update: no more step tracking, sleep and inconsistent heart rate

I've just been to an unofficial service center (there is no official one in my country). after some diagnostics I was told it's quite unlikely that the watch could be repaired remotely. Some data was corrupted and could only be recovered with a special cable.

they said itll take 5 to 7  hours to repair it.

so now i wait...

I hope they can fix it, because you probably voided your warranty doing that. Let us know if it worked.

Hey everyone. This is just a coincidence that Garmin provided a software upgrade. It's much higher. We have somehow been put in this alternate realm where we are highly stressed, had no sleep in the last 10 days, taken no steps and have an erratic heart rate. It's our Garmin watches letting us know that something is amiss.

a bug like this and intransparent response should not happen in a big company like this. I'm relatively sure that nothing will happen and all watches are damaged. I say goodbye to Garmin! There are so many nice Sport/ Smartwatches on the market! Nobody needs Garmin!

The 165 is still availbale online and many resellers. If you think Garmin is not going to fix the issue  that would be an awful lot of watches potentialy that they could not sell. However it is unknown if this bug us effecting all 165s as Garmin is keeping it quiet. I'm sure they are working on a fix as the cost to remove all 165s from sale would be quite a loss and cause bad publicity.

They'll probably release an update at some stage, but it sucks for those who are left stranded with broken watches in the meantime. I wish they'd make all the older firmware available online for download. Even though it's not officially supported it's possible to downgrade and it might have helped some people.

If you've used Express to sync and update your watch then the update files might still be in the folder C:\ProgramData\Garmin\CoreService\Downloads\Firmware.....

The 165 Music is 006-B4432-00 and the non music one is 006-B4433-00

I only have the files for the music version, 23.20, 26.08 and 27.09 but maybe someone with the normal version will have the files for that and be willing to share them.

Copy the gupdate.gsp file to the Garmin folder on the watch and also add an empty file called force.tmp When you unplug the watch it should prompt to install the update.

Garmin doesn't officially support this and it could make things worse, but many user's watches are unusable due to sensors not working, so might be worth a try.

The v25.04 firmware for the Forerunner 165 non-music watch is available here:

https://limewire.com/d/NV77U#ISuFYBmD4p

Note that this firmware is from 11th September 2025 and so is a couple of versions behind the latest one. See here for a list of changes made in subsequent versions. It does at least function as a fitness watch though!

I should echo your caveats and warnings that this isn't a supported method for downgrade and also point out that I haven't gone through the process myself (I'm actually still on 25.04 as Garmin Connect always thinks my watch is up to date - for once that issue seems like a blessing!).

Could you share your "older" firmware Version File for the 165music that ist still working ?

I would like to try downgrading to that, because that should fix the Problems..

I don't think Garmin is going to like it. But if they don't want to supply it, then it's going to be up to us to help each other. Let me know if it works.

Firmware and instructions:

https://1drv.ms/f/c/6a77ac6ec0b4ff01/IgDrTJOVl9WTQYS0BpcpzYpoARPcBZUAG5IYXTkG2-HORnQ?e=gZuhmh