Alerts Getting Stuck/Repeating After Updating to 20.29

Hello! I've only had my Forerunner 965 for a couple of weeks now, and it was working perfectly when I got it. I usually have my phone with me, so I will just listen to music or a podcast through Spotify on my phone instead of through the watch. Before the update to 20.29, I had no problem at all with any of the alerts during activities. For example, setting a high heart rate alert would go like this: heart rate goes above set zone, my music pauses, alert voice says "Heart Rate High", music resumes, I continue with my activity. Exactly how it should be.

However, since the update, the alert voice will get stuck and repeat itself over and over again while rapidly pausing and playing my music. It sounds like "Heart rate heart rate heart rate heart rate heart rate heart rate heart rate heart rate heart rate..." and just continues this like a skipping CD. My phone also seems to freeze up and become very slow or even unresponsive. There is nothing I can do to stop this repetition on either my phone or my watch except for completely restarting my phone.

Also, it is not just with the alerts I set myself. If I create a workout and the alerts are telling me about the upcoming segments of the workout, it will get stuck saying, for example, "recover recover recover recover recover recover recover recover recover..." There's no gap between these or anything. It happens as quickly as if you were to read that as a sentence.

I would think it's something to do with my phone since I have to restart it to stop the stuck alerts, but I was not having this problem at all before I updated the watch to 20.29 a few days ago. I assume it must be a bug introduced there.

For additional info, my phone is a Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra and I am using the Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Bluetooth Earbuds with it. The phone, earbuds, and Garmin Connect are all up to date.

Is anyone else having this problem? Is it possible to roll back the watch to an earlier version until this is resolved?

  • Has anyone experienced this with only music loaded to the watch and headphone paired directly to the watch only? No phone involved. 

    If so, do I have permission to access your Garmin account and contact you directly? 

  • Garmin, is there any update please as still experiencing this and it's very annoying.

  • The support wrote me an email, asking for details. I provided them all. At the end, it turned out that even though I have a bug, repeated notification, because its not related to music playing than, good luck. I should contact my local provider.

    It's a joke...

  • I'm having the same issue.  Occurs when it announces the average pace when I have a podcast going on Spotify.  It gets stuck quickly pausing/playing the podcast and then quickly repeating part of the message.  It does not happen for me when I am listening to music on Spotify. It doesn't seem to pause the music for the announcement like it does during a podcast.  

    This is on a Samsung Galaxy S24 and the latest update for the 965.  It did not do it before the update. 

  • Hello,

    I have exactly the same experience with the latest version 20.29 as the thread creator. After the update, every interval session with the voice coach has been ruined because of this.

    I might also add that the watch has started sending emergency messages to my emergency contact completely unprovoked during these interval sessions, which of course was scary for her. If I don't have time to stop the message, I have to call and calm her down in the middle of the hill intervals. I will have a stroke of annoyance and no one will take it seriously.

    Is there a way to roll back to the old version?

    FR 965

    Pixel 8

    Sweden

  • I have the same issue with the FR 265 and Samsung Galaxy S22+. 

    When listening to spotify podcasts, autolap notification gets stuck when about to give me my average pace and the podcast starts and stops forever. 

  • Its the same on my Epix Gen 2 running latest software 18.16 so dont think its tied into the forerunner 965 updates

  • Having same issue on Forerunner 255 on 20.29 with a Poco M4 Pro

  • Hi there I have a problem using garmin Forerunner 965, I bought the watch a week ago and I’m on version 20.29. Yesterday I ran a 3k time trial and the average heart rate is 133. Usually when I run 3k time trial, my average heart rate is about 175-180. Thanks 

    1. Yes

    2. yes

    3  Hong Kong 

  • Had exactly the same issue today with Forerunner 965 latest update, listening to a podcast on Samsung S22. Very frustrating but glad I saw this thread as thought it may be my headphones/phone issue! Garmin - please can we have an update?