Acquiring and losing satellites

I have one of the new 1030s as well and have noticed this. Even when it is in the window of my car, sitting on the dash as I drive down the road. I noticed it would lose the satellites even going under a bridge. I have an Edge 810 and almost never had this problem unless it went in a tunnel or under a very long bridge. My software version on the 1030 is 3.70. Garmin, any thoughts on this? Hopefully I do not end up regretting this purchase...

Thanks!

So both of you are using it in a car, not on a bike? Perhaps you should try and replicate on a bike...

I can confirm this happens on a bike. I mostly see it when I'm near power lines. If I mount my Edge 1000 right next to it, it doesn't lose satellites, so it's definitely an Edge 1030 issue.

In recent times I have noticed that at random times (sitting idle for a while in particular) the 1030 will just start repeatedly beeping and the message "lost satellites" comes up. No change in view to the sky. After uploading the ride a whole load of corrupt data points means the GPS track looks like Ive been to the moon and back. Please fix this ASAP (It doesn't happen on my 800 or 1000)

I'm having this problem too - seemingly since the update to v3.8 and then v3.9 of the firmware. On an 80k ride last Sun 20k's of it is a straight line, although total distance is correct. I'm in Sydney, Australia. Do I need to select different satellites or something?

I'm in Australia also (Canberra), and I've noticed this problem as well - it doesn't happen until I'm about three hours into a ride, then the 1030 beeps at me fairly frequently for the rest of the ride saying that it has lost satellites. Running F/W 3.90. I haven't had the problem on shorter rides up to 60-70km. It happened to me today on an out and back 130km ride where I retraced my route over exactly the same road - no problem on the outward leg, but at about the 75km point on the return leg, I started getting the "lost satellite" messages at the top of the screen. After about 20km of this, I went into settings and changed the satellite setting from GPS+GLONASS to GPS, and I had no further problems with lost satellites for the remaining 30km of the ride.

One of the other riders on this ride was using an Edge 1000, and he had no problem at any time during the ride with loss of satellite signal.

So it seems to me that there is some bug in the 1030 firmware that only manifests itself after several hours of recording a ride and only if the GPS mode is set to GPS+GLONASS.

Ive discovered after leaving the Garmin 1030 idle for some time (ie at a coffee stop) that it loses satellites as I explained above, but if I stop the timer (but not end the ride) and turn off the 1030, when I come to restart it again, all is well for the rest of the recording. If I don't do this I end up with my position not fixing to the roads I am on, and all manner of random lines appear.
As in AuldNik's comment above (above) he is changing the GPS fix by removing GLONASS, I suspect we are both doing the same thing just by different means. It suggests that the 1030 is losing a fix, and while it easily finds it again, needs an interruption to do it, rather than recognising the fault and relocating like the previous models do. (1000,800)
Richie Porte was having terrible troubles with his 1030 doing this, and I notice that Daryl Impey as well (see Tireno Adriatico stages)...so it can't be the hemisphere we are in.

Another Australian here (Adelaide). This is definitely a problem. I 'upgraded' from the 500 to the 1030 for the battery & screen improvements, not to degrade the quality of satellite signal. I've used the 1030 perhaps 15 times and on 4 of those rides I've had issues with the satellite signal being lost. Admittedly I have been under tree cover for most of these circumstances, but general tree cover has NEVER affected the satellite connectivity on either the 500 or my Fenix 3 HR; both of which are supposed to have inferior satellite reception capability (particularly the 500 which doesn't use GLONASS as an option). And to make matters worse, yesterday was a perfect, cloud-less, mid-20 Celsius day yet not only did the signal drop out, but it did so in the middle of FLAT, OPEN road. Explain that please Garmin?

Also confusing is that I got the satellite back originally by turning off GLONASS (why would that make it better?) but then later the only way I could get it back again, after once-again losing it, was to re-enable GLONASS....hmm... I've got to say, as I spend most of my time riding under trees or through forest I can't see how the 1030 in it's current form is anything other than a complete waste of money. I have the Fenix 3 on every time (for back up thankfully), and it's only lost the signal once (very heavy tree cover) while the 1030 has on at least 30 or more instances. The only thing it has to do is keep the satellite signal and it can't even manage that (I'm still smarting over it corrupting the data on a couple of my first rides with it too while saving). I'm going on a 1500 km+ tour in Victoria next month, most of which will be under heavy tree cover...i'm not very confident of this unit's ability suddenly! It's a sad thing to think that I should be taking my 500 for backup.

Should I return for a full refund and go to Wahoo like I was originally contemplating? I'm also finding it annoying how it won't auto-upload activities any more - something needs to be fixed for sure.

I agree with AuldNik though but i've had issues after 1.5 hours, not 3, after that the problem is inconsistently-persistent until the activity is complete.

I'm another experiencing this problem. I've recently (last week) moved from a 1000 to a 1030 and this is an obvious problem. I've noticed losing satellites when going under bridges (something the 1000 never suffered from) and I've also noticed a lot more "course lost" / "course found" alerts popping up which I think is also related to losing the satellite as I've always been on the course.