The point of support

Email support is awful and worthless. Don't ever use it.

Better to call or chat, you might get something done.

Some issues are easier to handle than others. What issue do you have?

Emailing takes time. I've had one watch replaced by just emailing. In my case it was an obvious error with the watch so I got a new one promptly when my case was handled.

I can perfectly understand that not all issues are easy to solve. but when I look at the questions and answers I get from support I wonder whether the person handling the case actually knows how Garmin devices and apps work.

Issue1: Music widget no longer works when playing locally stored music on my phone. Widget just stays dead, both on my Garmin watch and Edge1040. I guess GCM doesn't detect that media is started. When streaming audio (e.g. spotify) it does work. This used to work perfectly for local media as well.

Issue2: Activity saved notifications don't work or are shown 10 to 15 minutes after the activity was saved. In the past this notification was shown within 5 seconds after saving an activity on my Edge, and this used to be the signal for me to turn of the Edge device.

Issue3: Map on activity overview is scrambled. I didn't create a support ticket for this, as another forum member already created one in the UK for this a couple of weeks ago.

So these are 3 thing that used to work perfect, and got broken in recent releases of GCM. Pretty frustrating.

I guess Garmin in using a different software developer or something.

So these are 3 thing that used to work perfect, and got broken in recent releases of GCM. Pretty frustrating.

You could install an older version from apkmirror.com, and use it while waiting for the fix. 

Otherwise, the map scrambled is unlikely to be a GCM issue, rather a local connectivity problem with the access to the Google Maps API. On my side, with the latest version of GCM, the maps load instantly and properly.

As for the notifications about the activity been synced - I get them promptly too, though I do not care about them much, so may have overseen if it occasionally happens that they do not arrive. 

And regarding the Music Control - which player do you use for the locally stored music? Is it open when you try to control it? 

Fireblader666 said:

Map on activity overview is scrambled

This issue was reported a few months ago, according to some users on this thread - forums.garmin.com/.../activity-map

Will try to install an older version. Thanks for the tip.

The map issue can be seen in this topic:
forums.garmin.com/.../activity-map

On page 2 someone posted a video of the issue.

Regarding the Music control, I am using Musicolet. I contacted them first for support.
I tried several other players. All have the same behaviour.

The YouTube Music app can play both locally stored media, and stream.
For locally stored media using YouTube music, the Music control widget doesn't "wake up".

Musicolet support said that all apps playing locally stored music rely on the standard Android service for media playback.
This doesn't happen for streaming.

Since my phone got upgraded to Android14, is seems GCM doesn't detect the Android media service.
(Same issue on my wifes phone)

The only workaround I found:
- start media streaming to wake up the Music control widget
- stop media streaming
- start audio using locally stored media
-> in 80% of the cases this works. Until I stop media playback for a while.

New GCM version landed today.
Release notes mentions: several bug fixes.

Unfortunatly not the ones I see.

Concerning the delayed notification for saved activities, I did the following test:

Also enabled Strava notification for new activities.
(My Strava account automatically syncs with Garmin Connect).
This in the hope that I would get the Strava notification first.

It turns out that both Strava and GCM notification appear at the same time.
Well after the activity is saved to Garmin Connect and is already visible on the web page.

I guess the notification is actually created from the Garmin Connect cloud, which makes sense.
Guess there is a problem on that side maybe?

I guess the notification is actually created from the Garmin Connect cloud, which makes sense.

If you mean the notification about the activity been synced to Strava, then that's created by the Strava app, when Strava imports the new activity. And of course, it can happen only once the activity is synced to Garmin Connect on Garmin's servers (what you call the cloud), since that is where Strava reads the activity data from.

I am getting both notifications instantly after syncing the activity, which usually happens right after saving it, assuming my phone is in the BT reach, connected, and has the Internet access. If you do not get the notification, you can open the app and sync manually (on some watches/Edges you can initiate the sync from the device too).

I used to get the GCM notification also within 5 seconds after saving an activity on my Edge.

Now I get the notification after 5 to 10 minutes. No idea why.

I just enabled the Strava notification to test whether that would come before the GCM notification.