GPS fix time increased, change in CPE.BIN format?

Hi everyone,

for quite a while I am noticing on the FR 945 a longer than usual time until GPS fix, also some sort of bug (more below).

Location is North of Switzerland, tests performed outside with clear unobstructed view towards sky.

SW is latest 13.70, GPS 6.60

GPS is set to GPS+GALILEO

Sometimes a fix can be established after a few seconds. This is usually the case if a GPS activity has been run no earlier than one hour ago.

The first GPS activity of the day will sometimes take one minute or more for the GPS fix to be established, there also seems to be a bug, where the indicator will flip between red and green, but with no beep/vibration indicating the fix.

Compared with the older FR 935 which still establishes GPS fix within 10s the FR 945 is noticably slower. The more recent Fenix 7 which also uses CPE.BIN also establishes a fix within 10s. So I wonder if Garmin changed the CPE.BIN format and did not upgrade the FR 945 GPS software accordingly as it seems the ephemeris data is not properly evaluated by the watch?

Does anyone have some background info on that (yes I know it is an old discontinued watch, but still...)?

0 cvibbo 1 month ago

I observed the same behavior. Hope some useful answer!

0 road-run 24 days ago

I found your post because I searched for a CPE.BIN file.

Following yesterday global problem with GPS I tried to avoid the problem. Connect the watch to PC and searched for the mentioned GPE.BIN file on Garmin/RemoteSW folder. Just found a zip (with mp3 files, lots of small sounds like notification sounds) and a CPE.BIN

I though the guy that mentioned GPE.BIN missed is glasses and deleted the CPE.BIN... without even making a backup copy....
Didn't notice any problems. My 955 continues to work OK, already tested GPS and activity, all good.

CPE.BIN didn't reappear though. Since you were talking about this file, I wonder if you can tell me if I should worry or it will be restored by Garmin at some point (because it has data for GPS sats)

0 HUMODDA 18 days ago in reply to road-run

You can check the CPE status if you open settings and locate the Info screen with the software versions. Scroll down until you find the CPE info. Either it is available or missing. If missing, you may worry as this means you do not have it installed. However, if you keep your watch in sync with Garmin Connect Mobile (keep the app open for about 10 minutes), it should be updated. Please note that GCM will not update it simply by running a sync and then disconnecting from the app, you need to keep it open for at least some minutes.