Forerunner 970 freeze during workout – Garmin Coach + Spotify

Model: Forerunner 970
Firmware: 6.17

Issue:
During today’s scheduled Garmin Coach workout, my watch froze halfway through the activity.

The Spotify app was running in the background the entire time (not sure if that's relevant). The screen went completely black and became unresponsive — no reaction from touch or buttons.

However, the optical heart rate sensor was still active (green LED blinking as usual), and the Bluetooth connection to my headphones remained intact — I assume this because I didn’t receive the usual voice prompt from the headphones when Bluetooth disconnects.

The watch was previously synced with the phone, and the Garmin Coach plan was downloaded.

After holding the LIGHT/CTRL button, the device restarted after a noticeable delay. When it powered back on, the activity was still open but had been paused.

I also noticed that data related to Body Battery and stress levels from the previous hours was missing after the reboot (not sure if that’s expected behavior — I hadn’t paid attention to this before).

This is the first time I’ve encountered such an issue (after completing around 5 successful workouts), but I’ve seen several other Forerunner 970 users on forums reporting similar problems with the watch freezing during activity.

Could you please clarify:
– Is this a known issue?
– Are firmware updates addressing this planned or in progress?

Additional question:
Are there any logs on the watch that I can access / send for troubleshooting? I'm a developer, so I'd be happy to assist by providing any technical data that might help identify the root cause if this happens again.

  • Just had another lock-up on a run this morning. This time, unlike the previous times, it did actually drop GPS track data.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member 2 months ago

    Why did they release a buggy 6.17 firmware. It only got updated as a hot fix from 6.16. Well my 970 has been returned under the not fit for purpose warranty. There’s been no one from Garmin looking at these threads. Rage

  • Same problem with 6.18 on 970

    - Structured workout with HRM600 and music stocked on the device
    - The 970 freeze and I try to reboot but it was impossible 
    - I was lost at halfway of my fartlek and I was very very upset

    Please Garmin fix the problem fast, otherwise if this happen on a competition the frustration would be gigantic

    Mirco

  • It is never impossible to reboot. Hold the power button for long enough (might be like an entire minute), and it will reboot.

  • I've had numerous 970 issues like this. Sometimes it locks up. Sometimes it reboots on its own during an activity. Fortunately, it has always resumed the activity after the reboot, but its frustrating.

    I worked with Garmin support a while back and they ended up replacing my watch and then the latest update was applied. Things seemed pretty good. But its started happening again this week.

    Could it be an accumulation of cached data is filling up the watch after a while? Hard to say. 

  • this freezing has happened on every single activity I've tracked so far. it's insane that a top end watch is unreliable for the very thing it's supposed to do. I never had such issues with the 955 i "upgraded" from. looks like this issue has been outstanding for really long and Garmin is not taking it seriously.

  • Hi there, I’ve been experiencing a very similar problem, especially during my trail and road runs. I’ve been documenting each occurrence to better understand the issue. Until today, I thought the watch was turning itself off and then resuming the activity from where I left off once it powered back up. However, on my run today (17.08.2025), the same problem happened again: the screen went dark, the gesture function stopped working properly, and I wasn’t sure if the device had switched off or just become unresponsive. I tried not to focus on this frustrating issue and continued my run, but it has been reoccurring almost every time I use the watch outdoors. I really hope Garmin can provide a fix for this joy-killing problem.

    For reference, here’s my own documentation of the issue: The watch turns itself off when navigation is used

  • Still happens on latest stable firmware (12.70 - Aug 2025). Spotify and running together, crashes watch and restarts.