Firmware Updates Breaking Watch Faces: Need Help/Solutions

Hi all,

I've created several watch faces using Watch Face Builder, and they've consistently worked great until Garmin releases new firmware updates. This issue seems particularly prevalent on high-end devices like the FR 965, where data fields disappear or the entire watch face crashes after every firmware update.

I suspect this is due to the increasing demands of firmware features on high-end models, which may be competing for processing power. As a temporary fix, I've removed data fields or customization options, but this disproportionately affects users of mid-tier devices who lose out on features when they do not have the issue.

Has anyone else encountered this problem? Are there any best practices or known solutions for creating watch faces that remain stable across firmware updates? I'd appreciate any insights or advice from the community or the Garmin team.

Thanks!

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flocsy🤠 over 1 year ago

There were about 10 similar reports since January 2024 that things started to work differently or crash after firmware upgrades... It is not caused by processing power issues, but rather some management and especially (non existent?) QA issues in Garmin

supjackjack over 1 year ago in reply to flocsy🤠

What's strange it is totally a non-issue for mid to lower tier device users, but just to make it for the Watch Faces work on FR965, my designs are getting more features removed with each new Firmware update.

While many other users demand even more customizable options, I have to continue to remove them just to have a stable build. It fees like eventually I'll have stripe everything for FR965 users and have zero customizable options :\

flocsy🤠 over 1 year ago in reply to supjackjack

While I haven't run into these FW regressions (let's hope it won't change), I agree with you about other bugs, like more or less every announced, useful settings related feature:
https://forums.garmin.com/developer/connect-iq/i/bug-reports/meta-bug-array-settings

forums.garmin.com/.../meta-bug-settings-groups

supjackjack over 1 year ago in reply to flocsy🤠

Thank you for sharing this! Didn't know there are so many known bugs... hope they get addressed soon :( I wonder if there are any workarounds.

flocsy🤠 over 1 year ago in reply to supjackjack

For some known bugs there are workarounds, for some the only thing you can do is to avoid using the features. But as you already discovered in some cases your code works initially, and then later breaks because of some change by Garmin, then you are in trouble, 'cause the users are angry with you, leave negative reviews, and the best you can do in some cases is to remove some feature, that will only make them even more angry... Don't wait for these things to be fixed, most of them are never fixed unfortunately.

supjackjack over 1 year ago in reply to flocsy🤠

Thank you for the suggestion :) I am grateful that most of My users try to communicate with me before writing bad reviews and most of them seem pretty understanding about the situation, as they previously had working versions before firmware updates. However it is a lot of work nevertheless trying to fix so many designs over and over again with no end in sight.