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HELP! My instinct solar 2 locked up during a cycle activity and will not soft or factory reset

MonsterUK
1 month ago

Hi everyone,

I have a Garmin Instinct Solar 2.  Had it about 12 months and has been trouble free.  During my cycle ride today the watch just completely froze, screen froze and no response to any buttons.  I have tried...

  1. a soft reset (15 seconds on light button to turn off, wait 30 seconds with power off, power back on) - and it comes back on, but stays on the "Garmin Splash Screen" forever (see attached photo), does not reboot.
  2. Installing Garmin Express on my laptop and connecting the watch via USB.  Basically, Garmin Express does not detect anything (as watch is on splash screen and not actually turned on I suspect).
  3. a factory reset (15 seconds on light button to turn off, hold in back button and keep holding, light button to turn on then release light button, keep holding in back button until reset menu appears).  The reset menu does appear, but all buttons are completely unresponsive.  I cannot change selection from "No", to "Yes" and pressing "select" has no affect, so it is just "locked" on that factory reset screen.  All I can do is power it off (15 seconds on light button to turn off)

Does anyone have any ideas how I can get the watch working again?  I have a lot of activities come up over the next few days which I need to record on my watch.

Thanks in advance for any help!

Roy

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  • +1 1 month ago

    Hello

    I am sorry to hear you are having this issue. Based on the steps you have already tried, I would recommend reaching out to Garmin Product Support. 

  • 0 1 month ago

    This helped me when my Instinct 2 Tactical was stuck on the Garmin startup screen, found it on Reddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Garmin/comments/1bx14en/steps_to_factory_reset_a_stuck_garmin_instinct_2/

    I was trying to find how to factory reset a stuck Garmin Instinct 2 but I cannot find it other than restarting the watch - restarting doesn't fix a stuck logo issue with beeping whenever you click buttons.

    I'd like to share a method I found to reset it even though it is stuck.

    To format the Garmin Instinct 2 follow these steps:
    Make sure your device is turned off first. (Hold CTRL button until it shuts down)

    1. Hold down the ABC, SET, and GPS buttons simultaneously.
    2. While holding these buttons, press and hold the CTRL button to turn on the device.
    3. After the first beep, release the GPS and CTRL buttons while still holding the ABC and SET buttons.
    4. Upon hearing the second beep, release both the ABC and SET buttons.
    5. Wait for at least three minutes for the formatting process to complete.

    Following these steps should properly format your Garmin Instinct 2 device which will fix the stuck boot logo.

    Hope this helps!