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Garmin 530 turns auto pause on while riding

I have a new Garmin 530 (8.10 software installed) for a few weeks. On almost every ride, somewhere halfway the auto pause kicks in while riding at speed. At that moment the speed and cadence are displayed as 0. After 10-15 minutes the Garmins picks up and auto pause turns off.

I ride a Trek with Trek speed/cadence sensor. I turned this sensor off to see what happens, and at that moment the cadence is displayed as --. So it's not the sensor. After that I turned the sensor back on and turned GPS off to see what it does. In this mode the sensor comes in and speed and cadence from the sensor is displayed. 

I really don't have an idea what's going on here, but it's really annoying. My auto pause is set at 10 km/h. GPS is set at GPS+Glonass. I'm in Netherlands, Europe.

  • The Trek sensor has had problems communicating with Garmin computers. I've known and also read about cyclists who have had to use Garmin sensors.

  • It is probably your speed sensor.  Is the magnet aligned properly?  This is often a symptom of a magnet not quite in alignment or the battery failing.

    Turn off auto pause and see if your speed drops to zero.  Try a new battery in the sensor.

  • Today I went for a ride again. I turned off the auto pause before I started the ride. After a few kilometers I noticed the speed dropped to 0 for a while. And later on the navigation failed for a few minutes (Garmin told me I was out of course, but I'm sure I was on course). I was riding in navigation mode in a busy group ride so I didn't had the change to check the cadence. I will try changing the sensor battery next.

    I always thought the speed is taken from the GPS in preference, and when the GPS signal fails the sensor takes over. And the other way around when the speeds sensor fails due to low battery the GPS will take over. So this is probably not the case. I'm also not sure which speed is the default speed, is it the sensor or GPS? I really only need the cadence, so maybe I can remove the magnet for the speed sensor.

  • The sensor will take priority over GPS. Perhaps you could borrow a Garmin speed sensor to try which will determine if the problem is your sensor or the computer. The off course warning will sometimes occur if you lose the GPS signal which can happen for several reasons such as tall buildings or heavy tree coverage.

  • If you have a speed sensor paired it is used for speed/distance data over GPS.  If the speed sensor works intermittently the unit will keep switching back and forth between the sensor and GPS for speed/distance with a delay between switching to GPS for speed/distance.