fēnix 7 Series - Recent Threads

RE: curious if they ever fixed the vo2max surge bug in FirstBeat metrics on the Fenix7 vs Fenix6

trux — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 19:10:42 GMT

[quote userid="106834" url="~/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-7-series/434116/curious-if-they-ever-fixed-the-vo2max-surge-bug-in-firstbeat-metrics-on-the-fenix7-vs-fenix6/2023197"]you'd need to set it to "Distance: Always" (both indoor and outdoor) to see this particular bug[/quote]

No, that mode must be avoided at any price! Never ever use it! TBH, I think Garmin should remove it completely. When you enable it, the external distance & pace source cannot calibrate, and even if you calibrate the HRM or pod with the default settings, and enable the outdoors mode later, the calibration will deteriorate. The mode must stay on the option "Indoors only". As I wrote previously, it does not mean, it is not used outdoors. It still is, and it improves the accuracy greatly, because it helps improving the distance & pace when the GPS signal drops out or when the quality is not optimal. When the signal is perfect, there is no reason to use an estimation from an accelerometer, that by principle cannot be more accurate than GPS.

curious if they ever fixed the vo2max surge bug in FirstBeat metrics on the Fenix7 vs Fenix6

RinseRepeat — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 12:24:10 GMT

Over a year ago, maybe two years now? Garmin did a dramatic change in how FirstBeat updates vo2max on the Fenix series

I am pretty sure it was systemwide across all their models

Basically years ago you used to be able to watch your Performance Condition during a run and if it was consistently +2 you would get a bump in vo2max overall

And to be fair that was maybe too aggressive

So they tuned it, or more precisely a dramatic change to where the Performance Condition and vo2max are almost independent now for the past year or two

You can even have +5 Performance Condition for an entire run for over an hour and the vo2max won't budge, sometimes even examining it directly in the FIT file internals to three decimal places I can see it only increase by +0.001 per day for weeks

Then suddenly after many many weeks, apparently four months or more, there will be a SURGE in vo2max adjustment

Today was a dramatic example of that

It's been 54.449 for me for several days

Today BOOM after the run, which was nothing special, 55.074

That's a WHOPPING +0.625 vo2max increase

And it's not the climate heat vo2max which I can examine also in the FIT files

That went from 54.485 to 55.131 which is +0.646 vo2max

(did you know your Garmin tracks the climate heat vo2max even when it's below 72 degrees? It does, just doesn't show it to you)

So anyway here's a graph of what those dramatic leaps every four or five months looks like.

What I'm asking is if the Fenix7 (and Fenix8) and related forerunner models with same FirstBeat metric still experience this surge and if they just left the Fenix6 like that because they ceased all firmware updates, not even bug fixes for a year now

If not fixed/tuned I am not sure I want to continue investing in the Garmin universe anymore and have to research if others do it better

By the way, I double check the performance estimation via Runalyzer for a 2nd opinion and it also says there was nothing special today

Garmin is welcome to look at any of my runs in Connect if they want to diagnose any of this or I am happy to upload the FIT files to their debugging webpage on request

Thanks for any feedback

(note the +0.625 surge on the extreme right which is today April 3rd 2026, very similar to the surge five months ago November 4th 2025, exactly 150 days?)

https://images2.imgbox.com/77/cc/4BBT9t2H_o.png

Does anyone have the link for 23.18 firmware on Fenix 7 Pro?

9055381 — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 16:04:32 GMT

I entered the beta program and noticed multiple issues since then, the last version I recall was working relatively fine was 23.18 and I would like to goback and see if the observations now go away or if there were present since 23.18.

RE: Does anyone have the link for 23.18 firmware on Fenix 7 Pro?

tony.nolan — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 18:16:58 GMT

23.18 available here from Garmin. Lets see if it fixes the HRM issue

forums.garmin.com/.../beta-version-23-22---check-for-updates-only

RE: Recap after activity, showed on the watch

5858725 — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 12:48:12 GMT

I thought it would end after some time, instead it must be stopped from the user..... that's fine anyway.

Thanks!

Recap after activity, showed on the watch

5858725 — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:40:52 GMT

Hi all, after today's activity, the recap showed on the watch (distance, pace, HR, HR zones, calories, training effect) repeated endlessly, while after two or three repetitions it normally should return to the watch home screen. I needed to press DOWN button to stop repeating and BACK button to come back to the home screen.

After yesterday's activity it was ok, after two recap repetitions, it came back to home screen.

Is this a 25.11 bug?

