Screen unresponsive, gaps in data, synch issues with Garmin Connect

Dear support,

I want to raise my concern over a few issues that I experience with my Vivoactive 5 watch.

1. Sometimes the watch screen becomes unresponsive. Tapping the screen, pushing the buttons or making the wrist gesture does not help in waking up the screen. The sensor on the back is still functioning while this happens. After a while the screen becomes responsive again. This issue has a duration of a couple of minutes.

2. Synchronization issues with Garmin Connect app. Almost every day there are gaps in my data in the Garmin Connect app, which makes it hard to make the watch useful. The watch itself did register the data, so no idea why the Garmin Connect app doesn't show the data. Below you find some examples where the watch does register, but the app has gaps in the data. Also it's not consistent, so for example Heartrate isn't synced, but Stress is.

As you can see in the pictures above, where I was unfortunately ill, the Garmin Connect app doesn't show any data from 0:00 till around 03:00, but the watch itself has the data. Manually syncing does not solve the issue. Turning bluetooth on and off doesn't solve the issue.

3. GAPS in data, both on watch and Garmin Connect app. Almost daily there's also gaps in the data both on the watch and in the Garmin Connect app. It varies from a few minutes to multiple hours. During that time the watch was 'responsive' as I received notifications.

This picture was taken at 21:30, and you can clearly see there is a gap between 20:30 and 20:45-ish. This is just a small gap, there have been bigger gaps than this example.

While searching the forums and internet I've encountered multiple topics about these issues from other users.

For example:

Screen turned black not responsive - but still functioning? - vivoactive 5 Series - Health & Wellness - Garmin Forums

Hi, my Garmin vivoactive 5 screen has gone black but it is still making vibrating noises when I touch the top button. - vivoactive 5 Series - Health & Wellness - Garmin Forums

Vivoactive 5 screen turned black but still functioning? : r/Garmin (reddit.com)

I've deleted all Garmin apps from my phone and reinstalled them. I've reset my watch multiple times, even set it back to factory settings, but nothing helped. As the other users are mentioning in their topics A REPLACEMENT WATCH DIDN'T SOLVE THE ISSUE, so please don't tell me to contact my local Garmin support. These are issues which should be acknowledged by the Garmin team and fixed as soon as possible as the main function of the watch is now faulty. Please give me an update on where we stand with these issues and what the timeline is in which you expect to solve these issues. Thank you.

Top Replies

Dennis over 1 year ago +1

Hi Esther,

Thanks for your reply. I've had a Garmin Venu for a few years and had none of the problems mentioned above. Really loved that watch, but it was time for a replacement.

Sometimes the freezes…
Garmin-Inder over 1 year ago in reply to Esther +1 suggested

Hello all,

Thank you for the above reports. We will need to review this in detail with you. Please reach out to your local Garmin Support team to discuss available options.
Esther over 1 year ago in reply to Garmin-Inder +1

I will, in my country you can only call until 4 in the afternoon, so I have to try on an afternoon I’m free.

in the connect app for android forum there you’ll find more threads about what Dennis…

All Replies

0 Esther 11 months ago in reply to Dennis

Hi Dennis! Thank you for the update and I’m happy for you that you now have less problems!

I luckily never had freezes etc. And the sleep tracking also works again. But now I have all the bugs that came with the new update, the bugs with that the screen needs two taps before I can scroll down etc (they were reported in beta but are still in the live version). So those are bugs in the software.

And I always had the problem where my watch was constantly tracking naps.. even when I am walking around..now since the update it’s not tracking naps but short sleeps (from 30 - 45 minutes), that would previously get reported as naps, but now they overwrite my sleep data from the prior night! So I preferred false naps. The sleep data can be reverted in the app, but the sleep score and recovery are messed up afterwards. This is a bug that is on more watches the moment, I’ve noticed this week on the forums. I even got a morning report on Tuesday evening and the morning report was for Wednesday.

And I still only can sync to connect at midnight when I run an activity. So that’s not great as I’m asleep then, when I don’t have to work late. So those nights I have to work late I run an activity at midnight and then sync, then there’s no problem for the whole day. But when I sleep at midnight it’s missing between 15 minutes up to 4 hours of data in connect (not on the watch), starting at midnight exactly. Some people in other time zones have this problem at 2 in the night.

So this was a long story only to say I think my problems are all software related, so I don’t bother sending it in because I’m afraid to receive one that also freezes and restarts randomly then, as a replacement! :-)