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Fenix 6X Sapphire memory corruption?

duncaninnes
over 2 years ago

A few days ago my fenix 6X decided to lose connection with the Garmin Connect app on my phone.  It also started throwing many Storm Alert notifications despite steady weather conditions.  Over the last few days it has become clear that something is seriously wrong with the watch.

1. When I delete all activities, data & reset the watch, everything returns after reboot

2. Hard reset puts the watch into a weird mode which stores NONE of my settings properly and completely messes the circular menu (most options missing & those that are present are duplicated round the circle and not working).

3. Doing a data delete & factory reset from this mode returns all my data again to the watch following a reboot.

I cannot connect the watch to Garmin Express via USB (although I can connect to PC in MTP mode, but file modifications don't survive a reboot).

I cannot connect to my phone still.

I cannot connect to WiFi

I've tried a different phone in case that helped, but no joy.

I'm at a loss as to how to proceed from here.  From the way things are behaving, I suspect a memory corruption.  Is there any way to format the storage completely and flash the firmware on from a special boot mode like Android devices manage?

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    I don't think these things are user recoverable.- I cannot recall many instances where this was user-repairable, so I think this is going to need a replacement via Garmin.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Last thing you could try is to update to 23.01 Alpha firmware. 

    But I also think that your watch needs to be replaced. There were multiple reports from users with similar issues. I think that the memory chips are not the best quality and tend to fail over time. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Ah, planned obsolescence - just what I like in my products :-(

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    I had a Fenix 6x Sapphire that I bought in September 2019 and worked perfectly for 3+ years.

    however, I had the same problem a few weeks ago, tried all the methods to reset the device but it continually failed until it got to a state where it just boot looped.

    I contacted Garmin support and to their credit they replaced the watch, however there wa a £175 cost which I though was excessive.

    My primary conmplaint is that I thought a full firmware re-flash should have been all that was needed, and that this should have been provided at a more reasonable cost. The support team insisted that they do not provide repairs, rather then exchange for a re-furbished watch (though if they do not do repairs then I would question whether the refurb is just unsold new stock).

    I guess if there was indeed a physical hardware issue at the root of this then the replacement is reasonable, however if it was just a corrupt software problem it should have been a simple case of re-imaging my watch.

    I guess we'll not be able to find out for sure, and I now have a new (refurb) watch that I hope will last for may years.

    Frustrating experience nevertheless.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to duncaninnes

    My 6X Pro is exactly the same!!! How you figured out the solutions and solve this problem?