Fenix 8 is dead after automatic update

SSH 1 day ago

Today my Fenix 8 51mm AMOLED was dead after its automatic update (guessing updating to the latest one). Black screen. Holded down power/back for 10 seconds, saw triangle and welcome and then loading maps until map 26 then black screen again. Noticed the green light on the back is still on and off sometimes but I have no idea if the watch is on or off. Tried to do factory reset by holding down "start", "back" and "power" at the same time and "start"/"back" first and then "power" but didn't hear any beep and didn't see anything on the screen.

Instruction from somewhere:

This worked but the instructions are wrong.

Hold down Light until watch completely powered off
Hold down Light, Start and Back until here a beep
Release start, still holding down Light and Back until 2nd beep

Laptop can't link to the watch of course.

Anyone knows how to factory reset? Thanks.

0 SSH 1 day ago

Tried pressing buttons, turning off, turning on, holding start and/or back, seeing loading maps......I don't know what I did and what buttons I holded, and finally I could see the normal watch menu a few times. However, super laggy. What should I do? I tried to go to software factory reset but it took me so much time and always got stuck somewhere before getting to the right menu. I am still repeating turning on and off and trying to find the correct way to go to the normal watch menu and then factory reset.

Driving me crazy.

0 richardb20 1 day ago

This happened to me too recently. Contact Garmin Support, they will be able to quickly fix it for you - even if that means replacing the watch.

0 atomic84 1 day ago

Same problem here….
forums.garmin.com/.../thank-you-garmin-15-31-just-made-my-fenix-8-unusable

0 SSH 1 day ago

With countless times of tries, I finally successfully hardware factory reset the watch and now watch is back working as before (with the latest 15.31).

Holding down power and waiting for first triangle and let go power. Then holding down start and back at the same time. Few seconds (I have no idea how long) the watch vibrates and let go start (still holding down back). Seconds later second vibration and let go back. Then it shows factory reset menu and follow the process to reload maps and after loading map 26 and new watch setup it finally enter the watch main menu with no lags.

I have tried this countless times, but failed until the last one because I never knew if the watch is on or not.

Hope people suffering from this can get the watch back to normal soon.

0 FredGolightly 1 day ago in reply to SSH

This happened on my 965 last week: forums.garmin.com/.../1936725