Why is no one at Garmin going to solve the problem of Garmin Pay not working when rolling back the firmware to a version below 20.30?

Probably many Garmin Fenix 6 users already know that if you do a firmware rollback on the watch to a version below 20.30, then Garmin Pay on the watch stops working. However, if the watch was originally installed with any stock firmware, Garmin Pay will work on the old firmware. Because of this bug you can not easily rollback to the firmware 19.20, in which the barometer and altimeter are working as it should. The rollback itself is technically easy, but Garmin Pay doesn't work after the rollback. This problem has been confirmed to me by many Fenix 6 owners.

Dear developers Garmin, please let me know how you can rollback to the firmware 19.20, so it does not "fall off" Garmin Pay?

  • Probably many Garmin Fenix 6 users already know that if you do a firmware rollback on the watch to a version below 20.30, then Garmin Pay on the watch stops working.

    No it doesn't. People forgot to remove their cards from their watch before rolling back.

    I think it's a security feature. 

    I already posted here about rolling back to 15.20 and getting Garmin Pay working perfectly - I think it's probably in one of the 20.xx threads. Even showed screenshots :)

  • You're wrong!
    Yesterday before I rolled back from 20.30 version to 16.70 version (without this version it is impossible to update to 19.20) I deleted the map from Garmin Pay beforehand. Only after that did I do a rollback to 16.70. In 16.70 Garmin Pay does not work. Garmin Pay in ConnectyIQ reports that it supposedly does not see my watch.
    After I updated from 16.70 to 19.20, Garmin Pay didn't work again. It wasn't until I went back to 20.30 again that Garmin Pay immediately worked.

    What's amazing is that before the forced shameless firmware update over Garmin Express, I had version 19.20 installed and Garmin Pay worked fine there.
    Garmin Pay does not work only when you downgrade.

  • Can confirm this. Garmin pay is not working when downgrading from 20.30. I deleted cards, removing connect from my phone and removed the pairing from my phone. Then downgraded to 19.21 and tried garmin pay before and other setup. It does not work. Hope they will come up with a solution for this or fix the altimeter :)

  • Can confirm this. Garmin pay is not working when downgrading from 20.30. I deleted cards, removing connect from my phone and removed the pairing from my phone. Then downgraded to 19.21 and tried garmin pay before and other setup. It does not work. Hope they will come up with a solution for this or fix the altimeter :)

  • Must ask. Does anyone have the earlier firmware files for the Fenix 6S Pro? I would love to rollback due to the battery issue after 19.2, but I can't find the files.

  • Is it possible that there is a special firmware for the NFC-chip, like there is for SensorHub, Bluetooth, Wifi etc? And that in this case there was an update forced to the firmware?

    Theoretically, Garmin could then issue a special firmware update with '_force.gcd' usually appended to the file to get a downdate done.

    Otherwise, however, that is, as far as I know, not possible for reasons of newer main firmwares not being able to communicate with older sub-firmwares.

  • Well, basically Garmin releases one set of compatible firmwares for each component. This set is publicly released and supported. Rolling back firmware versions never was announced as a supported case by Garmin (if I'm wrong, please point me to that general announcements).

    And btw this behaviour is not a *bug*, your watch simply is in an inconsistent state that never was said nor even designed to work together.

  • Why would they bother in all honesty. A tiny portion of users ever do a rollback. It is always risky business and not something people do. There is no reason for Garmin to spend much resources on that. You may have to wait for the next release. I personally stay clear of rolling back, if not only to not loose the tons of data screen customizations I have done. If I were you I would not expect Garmin to do much for that issue and move forward with FW updates.

  • So does anybody has a work around to make the Garmin Pay work again on 20.30? I don't know what version I had when I bought this in January, but I was able to set up and use Garmin Pay. Then it suddenly stops working for no reason. I don't know if it was the update to 20.30 when I was sleeping because my watch is set to auto update.

    Does anybody know when was 20.30 was released? thanks

  • For 20.30 release date

    01/20/2022