmin has told me more than once that the bug was fixed when it wasn’t, and it was easily verifiable that it wasn’t. I really have no recourse left but to assume that whatever group within Garmin is responsible for fixing bugs on the Fenix 5 is simply incompetent. I’m just going to assume at this point that this bug will never be fixed. What a joke.
September 6 update: Garmin responded again…
I’m cautiously optimistic.
June 23 update: Garmin responded to me about fixing this, but their fix still doesn’t work
I sent this post to Garmin on Twitter, and got this reply:
In the latest Fenix 5 update (4.10), the behaviour of this bug has changed, but it is still not fixed. Now when I create or change an alarm on the watch, it stays even after syncing. However, the new alarm does not show up in Garmin Connect, and making any changes in Garmin Connect (any change, not just alarms) still means all changes on the watch get wiped during the next sync. So my alarms don’t get wiped out right away, but eventually they still do. Also, I would expect any changes I make on the watch to show up in Garmin Connect, and they still aren’t.
Original post:
This post is mainly for Garmin support, but maybe it’ll help someone else Googling this problem.
My new Fenix 5 worked fine for a couple of days, but then my alarms started disappearing. I noticed my custom HR zones had gone back to default as well. I added them back only to have them revert again after syncing. I remembered that I had changed a setting in the Connect app for the first time (I turned off MoveIQ) before this started, so I started experimenting.
It turns out that after first pairing with your phone, you’re fine as long as you change everything from the watch. Once you save any setting in Connect (app or website), then all Connect settings get pushed to the watch on every sync after that. Connect is not getting updated from the watch, so anything changed from the watch just gets overwritten. In short, once you change anything from Connect, Connect becomes the single source of truth for your watch’s settings. You can’t create alarms, change HR zones, etc from the watch anymore because the changes will just disappear. (Similarly, deleting alarms from the watch then syncing will bring them back.) The only way to fix this is to remove from Connect, re-add, and then only change settings from the watch. The first time you trigger a settings save of any kind in Connect, this behavior starts.
This seems like a glaring bug to me, but I was told by Garmin phone support that this is by design? This seems ridiculous. I would fully expect that any settings change I make on the watch will get synced over to Connect, this isn’t even a question. Why in the world would I want my changes to just get wiped?
