GarminPocalypse: Garmin Outage
As of 25 July Garmin has just issued a ‘FAQ’ and shed some more light on their current malaise. The full text is somewhat limited in the scope of the explanation but it does seem to clarify some of the assumptions and rumours. I’ve posted the full text, below, here’s my take out first.
Take Out
Garmin has confirmed that pretty much everything is DOWN with the exception of some inReach functionality. Stating the obvious they are trying to fix it ASAP. They are also claiming that customer data is not affected, I guess they have to do that as to admit that would release the wrath of many customers and confirm that some fines could be coming Garmin’s way in the future. It will all be clarified at some point.
A good-case scenario for sports users of Garmin devices would be that it was just the Taiwanese aviation business that was affected and that everything else was closed down as a precaution.
Garmin FAQ – In Full
GARMIN OUTAGE
Garmin is currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin services including Garmin Connect and Garmin Pilot. As a result of the outage, some features and services across these platforms are unavailable to customers. Additionally, our product support call centers are affected by the outage and as a result, we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats.
We are working to restore our systems as quickly as possible and apologize for the inconvenience. Additional updates will be provided as they become available.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Was any Garmin Connect customer data lost during the outage?
Although Garmin Connect is not accessible during the outage, activity and health and wellness data collected from Garmin devices during the outage is stored on the device and will appear in Garmin Connect once the user syncs their device.
I’m an inReach customer. Can I still use SOS and messaging during the outage?
inReach SOS and messaging remain fully functional and are not impacted by the outage. This includes the MapShare website and email reply page. The status for inReach can be found here.
I have a new Garmin product. When will I be able to pair it with Garmin Connect?
We are working as quickly as possible to restore Garmin Connect functionality. The status of Garmin Connect can be found here.
Was my data impacted as a result of the outage?
Garmin has no indication that this outage has affected your data, including activity, payment or other personal information.
— Ends —
The Story as it unfolded
- Ransomware rumoured as major outage becomes clear
- Vaguely interesting stat show complete lack of data from Garmin Connect going to STRAVA
- TrainingPeaks sensibly recommends a password change in certain circumstances
- Possible evidence of the hack and ransom demand (only one source)
- Partial restart underway
You might also like
- Must Read: STRYD Review
- Must Read: Garmin Edge 1030 Plus Review
- Must Read: Best Triathlon Watch
- Must Read: Best Running Watch
- Must Read: Apple Watch 6 PRO speculation for September
source: garmin
The poorest response I’ve ever seen when it comes to this kind of outage. If it’s a compromise, say it is and don’t cover it up as a server outage.
Correct, plus Garmin is a listed company, they legally obliged to release a proper honest statement regarding events like these.
i would have thought so too.
It’s a $10M ransom. Check it out in the news. What would you do if in their shoes. We just gotta deal with it.
So did they fire all their IT department yet
Or fire the knobhead who downloaded the attachment or clicked the link despite the repeated messages from IT describing how to identify malicious messaging…oh that’s right those warnings were probably ignored.
Systems are only as strong as their weakest link, usually that link is some arrogant business user who thinks they know it
I don’t normally allow swearing on this site. However I will make an exception here as readers in the UK will know that Dwight has used the word which EXACTLY described the link clicker! (plus this whole shoddy escapade has probably seen more accumulated cursing than any other ‘sporting event’ ever, so it’s appropriate)
I reading that some watches are now no longer recording distance and are unable to save activities. Crazy times for Garmin.
Yup – lost my run this morning. Watch had “saving” spinning for ages and the .fit file was reported as empty when I tried to upload to Strava
which device pls?
This exact thing happened to me today. Forerunner 945. Was fine on Friday.
Mine too…. Forerunner 645 music
Yes. Happened to me this morning as well on my Instinct watch. On the second half of my out and back I deleted some older activities and changed GPS from GPS+Glonass to just GPS and it worked fine. We will see what the coming days bring.
sounds strange.
Connect the watch to the pc and go to activities folder. Delete or move oldest .fit files. It will work again.
My face watch doesnt show anything now i don’t know if it’s broken or will it work again when all of this is fixed?
Interesting. I’ll give that a go on my Fenix 6X and see if that sorts things.
I can now confirm this works; thanks Alberto! I lost both an open water swim yesterday and a mountain bike ride today (on my Fenix 6X). I moved all of my old activities from the Garmin/Activities folder to a temporary folder on the route of the device, then tested with the MTB app to record a walk to the post box, then save, and record another MTB activity back home; both accrued distance fine and saved fine (no lock up on the Saving screen). Weird that a lack of sync with Connect would cause this kind of issue though.
yes it is wierd. and how would it work if you were up to, say, 190 activities and went away for a month with no plans to sync to garmin connect. Woudl the device still work when it got to 199 activities??? very strange
if it automatically rolls over the oldest workout then why did this stop working over the last week?
Alberto you are my hero! My 935 decided moments before a 5k time trial was a great time to get stuck on the deleting activity screen. It hasn’t been giving me distance during my runs or saving (gets stuck on saving screen) since. Tried this and worked straight away. Same problem with my partners 645M, not checked that its fixed yet, but results on the 935 were very promising.
