Media Error message problem

I have noticed that when I carry my iPhone with me while walking or running, if my Forerunner 945 is tracking my activity, I frequently get a Media Error message and my watch goes back to the normal watch face. This really messes up the stats when I go back to tracking by pressing the Start button. I regularly refresh my watch by turning it off, but this does not help. Other than not carrying my phone, is there a fix for this problem. I called Garmin tech and did some troubleshooting, but this didn’t solve the problem.

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0 RoWe over 1 year ago

I had the same error about every 3rd time when syncing Spotify data via Wi-Fi. I had reported this to support and received an answer telling me to perform the 30s soft reset. Which, of course, I had tried long before and did not work. They asked for more information, but the process was too time-consuming for me and the error too minor for the effort. So I advise you to contact the support directly.

+1 Karl R over 1 year ago in reply to RoWe

I did just after posting. He said that I should either delete the media payer from my watch (which would also delete the watches ability to play music) or reset the watch to factory settings. As Garmin doesn’t have a way of backing up your watch, I’d lose all my custom settings. Sadly, as it appears this is a bug that won’t get fixed, i really have no choice but to go back to factory settings.

+1 Dan.Boilermaker over 1 year ago

I have also seen this message often when syncing Amazon Music. Music seems to sync fine.

+1 Karl R over 1 year ago in reply to Dan.Boilermaker

Ditto here exactly. Downloading music sometimes takes multiple attempts.

0 K Meister over 1 year ago

I’ve been having this exact problem on my Forerunner 255 Music. Really aggravating that it messes with the activity tracking. Did resetting to the factory default settings do the trick?

0 Karl R over 1 year ago in reply to K Meister

Haven’t gone there yet. I tried turning off the Bluetooth on my phone so that my watch will not connect with Garmin Connect during activities. This seems to be working so far as I haven’t had that media error yet.

0 Dan.Boilermaker over 1 year ago in reply to Dan.Boilermaker

I do seem to get this warning every time I sync my music.

0 Karl R over 1 year ago in reply to Dan.Boilermaker

One of the things the tech I spoke to seemed to imply was that if your watches memory is close to full, these media errors are more likely to occur. So I took some watch faces off my watch and cut down on the size of my playlist. This may have helped a little because I would still get random media error messages. Turning off Bluetooth on my phone during activities has been the most effective fix so far. But as I said, I’ve only just started doing that, so we shall see. I also commonly get a media error while syncing, which leads me to think this whole problem has something to do with memory and music. My Apple Watch is a whole lot more dependable, but for activities, Garmin watches and Garmin Connect are my go to.

0 Dan.Boilermaker over 1 year ago in reply to Karl R

Karl R said:
One of the things the tech I spoke to seemed to imply was that if your watches memory is close to full, these media errors are more likely to occur.

Sounds like a reasonable answer. So I looked at file usage on mine via Garmin Express. My music from Amazon Music takes up ~400Mb and have nearly 5Gb free.

0 Dan.Boilermaker over 1 year ago in reply to Dan.Boilermaker

I think the Media Error it tied to this issue:

https://forums.garmin.com/beta-program/forerunner-945-lte/public-beta-bug-reports/i/public-beta-14-xx/backing-out-of-stocks-widget-i-see-the-ciq-error-icon