messages never delivered; Garmin unwilling to investigate

I recently went on a 5-day trip with my inReach Mini and sent a dozen messages to two cell numbers and two email addresses. I got every indication that the messages were sent (chirp sound, upload icon disappeared, Earthmate app icon changed) but when I got home I discovered that none of those messages had been received by anybody. Nor did the messages appear on my account on explore.garmin.com. Mind you, before the trip I had tested the Mini over a few weeks and successfully sent a number of messages to the same addresses in question.

When I got home I sent another message... and it was succesfully received. And then, right at the same time, all those previous messages from my trip got delivered at once to all recipients, as though there was some kind of blockage in the system.

I contacted Garmin support. They said that my contacts weren't properly synced, and that I should have synced the unit using the inReach Sync app, but they've been unwilling to investigate further. I have been syncing the Mini all along using the Earthmate app, not the inReach Sync app. If there's a difference, Garmin certainly doesn't document that. And if not using the inReach Sync is a problem, it still doesn't account for the behavior that I successfully sent messages both before the trip and after, even when the unit was supposedly not properly synced.

Has anybody else experienced this? It certainly doesn't give me any confidence in this Mini unit, or in Garmin's commitment to provide a reliable system. My relatives were fairly freaked out by not hearing from me for 5 days; undelivered messages is not a trivial issue.

Top Replies

5797955 over 3 years ago in reply to twolpert +1

My contacts haven't changed in an eon. The device sends messages, then it doesn't, then it does again. Bottom line the system failed at a critical point, and contacting Garmin support was useless…

All Replies

0 twolpert over 3 years ago

Earthmate and wired sync should both sync data, including contacts. But you should be aware that you MUST sync after ANY change to the account data (not just contacts).

Contacts present a special problem. The full address (phone number or email address) is NOT sent from the unit when you send to a contact. Instead, it sends a small code which identifies the contact. This only works when both ends (device and server) agree on the meaning of the code. This has always been a sore point (and a point of failure) for all iR devices.

I cannot account for the delays UNLESS there was in intermediate sync that you did not mention. For example, if you were using the Earthmate app to send that last message, there might have been a sync that you did not notice. (Depending on your phone settings and the availability of cell coverage at your location in the field, there might or might not have been sync-ing going on in the field. You have to permit the app to use cellular data and there has to be coverage in order for that to happen.).

Current status of the iR ecosystem is available here: https://status.inreach.garmin.com/

That page is accessible from the upper right corner of explore.garmin.com. On the page above you can also subscribe to status updates delivered by email.

Note that only outages that somebody notices get reported. So this is not a comprehensive list of every problem.

0 atlas_cached over 3 years ago

Same thing happened with my mini, and this is why I will never trust it for the intended purpose. Garmin also was not interested in finding out why my messages all appeared months after they were sent. So.... buyer beware.

0 5797955 over 3 years ago in reply to twolpert

My contacts haven't changed in an eon. The device sends messages, then it doesn't, then it does again. Bottom line the system failed at a critical point, and contacting Garmin support was useless. My conclusion is there's not enough market competition in this space.

0 jlg2 over 3 years ago

I had a few messages disappear or get misdirected in 2018. Unlike you, these were only a few messages, while messages before and after were sent/received successfully. I haven't had a problem since. Garmin acknowledged the problem when I presented the evidence. It started an investiggation that was later dropped.

0 Bob_qx over 3 years ago in reply to jlg2

I had a similar problem last year, which may or may not be related to the OP's issue. My contacts were not receiving the inreach messages sent to email. All was set up and synced properly, and no error messages. Turns out that my host-server's email filter was flagging all inreach emails as false positive spam, and rejecting them before I could even see what was being rejected. (But sometimes they got through, no pattern to it.) After hunting down the relevant domain and adding it to my email server allowed-list everything has worked properly since.