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Is 16.17 really as bad as it seems? And how to downgrade to 15.19

3826824
over 1 year ago

Hi,

We all know Garmin is bad at the little things like all those problems I'm reading about with 16.17 on this forum. I've turned off auto update and I'm glad I did based on this forum HOWEVER forums are known to concentrate all the people who are reporting problems and those who aren't having problems just don't post. So my question is, is 16.17 one of those updates that creates random problems on some users watches? Or are the problems that people are experiencing universal?

Second question, if I do upgrade and am not happy with the results, is it easy to downgrade back to 15.19 WITHOUT losing all of my current watch settings?

Thanks!

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    There is no way to downgrade currently (short of getting a replacement device which may have an earlier FW version)

    I haven't had any issues with the 16.17 for my use case .  Running , Swimming , Walking , Hiking activities

    Another point , you can save many of the settings (activity screens etc) by keeping a copy of your device data. See this link

    https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-955-series/329526/some-advice-before-upgrading-replacing-a-watch-or-a-hard-reset

    Hopefully the backup/restore option implemented on Outdoor watches will come to FR in future,

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to S.M.R.

    I am holding off upgrading to 16.17 mainly due to the notification font size change, but also because of the many bugs being reported here. How come you're sure that there's no way to downgrade? If I'm not wrong, before Garmin implemented the new beta releases, you were able to manually downgrade but losing settings.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to reflecx

    Before we got firmware images with betas to downgrade. Now we don't. Garmin is keeping the images more secret and updates are also possible shared as only the difference to previous version, not whole firmwares. If you go to System -> About and scroll those you will find "Delta Updated Download: Enabled. SYS Hash:". Which apparently is yet another issue, the system hash don't fit to the screen anymore with larger font size.

    And many bugs, not sure about that. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I don't have any significant issues that I've noticed that affect me day to day on 16.17. Triathlete so use a lot of pool swim, run, treadmill, outdoor bike and indoor bike. Occasionally open water swim too. Also used the betas so have seen issues with the betas (but that's what they are for, to work out the bugs)

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to jmto

    The firmware images are downloaded over the network, so I'm sure more technical folks can get hold of the images. In fact, someone posted the 15.19 image here previously.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    No issues here. Run, bike, walk, track run, workouts, optical HR, external HRM strap, power meters. Battery has been fine.

    If you only read the forums, then every release is horrible, likely worse than the previous oneJoy

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Zero issues here. Who has issues it's beacuse he's not able to use the watch properly

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    16.17 is perfectly fine for me... I mostly run though, do an occasional bike ride.

    But no, you can't downgrade anymore.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I do pretty much everything the watch is supposed to handle except multisport. Run, bike, hike, strength, workouts, martial arts and so on. The only problem I've had with 16.17 was that once when I paused a run, the display was reversed from black background and white digits to the other way around. But after the next autolap it was back as it should. Not quite a dealbreaker. The fontsize is not a problem for me but yes, an option to choose size would be welcomed.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to reflecx

    I said more, not secret or secure. Pretty different thing. Security by obscurity. Also if the firmware is just the DELTA. That delta is pretty much less useless, if you don't have the original and knowledge how the delta is build to get the new firmware.