10-15 minute GPS lock on Instinct 3 Tactical 50

4780780 4 days ago

I bought the new Instinct 3 Tactical 50mm a few weeks ago and have noticed that it can take an extraordinary amount of time to get a GPS lock when starting an activity which uses GPS (Track Me, Rucking). I have tried rebooting, upgrading to the latest firmware (8.11 to 9.25), changing power modes from GPS only to All+Multiband and it still happens occasionally.

Can someone from Garmin please explain why, when testing side-by-side with the Foretrex 801, the Instinct 3 took 13 (yes, thirteen) minutes to get a GPS lock in GPS-only mode while the Foretrex (also in GPS-only mode) got an accurate lock within seconds?

Top Replies

trux 1 day ago in reply to 4780780 +1

When there is no CPE, the ephemeris data is transmitted from GPS satellites, but it may take many minutes. However, the worst case is when the CPE file is on the watch (state "current"), but for some reason…

All Replies

0 bluefish 4 days ago

Is your cpe status „current“ ?

see here :

https://support.garmin.com/en-HK/?faq=ZCFBNlxeiM3oipPmFoYfs7

0 4780780 4 days ago in reply to bluefish

Current.

0 trux 3 days ago in reply to 4780780

Hard-reset the watch - sync, then press the Light button for some 30s till it completely shuts down (hold the button through the emergency alert, if it comes), wait little bit, and then restart. No worry, no data or settings will be lost with it. [more details]. And then connect it to Garmin Express, and check for updates. It will reload the CPE file. It may be corrupted.

0 4780780 2 days ago in reply to trux

Thank you. Are CPE files only downloaded through a bluetooth connection to Connect/Express? For example, is it possible to use a Garmin off-grid with no bluetooth connection for a prolonged period of time and still be able to connect reliably to GPS?

0 trux 1 day ago in reply to 4780780

When there is no CPE, the ephemeris data is transmitted from GPS satellites, but it may take many minutes. However, the worst case is when the CPE file is on the watch (state "current"), but for some reason corrupted. In such case it can happen that it won't be replaced over the satellites. It is safer to replace it over the USB cable with Garmin Express. Unlike with Express, the updating over Bluetooth to Garmin Connect does not happen at every connection, so it is less reliable.