It happened to me as well today. Yesterday was all fine. Garmin Forerunner 945. It started but not recorded distance, not displayed lap pace and didn’t beep at the 1 km with autolap on and could not save the activity. I had to do a reset (20 seconds light button press) and I could start another activity, but again no distance and could not save it. This evening I solved the issue with a master reset, losing all my data and now I can’t download any more my CIQ apps. I wish I had read this thread before, so I would have tried first to delete only some old activities. Today by luck I had still my old FR610 with me, that recorded correctly. Gps instant pace was orrible today both in the FR945 and in the FR610 🙁
By luck I could read in my FR945 instant pace of my Runscribe footpod in the CIQ app “Footpodpace”. It’s really a GarminPocalypse, my FR945 is not finding peace.
My 245M says 3.5GB free but that’s mainly because I do not have any music stored on it. Do you guys have any music stored? When you connect it to a PC, how much free space does it show?
Now I just deleted everything with the master raset. Before I had only 3 podcast and some songs stored, but nothing big in terms of memory. Before the master reset I saved the fit file of the “FR945->garmin->activity” and there are 197 activities, dimension 33,3 MB
Okay, it seems like storage allocation is fixed and not dynamic. There is definitely loads of space on most of the newer device for activities and apps as they are really small in size, but looks like most of the space gets allocated for audio storage.
It can’t be a storage issue. I have a Vivoactive 4s and one single activity of a few kb can be enough to cause the describe issue. I had many more activities stored before and it never was a problem. Deleting all activities is only a temporary fix: the next activity worked correctly for 1 h 13 min, then I got a weird message that an emergency message could not be sent (which I never triggered) and the activity was aborted. The activity was saved up to that moment, but I could not start a new one (as I didn’t bring my PC with me on the activity). Has anybody else experienced this? Maybe a hard reset is indeed what’s needed, but I’ll wait until Garmin says everything has been resolved. I’ll try another activity tomorrow and see what happens.
Edit: Maybe you have a point, though. Activity data isn’t much, but there were 267 files (382 kb) in the Monitor folder and 281 files (175 kb) in the SleepData folder, all starting on July 24. It would be kind of sad if the storage for fit files was limited to less than 1 MB, but who knows? I tried and deleted these files (after backing them up) and will see what happens tomorrow.
Today, the activity did not crash although it was longer. So maybe clearing out all the files in Activity, SleepData and Monitor did indeed help 🙂
I did a ride in the morning. My watch stored the data just fine. I use the instinct. I rely 100% on my watch during my activity as i never bring along my phone during a workout. So, as long as the data is stored, im ok with that
May I ask how long your ride was? I also did a ride yesterday and the activity crashed after 1 h 13 min (with a confusing message that an emergency message could not have been sent). So, bringing a backup device such as a phone might be a good idea currently.
In my opinion the watches should not depend too much by internet and GarminConnect. It’s really a pity that my new watch FR945 is having trouble now and my old watch FR610 not. It’s a big error that brand are doing to let depend too much the watches on internet data.
I agree. It’d be nice if the data could sync and be stored on my phone when the server is unavailable.
I hope the feds or some agency helps and finds those responsible
Seems like the Ransomware originated in Taiwan. They’ll be in the wind before any authorities come close. Shame on Garmin and their Cyber Security to be so careless in the first place to make themselves this vulnerable.
sadly pretty much all companies are vulnerable to some degree.
So you are a Garmin employee I guess
I don’t even get press releases from Garmin, zero links other than as a customer like you. That’s why I hope my garmin product reviews are genuinely independent of the company
it’s gonna be tricky.
Seems inexcusable that a Company the size of Garmin would be so vulnerable to a Ransomware attack that essentially brought them to their knees. Their communication to the public has been sporadic and vague at best and at worst pathetic. Not going to be a good day for their Stock price tomorrow when the market opens. Garmin’s Cyber Security must be crap! Go Wahoo!
I share your sentiments to a degree and love my Wahoo Bolt (kickr and elemnt regular and tickrs) but i suspect that in a few months time 99% of garmin users will still be using the same products and will have forgotten about this whole escapade.
Is there an alternative that isn’t so dependent on cloud access?
Did they fire ALL their IT yet??????
better their managers!
Just waiting for you to contact them to offer you CSO position! Hey, it is only our running data being not in sync. Temporarily. What about some trust and patience? Or loyalty?
looks like, they came back: https://connect.garmin.com/status/
I was able to sync this morning. My sleep, step and HR data appears to be missing from July 23rd though.
I my only loss is the goal streak for steps, the I can live with that
it looks thei hired IT engineer from microsoft vista….i bought garmin marq aviator…to change display setting of my watch….i need internet connection🤣🤣…Watch bought in Asia with EUROPEAN aero data…company of assshole
My fenix 3 hr and my girlfriend’s vivoactive 4s are frozen since 4 and 2 days. Black screen and device not reacting. Have anyone experienced something like this?