Thanks

RE: curious if they ever fixed the vo2max surge bug in FirstBeat metrics on the Fenix7 vs Fenix6

RinseRepeat — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 12:05:57 GMT

you'd need to set it to "Distance: Always" (both indoor and outdoor) to see this particular bug

your distance is still coming from the GPS, which on the Fenix6 I cannot rely on because I constantly get GPS loss, errors, drift and all kinds of impossible speeds

Garmin unfortunately tried to use that bad Sony GPS chipset on the Fenix6 as it uses less power than the mediatek and between that and the metal case it's not trustworthy at all

it's not that the stryd is giving bad distance or an auto-calibration error, it's the opposite, it's too consistent

I can run the same route three days in a row with the Distance: Always on the Stryd and get the exact same distance to just a few meters, like ~0.01 miles, it is *that* good

Today it gave me another +0.4 vo2max surge boost, so over two days more than +1 vo2max where previously it was only +0.001 per day

same route, same reported distance

it's a bug, it was never fixed on the Fenix6 FirstBeat API but apparently the FirstBeat on other models continues to be patched and fixed

See how it was creeping daily until November 3rd, then surge, they settled back to creeping daily until April 3rd

I'll get a few more days of surge, then leveling off, then back to daily creep at +0.001 for a few months

https://images2.imgbox.com/6f/34/KBu06Xz5_o.png

RE: Recap after activity, showed on the watch

gaijin — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 00:50:57 GMT

Normal behavior. After saving your activity, you will see these screens scroll. Press the upper right button and select Done to end.

HTH

RE: curious if they ever fixed the vo2max surge bug in FirstBeat metrics on the Fenix7 vs Fenix6

trux — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:19:16 GMT

I do not use Stryd, but I do use HRM-Pro and HRM 600. The mode for distance and pace from HRM is always set to 'Indoor only', though Garmin watches use it outdoors too, in order to improve the distance and pace accuracy when the GPS signal is missing or not strong enough. For me it always worked pretty well (regardless of the watch model I used). While the distance accuracy with a standalone watch was often up ~10% off from the true distance, with HRM-Pro, Pro Plus, or 600, the accuracy remains within 1-2% of the known distance.

If you suspect the rising or surging VO2max is caused by the pace inaccuracy, try recalibrating the HRM or Stryd, or disable its auto-clibration once it was satisfactorily done, or disable it for the distance & pace completely. I do not know whether you can do all that with Stryd, but it is possible with HRM Pro/Fit/600.

[quote userid="106834" url="~/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-7-series/434116/curious-if-they-ever-fixed-the-vo2max-surge-bug-in-firstbeat-metrics-on-the-fenix7-vs-fenix6/2023128"]it's so close that I have to believe it's a universal independent API used across various Garmin watches unlike the rest of the watch firmware[/quote]

As I wrote, I experience neither steady rising of VO2max, nor any sudden surges. My VO2max is relatively stable, though there are ups and downs, according to my momentary physical form, and progressing age. So to me it does not look like a general problem accross Garmin watches.

RE: Recap after activity, showed on the watch

5858725 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 19:31:43 GMT

Thank you for your support!

Let me resume: after the activity, I see a sequence of six screens, as follows:

1. Distance, pace and time, 2. Pace, 3. HR, 4. Calories burned, 5. Training effect, 6. Training status

I notice that the recap is reproducing al lot of time, and after about 5 minutes, it stops and the watch shows again the home screen. I just wondered if this is a correct behaviour of the watch or there is some issues.

Herebelow the screens sequence, it's just an example, not a real activity.

Thanks!

RE: Target steps data on the watch and on Garmin Connect Mobile are NOT same as on Garmin Connect Web

5858725 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 19:16:30 GMT

Yes, now the issue is resolved. Thanks!

Target steps data on the watch and on Garmin Connect Mobile are NOT same as on Garmin Connect Web

5858725 — Sun, 29 Mar 2026 14:39:13 GMT

Hi all, I see that terget steps for today are the same on the F7 and on Garmin Connect Mobile (7500 steps for today) while they are 11040 on Garmin Connect Web !

Never happened on FR255. What is necessary to do to realign ? I have restarted both Iphone and F7 unsuccessfully.

Is this another bug of 25.11?

Thanks

RE: curious if they ever fixed the vo2max surge bug in FirstBeat metrics on the Fenix7 vs Fenix6

RinseRepeat — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 18:45:38 GMT

that FirstBeat versioning on other models is interesting

it's so close that I have to believe it's a universal independent API used across various Garmin watches unlike the rest of the watch firmware

which means they -could- update it easily on the Fenix6 but they aren't going to lift a finger for previous flagship anymore

though I think the Forerunner 945 is based on the Fenix6 and still get some beta in 2025

and the 945 is still in the beta forums while the Fenix6 was retired

so this may be related to the old Stryd bug? maybe

there's an old FirstBeat bug when distance is taken from the footpod instead of GPS

doesn't make sense but they left that bug in there too on the Fenix6, not sure if fixed on Fenix7

so I'd also need to hear from Fenix7 people with either Stryd or HRM-PRO used as footpod for distance

this year old thread has no further updates from Garmin

but the daily increase I experienced back then stopped after another firmware update

does Fenix7 firmware updates have changelog?

