Vivoactive 2.80 Firmware Release Notes

Calling them a fool won't help. Maybe back off a little, allow them to learn, and proceed a wiser person.

They need to learn quickly, Garmin will be losing vivoactive sales every day this continues, and damaging the Garmin brand.

What I think is worse is the response, any software update can have bugs, sometimes serious ones, like in this case. But if they cant create and release a quick update fix, they should at least stop anyone else from installing 2.8, and revert back to 2.7 as the latest version new users are able to install. Also communication with users via email/message board post stickies to explain the issues and workarounds.

New user, lost data third day

I am exactly what this person was worried about. A brand new person to Garmin (outside of my car GPS which I hate with a passion) and I bought the vivoactive this week. Day one went great! It saved my butt when my treadmill at the gym flipped out and went into cool down mid run, forcing me to hit the emergency stop and reboot the entire machine. Luckily my garmin was still going. I wanted to see all the heart rate data and the next day I connected to my computer and let it do a software upgrade. In doing this I learned two things. 1-the heart rate monitor is only recorded if I have it set to record an activity...which sucks, because tennis isn't listed as a recordable activity (I have no downloaded an app I will try next week). Second I found when I hit 5,000 steps the next day I lost all of my data and it reset. I do use a custom watch face and will continue too, but I can hit 10,000 steps before 11 am on certain days so it's frustrating! That being said, fire the person who made the firework thing? No...that's super extreme. It's a new product and there will be glitches. I didn't see the firework thing, but I don't need it, so I vote for just getting rid of it and bringing back my vibrates to remind me to get off my butt each hour. =D

This fix REALLY needs to be out VERY soon (like this week). Imagine the following:

-New user gets a va, and follows the instructions to set it up (2,80 gets installed as a part of that)
-as a new user/new device, auto step goal is 5000 steps (the default is auto goal)
-the default watchface is lame and you try CIQ and install a new one
-mid day, when you pass 5000 steps, everything crashes and your data is lost.

How would the Garmin folks feel if they bought a device that did this? It's the top threads in the vivoactive forum!

Has the fool that signed off on this fireworks BS in this version been fired yet?

Moved my steps up

@Brandon - I made another suggestion to voiding this without deleting CIQ watchfaces. Until the FW comes out to fix this, just set a manual step goal high enough you won't hit it!

Awesome idea. It took me a few minutes to figure out how to do this, but I am hoping setting it to 15,000 on my slow days will help. On my busier days I'll need to remember to up it to 20,000 or something. I only have two days of data to go off of now, so I'll adjust it as I go until there is a new update.

I got my step goal set to 10k more than what it normally is, and it does work.

What gets me, is this isn't a minor bug - it's a hard crash where many people lose data. And if they lose data, it could happen the next time they hit their goal the same day! (hit 5000 step goal and crash, lose 1000 steps, hit goal again after 1000 steps, and crash again.....)

Why Garmin didn't pull 2.80 when this was discovered surprises me. Also, it seems that as Garmin found the problem within a day or two, they should have been able to release a "2.85" or something with only this fix added to 2.80. Garmin has had FW updates for devices for years, so this should be something they can handle quickly!

This isn't a CIQ problem, but it's showing itself with CIQ stuff (watchfaces, and possibly anything "CIQ" after the "fireworks), and it's being reported as a problem with various watchfaces, and giving CIQ a really bad name!

It doesn't help that I personally find the "fireworks" thing quite silly to begin with! :)

bizarrely, mine hasn't crashed from 2.8's new fireworks... but i've never SEEN the fireworks either. I only reach the steps goal I set if I'm doing a long run, and the run app is on then - apparently the fireworks thing doesn't happen if the app is running?

I saw the fireworks for the first time a few days ago, and to be honest, I hope they add a setting to turn it off. I don't know if it's supposed to clear itself, but I think I had to tap the screen to be able to see the time again.

I can understand them wanting something "fun" for when people reach their target, but make it optional.

2.90 came out today. In bold red it says the "fireworks crash" has been fixed!

Yes, it's been fixed in the 2.90 release. You can read more here:

https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?259789-Firmware-Version-2-90-Now-Available

I'll go through the change log tomorrow and put together a more complete list of changes, just in case there are CIQ-relevant items that aren't already listed in official firmware change log.

Thanks Brandon!