Total external comms dropout on 4.0

Some form of update on this from Garmin would be nice. As I mentioned in my previous post these issues for me started occurring from firmware versions AFTER 2.80 and looking at their release notes it appears some changes were made to ANT+ which may have inadvertently made ANT+ connections less stable for some users(?)...

Changes made from version 2.80 to 3.08:

• Added PacePro feature.
• Added additional data field configurations (5 and 6 field).
• Added graphical gauge data fields (i.e. Heart Rate, Cadence, etc.)
• Improve ANT+ and BLE sensor management
• Bluetooth software update to address battery life issues that could occur on some devices
• Improvements to headphone pairing and media player
• Improvements to golf
• Improvement/fixes for Connect IQ
• Some improvements for segments/Strava segments
• Various other fixes/improvements

I appreciate it may be difficult for the Garmin team to replicate such dropouts but if there is anything I can do on my side to help out then let me know. Also is there a way to downgrade to firmware 2.80?

exactly this... I experience these dropouts since .. especially with my Samsung S10 note plus... as soon as it does not want to connect to the phone again, it sucks the battery dry. have to reboot the watch

Blake, I’ve been providing all of the data points above to Garmin support since November and the only responses I’ve received about this range from “huh”, “um”, “oh well”, and “only you and two others have this issue”.

I’m seeing these 3.5 minute drop outs on absolutely every run I do outside and never once has it occurred inside.  Recently I’ve tried using the Run profile with GPS turned off and I’ve tried running outside but with the Treadmill activity profile (since that’s what I use inside when the drops never happen). You can look at my hour+ runs and see it happen over and over and over and over and over (10 times over a two hour run yesterday).  When the drops occur all ant+ devices are lost completely.  Heart rate flat lines on the last recorded signal briefly, drops off a cliff, and then slowly recovers while being picked up from the built in optical hrm and eventually reconnects with all of the typical buzzing and alerts associated with that.  Everything else goes to 0 until reconnecting.

I’m using an HRM-Run, Stryd, and Tempe with my 945 on v4.00.  I’ve never installed any of the beta versions.  Replacing batteries multiple times does nothing.  I’ve tried both of my Stryds (newer “wind” version and the one before that) and the same thing happens.

I’ve seen at least two other reports of this same problem here on the forum where this was solved with a replacement watch.  My watch was lemoned once already due to the button problem and poor battery performance.  “Kevin” with support doesn’t seem interested in replacing it a second time for me and says I’ll have to wait for some future fix if enough folks report the problem to Support.  I assume that means the problem will /not/ be worked on until some high water mark is reached.

If my 620 still holds a charge I’m going to record runs with that from now on.

If there’s something else Garmin wants me to try I’ll do it but I’m confident my emails with Support are going to /dev/null based on the responses.

Here’s one of the typical drops zoomed in.  You can see how it keeps recording the same number before giving up and going to zero and also how the optical hrm starts up until ant+ comes back.

• I was thinking about replacing mine because of mushy button-syndrome. Hope a new unit will solve this. But isnt this a software problem rather than hardware?

Also is there a way to downgrade to firmware 2.80?

There is, but all your settings will be lost and you will need the 2.80 firmware file, which can be found from the Forerunner945_308Beta.zip file.

Thanks for your input. Unfortunately I no longer have a copy of v3.08 archive and, as far I as I see, Garmin no longer host this file as their beta version is now v4.06.

Well, there's reason to download the betas :) 

Here you go: https://gofile.io/?c=nqPl81

Nice one - thanks for sharing!

I'll attempt to downgrade, do a few workouts and report back. Hopefully it will help in determining whether the cause was down to the firmware release after v2.80 or not.