255 elevation is incorrect

My 255 Music watch has started having major issues with elevation over the last 2-3 months. I have attempted different satellite settings and I have started to calibrate it prior to each workout but my readings are still wildly incorrect. All my workouts end up with elevation gain of 10,000 to over 100,000 feet which is simply not possible. Any tips to fix this?

  • Do you have the barometric sensor in "automatic" mode so it uses it as an altimeter or barometer based on its own logic?

    Aside from that, I'm not sure there is much you can control. Do you swim with the watch? It could be the sensor port is dirty and doing the soak maintenance will clean it out. Or it could be the sensor is going bad and the only remedy would be a replacement watch...

  • My 255 music has been giving me the same problem for a month. The problem hasn't been fixed despite my attempts to clean the barometric sensor port as described in the user manual.

  • Same - I've tried calibration and cleaning the sensors.  To no avail.  

  • Same here. The elevation values shown went crazy on my Forerunner 255 from 2 ó 3 weeks ago; in all activities: cycling, running, walking....

    I've tried to do the recomended maintenance (calibration, cleaning the port sensor at the back of the watch with no changes at all). Any other solution?

  • I've had the same thing happen in the last 2-3 weeks. Wild elevation swings and inaccurate elevation. Also, about the same time, GPS lock went from taking seconds to taking minutes at the same location. Not sure if those two things are related but it all seems odd.

    Tried calibrating, it's actually set to auto calibrate every time a GPS activity is started (no change, always been that way). Also tried restarting multiple times. Have done everything but a factory reset.

    I reached out to Garmin support a couple days ago. Still waiting on a response.

  • Just got a response from support, telling me to do the things I already did. "If the issue does not resolve after doing so, I can look into paths available for your location."

    I informed them that I had already done those things (clean the sensor port and calibrate) multiple times. I'll update when I find out what the "paths available" are.

  • Latest update from my end. Support says they will replace my watch with a refurbished unit. Seems strange that multiple people would experience this all around the same time and it would be a hardware failure but I'm willing to see if a replacement works.