VO2 max steadily rising since 20.16 when using a stryd

https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-7-series/405895/vo2-max-steadily-rising-since-20-16-when-using-a-stryd

RE: curious if they ever fixed the vo2max surge bug in FirstBeat metrics on the Fenix7 vs Fenix6

trux — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 18:18:43 GMT

My Instinct 3 currently has

ETE: 6.28.0.4
LHA 2.14.0.4

However, even when I check my VO2max data back to 2021 (when I used Instinct 2), I see no sudden changes of VO2max there either.

RE: curious if they ever fixed the vo2max surge bug in FirstBeat metrics on the Fenix7 vs Fenix6

gaijin — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 16:38:25 GMT

Latest on Tactix 8 is:

ETE: 6.27.0.4 LHA: 2.13.0.4

Latest on Tactix 7 is:

ETE: 6.24.0.8 LHA: 2.10.0.8

And I do not see any sudden changes in VO2Max on either one.

HTH

RE: curious if they ever fixed the vo2max surge bug in FirstBeat metrics on the Fenix7 vs Fenix6

RinseRepeat — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:48:00 GMT

I do not let the Garmin auto-set the max HR, it is locked at 180 for all activity types for past few years which is the max useful HR I've seen seen during indoor cycling, usually during the end at max effort

(never actually seen 180 during a run, just high 17x )

It still messes with the max HR when there is LT auto-detect which I allow but then correct the max HR

but that's not happened recently

I'll still inspect those fields in the FIT file just in case

I should note I always use a HRM-PRO-Plus

this is not optical wrist HR so no errors there

and I always check for GPS errors in case garmin is goofing on fake speed or fake distance

but I wonder if Firstbeat versioning is the same across different models or not

Fenix6 (not pro) final firstbeat was

"Advanced heartbeat analytics by Firstbeat Analytics"

ETE: 6.17.2.6

LHA: 2.3.2.6

So I am curious if other models have similar close versioning or if it is custom for Fenix6

RE: curious if they ever fixed the vo2max surge bug in FirstBeat metrics on the Fenix7 vs Fenix6

trux — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 14:22:10 GMT

I do not see such sudden changes in my VO2max data (using Instinct 3), except when there is a change of the Max HR. Usually I set the value manually, so it does not happen much, but I do have couple of such changes in my history (either I forgot to turn off the auto-detection after a reset, or was experimenting with it, or adjusted the value manually).

So it would be interesting to compare your Max HR values from the activity fit file before the change, and after it. I'd look both at the values 'Activity Metrics (msg 140) » New Max HR (field 1)' and 'User Metrics (msg 79) » Max HR (field 6)'

RE: Walking in opposing direction causing "Route calculation error. Missing routable roads in this area"

2529455 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 03:29:51 GMT

That's wild. Well done on documenting so thoroughly.

A couple of followup questions to help prevent others from running into the same issue:

What activity profile were you using? Im assuming it was "Walking"
Were the paths paved, or nature trails? If nature trails, were you able to try again with the "Hiking" activity type?
Were the paths for 2, 3 etc actually showing on Garmin's TopoActive maps or was this in a new residential development?

Given the map rendering issues and subsequent reboot, it sounds like you might have run into memory issues many of us have when attempting to use routing with the TopoActive maps.It's not just European maps either as the issues are being experienced in the US and Australia as well and on devices where the TopoActive maps haven't been updated, so it's likely an algorithm change that's responsible.

Walking in opposing direction causing "Route calculation error. Missing routable roads in this area"

7606241 — Tue, 03 Feb 2026 16:13:06 GMT

I was trying out the Garmin Fenix 7 navigation capabilities, now that I found a workaround for my original issue

To visualize what happened, I drew a picture of my route.

I started at startpoint "Start" and the target was "T", with the calculated route via "A".

I did not take the calculated route, and instead walked the street around the corner, and then further up, to get to target "2" from the other side, but then the problems started!

