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How to make a backup of a discontinued watchface

marcossaad_
over 2 years ago

Hi guys,

I'll have to conduct a factory reset in my Fenix 5x (working good since 2017) as last resource to try to get the altimeter back from being stuck at 20,000 meters only one week after surfing with it for the first time ever...

I have read in the past something about the possibility of damaging the altimeter due the impact on the water when falling but I could no longer find at the forum.

All kinds of calibration and soft reset have taken no effect.

Problem is I have a beloved watchface that has been discontinued from the store.

How can I keep it before going forward?

Which files should I backup?

Is this gonna work on the way back?

Appreciate any help.

Best regards,

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  • 0 over 2 years ago

    See: [https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-935/137954/backup-of-user-settings/763911#763911]

    Backing up and restoring CIQ apps (and their settings) in the way linked above shouldn't be a problem as long as you're restoring to the same kind of device you backed up from.

    Caveat for anyone trying to do this in general: for newer devices, certain kinds of apps aren't accessible to the user so you can't back them up.

    EDIT:

    TL;DR back up contents of entire watch. To restore CIQ apps, trying restoring the entire contents of \GARMIN\APPS. This should include the apps themselves (.PRG files), settings (.SET) and storage (.STR).

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to WillNorthYork

    I'l try and let people now in here.

    tks in advance.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to marcossaad_

    I think it's not a good way.

    Link describes how to backup/restore watch settings and not CIQ app.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to _psx_

    The linked comment describes how to backup/restore watch settings AND CIQ apps/settings, as well as other data, such as activity history and courses.

    For CIQ apps/settings, you back up the contents of \GARMIN\APPS (it's a folder which contains PRG files and other folders, such as \GARMIN\APPS\SETTINGS). Then you restore the contents to the same place.

    Sorry I didn't make that clear.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to WillNorthYork

    I don't remember all directories you need copy/restore. But some kind of apps needed others directory. And you have remember about settings, storage and prg.

    I think the best solution is to copy all data from watch drive to completer (before resetting) in case you will need some additional files.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to WillNorthYork

    I was searching for similar and found this:

    several folders/files to be copied.

    why x-face watchface is deleted from IQ Store - Showcase - Connect IQ - Garmin Forums

    PS: it's not the one I wanna keep...

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to _psx_
    _psx_ said:
    I think the best solution is to copy all data from watch drive to completer (before resetting) in case you will need some additional files.

    Yes, the linked comment says:

    Based on this Garmin support article and my own experience (reset to factory several times), this is what you can recover/copy, and how. You can back everything up by copying the whole folder structure, but you can’t just copy it back onto your new watch.

    So the point of the comment is that some things can be copied back to the original location, but others can't. The APPS folder *can* be copied back to the original location. On the other hand, the SPORTS folder (for activity profiles) cannot.

    I guess I could've just said "back up everything on the watch before resetting it, then copy everything back", but that wouldn't be the whole story.

    And you have remember about settings, storage and prg.

    PRGs are in the \GARMIN\APPS folder. Settings is in the \GARMIN\APPS\SETTINGS folder which will be covered by backing up and restoring APPS. I haven't checked but I'd guess that storage is also somewhere under \GARMIN\APPS.

    EDIT: Based on the link that was just posted, storage seems to be in APPS\DATAQ

    I agree that the smartest choice for backing up the watch is to copy everything. Again, the information I wanted to provide was which top-level folder needs to be copied back (it's the \GARMIN\APPS folder).

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to marcossaad_
    marcossaad_ said:

    I was searching for similar and found this:

    several folders/files to be copied.

    why x-face watchface is deleted from IQ Store - Showcase - Connect IQ - Garmin Forums

    PS: it's not the one I wanna keep...

    Yeah, what they're describing is restoring a single app with files provided by the dev. Note that all the files live under the APPS folder.

    In your case, you could copy ALL the files on your watch (including \GARMIN\APPS) before you reset the watch, then copy APPS back afterwards.

    If for some reason you only want to backup and restore the one app, there's also a way for you to figure out exactly which files to copy, but I don't think it's worth the extra trouble. If you're curious, the filename of the app (which will be different for every user) can be found in garmindevice.xml. It's a pain to look at this file because it's not formatted in a human-friendly way (although there are ways to fix that.)

    Once you have the filename (which is a "random" string of letters and numbers like 1234ABCD.PRG), you just need to search for all files under APPS\ which have that filename (disregarding the extension - e.g. .PRG)

    e.g.

    GARMIN\APPS\1234ABCD.PRG
    GARMIN\APPS\SETTINGS\1234ABCD.SET
    GARMIN\APPS\DATAQ\1234ABCD.STR

    I think it's much easier to just back up everything, and copy back GARMIN\APPS.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to WillNorthYork

    I don't remember but apps, widgets, datafields, wf can be in different directories.

    Copy all data from watch, in case of trouble.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to _psx_
    _psx_ said:
    Copy all data from watch, in case of trouble.

    Yeah, I already said I agreed with that, more than once. It even says that in the original comment that I posted more than five years ago.

    I just pointed out that in my experience, apps live in the GARMIN\APPS folder. This is especially likely to be the case for an older watch like Fenix 5X. (My personal experience backing up, resetting and restoring a watch was with 935, which is the same generation as Fenix 5X.)

    So if you're trying to restore apps, that would be a great place to start.

    Newer watches remove certain kinds of apps from the user-accessible file system and it's impossible to back up or restore them.

    I'd be really curious to hear of an app type that's somewhere in the user-accessible file system, but not under \GARMIN\APPS.

    And again my point is that you just can't copy everything back to the original locations and expect it to work as before. For CIQ apps (that are user-accessible), yes. But other stuff, no.