Same problem too. Brand new 820. (Actually my 3rd on warranty replacement, which says a lot about the quality of these units.) Get the download failed message every time it starts up. I've tried factory reset the device, remove and re-add in Connect App, delete and re-install Connect App, delete from Connect Online plus all the above, and every combination and permutation of these actions you can think of - nothing resolved it! Will contact Garmin directly but hoping someone here has a breakthrough!
I encountered the same after I factory reset my 2 year old Edge 820 due to a different problem*. After a couple more factory resets and some other fiddling I found out it only starts to happen after pairing the device with the android phone and the connect app. If I reset the device and skip the phone pairing and only use my computer with Garmin Express I don't get the "download failed".
TBH I don't understand how this company is still in business. Every update, be it the app or firmware or the express software a new problem appears, often impacting the most basic functionality. The software is just so notoriously bad and buggy it is not even funny. Even the forum is buggy. I logged on with my 2 year old Garmin account, but apparently that account is not able to post on the forum? The post reply button is simply missing? Why? Had to register a new account just to be able to post.
*The original problem I had was that after upgrade to 6.11.something Garmin Express would always show the red mark icon indicating sync failed for my edge 820 ... even if the actual sync in went fine without error. Needless to say the factory reset did not solve that problem. Neither did update of Express to 6.12.0.0. Only after I completely uninstalled and did a fresh install of Garmin Express it started to work. Only to be replaced by the download failed problem now.
I was able to stop this from happening by removing all wifi networks from my 820. Since I usually use Bluetooth it's not a problem, but for those of you that depend on wifi it's a non starter.
Further to my previous post I had a couple of support calls with Garmin last week and have resolved the annoying download failed message. Not sure if this will work for everyone, but here are the steps that worked for me. Note that in my case, disabling WiFi on the Garmin unit prevented the download failed message, so it was definitely something to do with WiFi syncing for me.
Steps to resolve:
Disable bluetooth on your phone. (This is simply to stop the phone getting involved in the sync process while you complete the following steps.)
Go to the Garmin Connect web app (connect.garmin.com), click on the little watch icon in the top right corner and if there are any items listed as awaiting sync next to your problematic Garmin device, click the little 'x' icon next to them to remove them.
Next go to device settings for your problematic device - also available through the watch icon in the top right corner.
Click the gear icon at the top right of the page and select the 'remove' option.
Now go to the Garmin Express app on your computer and remove your problematic Garmin device.
On the Garmin itself delete any WiFi connections that have been set up.
Plug the Garmin into your computer and go through the steps to re-add it to the Garmin Express app.
As part of this process you'll be asked if you want to add a WiFi network. Complete WiFi setup in Garmin Express at this point.
Et voila, once set up is complete and you've ejected and unplugged your Garmin, you should find the download failed message is no more.
As I said, this has worked for me at least, and it's a sufficiently odd sequence of events that I figure others may not have tried it and therefore it's worth sharing. Good luck folks!
AndyJW1 and did you try to re-enable the bluetooth and sync your phone via the app after the fix? I'll try this when I get home, but for me it's the actual fact of pairing the edge with the phone that triggers this wifi problem. If i skip the phone pairing during the device initial setup, the problem does not appear.
CannotPost - yes, bluetooth re-enabled on the phone and confirmed everything works fine. Well - I say 'confirmed' - I've only done two rides since the fix and one of them coincided with the massive outage Garmin had yesterday, but the first one synced up fine. Also I did a test activity (15 seconds sat at my desk) and that synced fine too.
I was getting the download failed message every time I powered up the Garmin, or brought it out of standby, and I've tested that multiple times now and it does seem to have gone away.
Well, the processes fixed the problem for a bit but it didn't last long. One additional sync over Garmin Express and one additional sync over the app and back to the same error every time the wifi wakes up and tries to connect. I suspect it might have something to do do with the "physio trueup" which got disabled by the process. I re-enabled it after the first sync when I noticed it got disabled and after the next round of sync's it was back to the error.
//edit: so retried the whole process again but this time made sure to keep "physio trueup" disabled and so far so good. A few sync's via PC no problem, a few sync's via App no problem, and the wifi connection still works without the "download failed" error. Hope it lasts.
That's a good spot. Just checked and physio trueup is disabled on my device. Based on your comments I think I'll leave it that way! (I have no need of it anyway.)
