newly acquired forerunner 245 on software v4.40 fails setup connection on Connect AND Express

7565233 1 month ago

I bought a secondhand Forerunner 245 which I have factory reset. It offers to pair with my phone and Connect, the PIN is accepted and it connects via bluetooth, but Connect does not complete the setup successfully. Although I receive messages on the watch, and the phone is paired via Bluetooth, Connect does not have it 'registered' so I cannot update the watch's software from the ancient v4.40 that it's running.

I have also tried to connect via USB with Garmin Express on my laptop. This 'sees' the 245 but Express refuses to connect saying the 245 "is not compatible with Garmin Express". I have tried older versions of Garmin Express, all the way back to v5 and v4 - these fail too. I sometimes see an error that "the Garmin servers are unavailable".

So I cannot connect a factory reset Garmin to my iPhone with Connect (although it's connected successfully via Bluetooth) or my laptop with Express (although it shows as connected in the Finder).

Any ideas?

0 flocsy🤠 10 days ago

Contact Garmin customer support.

Are you sure this defect is not the reason the 2nd hand watch was sold? Though I did have some issues similar to those you have.

1. There were some issues with the Garmin servers lately, which could explain some of it.

2. I don't know how it is possible to know, but is it possible that they sold you a watch that doesn't belong to your location? I mean if it's an Asian version maybe it won't work in Europe or USA? Or the other way around.

3. I had issues like you show with Garmin connect phone app and some old band. I wasted hours on it. I'm not sure what helped but I'd try these:

- do another factory reset of the watch

- remove the watch from the phone's Bluetooth pairing

- start the pairing from the beginning