Recalculation of the route caused "Route calculation error. Missing routable roads in this area" – Restarting impossible
Took a side-path back down (was getting dark), tried route back to start - "Route calculation error. Missing routable roads in this area"
While standing still, tried route back to start with success
Walked into the opposing direction instead, because I liked the longer route back home, recalculation happened with "Route calculation error. Missing routable roads in this area"
Restarted route back home with success
Walked in opposing direction further again, recalculation happened with "Route calculation error. Missing routable roads in this area"
Restarted calculation home – map went dark with clear rendering issues, no paths visible, a few grass areas on dark but everything seemed off
While walking and going into navigation menu, watch crashes and reboots. After reboot the map was still dark and the “Current Pace” voice alert is played 5 times in a row afterwards.

Few observations here:

Walking on the street does not protect you from an error that I’d expect somewhere in a nomansland at best, but I’d even expected Garmin navigation to work off-paths originally
On some paths I was unable to restart the navigation at all, like at “2”
Not sure if standing still was the solution, but I did so on 1 and 2 as well with no success
Walking into the opposing direction causes a recalculation, rightfully so, but how can it be that a RCE is caused at “4” just a few meters back from the starting point “3”, while at “5” you can start routing again through “4” with no problem at all?
What has happened at “7” and “8” is totally unexplainable and it seemed like the map corrupted itself at that point. Got it working later again after switching topo off and on again and restarting

I’m at a point where I’m wondering if anybody is really using Garmin for routing at all. I’ve never imagined that products that pretend to be cutting edge in terms of outdoor navigation are so unreliably, beyond anything usable.

And this is an error that not only occurs with Fenix 7, but also Fenix 8 and Fenix Edge products in one form of another. In my case it is clearly a bug, so I bet in several other cases it’s also one, rather than actual non-routable roads.

https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-8-series/382677/route-calculation-error-missing-routable-roads-in-this-area-is-very-frequent

https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-7-series/389738/route-calculation-error

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-530/342399/maps-don-t-have-routable-roads-in-this-area

https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-8-series/426882/20-19---navigation-crash/2003739

https://www.reddit.com/r/Garmin/comments/11j0lab/garmin_955_route_calculation_error_missing/

https://www.reddit.com/r/cycling/comments/1kc9avq/garmin_route_calculation_error_bug_after_recent/

RE: Walking in opposing direction causing "Route calculation error. Missing routable roads in this area"

Andre Andre — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 21:06:52 GMT

Could you please share me the exact steps on how to disable topoactive? Do you mean to disable them for each activity?

RE: Stopped showing map route when finished Walking

Garmin - KS — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:30:14 GMT

Please be sure to follow the suggestions outlined here: Why Do I Not See a Map of My Activity in Garmin Connect?

Stopped showing map route when finished Walking

Gladdpk — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 11:37:14 GMT

The last two walks I have done, the fenix 7 completes the data collection but does not show any map route.

RE: Recap after activity, showed on the watch

Garmin - KS — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 17:53:06 GMT

5858725 Let’s take a closer look at the activity recap behavior here. Could you share a bit more detail about what you're seeing on the watch after saving the activity? For example, what information is shown in the recap, and how does that differ from what you expected?

If you’re able to include a photo or video of the recap screen, that would be helpful as well. You can send those to us via the Secure File Upload process as described here: Sending a File, Folder, Photo, or Video to Garmin Product Support (Just let us know when you do.)

RE: Target steps data on the watch and on Garmin Connect Mobile are NOT same as on Garmin Connect Web

Garmin - KS — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 17:49:14 GMT

5858725 It sounds like you were able to get the Step Goals/target steps data aligned between Garmin Connect Mobile and the web. Glad to hear that’s resolved!

With regard to the activity recap data concern, I did find your related post here: Recap after activity, showed on the watch

To keep everything organized and avoid any confusion, we’ll continue working with you on that issue in the other thread.

25.11 does not fix the navigation crashes! When is this problem finally addressed???

7606241 — Tue, 27 Jan 2026 08:21:24 GMT

Just installed the new update on my Fenix 7 Pro, went to walking, navigation and then first clicked "Around me", went back because I did not find what I wanted, clicked favorites and picked a restaurant about 3.3 kilometers away.

I get the usual "Not enough memory" error, which is funny, because the watch was freshly restarted after the update.

Afterwards I got an immediate crash and reboot.

My hopes were not that high that anything changed as I haven't seen anything in the changelog.

Navigation with route calculation is totally unusable at the current state, so when will this be fixed?!

https://www.reddit.com/r/GarminFenix/comments/1my3ura/not_enough_memory_available/

https://www.reddit.com/r/GarminFenix/comments/1ktdojf/what_causes_this_not_enough_memory_error/

https://www.reddit.com/r/GarminFenix/comments/1i9pc1j/garmin_fenix_no_memory_to_recalculate/

Seems even Edge devices are affected, luckily I did not buy one yet!

https://www.reddit.com/r/GarminEdge/comments/1hj6f0e/not_enough_memory_to_reroute/

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