Garmin Fenix 9: All 94 Bugs. Is This Acceptable for a $1,000 Watch?

 

Fenix 9 and Fenix 9 Pro have been on sale for a month, and owners have already logged 94 bugs. I’ve counted every one I could find on Garmin’s forum, Reddit and in the main reviews, and added my own. Seven are fixed. Around 30 are widely reported. The rest come from one or two owners each.

The Pro models cost around £1,000/$1,100, and more with inReach. At that price, owners expect a finished watch. The full list is at the end of this article, grouped by area, with how many people reported each bug, whether it’s fixed, and a link to the source. If you own one and have found something that isn’t there, add it in the comments, and I’ll update the list.

What the 94 bugs actually are

• 7 are fixed in software 6.48.
• About 30 are widely reported, by three or more owners or several reviewers.
• About 15 have two reports each.
• About 40 are single reports. Some of those will be a faulty watch or a setting, not a software fault.

I’ve left out another 20 complaints that turned out to be settings or deliberate design choices, like the AMOLED screen dimming or Silent Mode not covering activity beeps.

Nothing has bricked a watch. That’s worth saying after Garmin’s 2026.10 map update left Edge units stuck in a boot loop earlier this year.

The bugs that matter

Most of the list is irritation: a watch face drawing wrongly, a translation error, a pop-up that won’t close. The problems below are different, because they hit the things a sports watch is for.

• Crashes during activities. The most-discussed Fenix 9 post on r/Garmin, with 166 upvotes and 155 comments, is a 47mm Pro that crashed 10 times on a single route walk. Other owners report crashes when a notification arrives as they resume a run, when saving a pool swim, and freezes that leave minutes missing from the recording.
• Battery drain. A forum thread on drain after a restart, much of it logged as “system”, has 30 replies and nearly 2,500 views. Other owners report watches emptying overnight, one from 80% to 15%.
• Swimming and pacing. Pool swims miss 10 to 34% of lengths, according to five or six owners. Pace Pro loses its ahead-and-behind guidance for whole runs.
• Heart rate. The wrist sensor switches off mid-activity for some owners playing music. Reviewers found it slow to settle at the start of a workout.
• Music. Around nine owners report crackling and dropouts on runs, and AirPods disconnecting repeatedly.
• Speed. The Start button takes two to three seconds to respond, according to owners in a thread with almost 3,000 views. Map lag is less awful than on Fenix 8, but still well behind Apple, Suunto, Coros, Polar and Amazfit.
• Maps on a Mac. Garmin Express can’t install maps on Macs, which is the most widely confirmed problem. More on that here.

A crash during navigation is a different order of magnitude than a misdrawn watch face. On an adventure watch, it’s the one thing that shouldn’t happen.

What Garmin has fixed, and how fast

Garmin has released one update in a month. Software 6.48 arrived on 15 September with seven fixes, mostly for inReach, calls and volume. None of the activity crashes is on the list.

It went out to about 20% of watches first. There’s no way to go back to 6.38 if an update makes things worse.

Garmin staff are active on the forum. They’ve logged several faults, reproduced one watch face bug, and are emailing owners for crash logs. Just as often, they reply that they can’t reproduce the problem. Garmin told DC Rainmaker a rucking calorie bug would be fixed in the next update; it isn’t in 6.48.

Is this normal for a Garmin launch?

Yes. Fenix 8 launched with a similar list, and so did CIRQA this summer. On Reddit, the most common reply to any Fenix 9 complaint is some version of “never buy a Garmin in its first year”.

Fenix 9 shares its software with Fenix 8. Some of its bugs are inherited, and Fenix 7 and 8 owners in the navigation crash thread say their watches still crash on routes too. The upside is that fixes should reach both watches at once.

Garmin is also passing Fenix 9 features down to Fenix 8, Forerunner 970 and other watches. That’s good news for existing owners.

How it compares with Apple, Suunto and Coros

Apple Watch Ultra comes up repeatedly in owners’ complaints. Several say they’re going back to it because it’s reliable, even if it does less. Suunto and Coros watches do less too, and draw maps far faster.

That’s the trade. Garmin puts more into one watch than anyone else, and more features mean more to go wrong. Owners buy a Fenix for that breadth, which is why the bug list is longer than a rival’s.

The fix most owners have found

Many of the crash and battery reports share a cause: owners restored settings from an older Garmin when setting up the new one. The Sleep Focus crash, random shutdowns, a missing post-workout prompt and heavy “system” drain have all been traced back to it. One owner coming from a Fenix 7X had crashes and a 10-second delay starting activities, and both stopped after a factory reset and setting the watch up by hand.

If your Fenix 9 misbehaves, try these in order:

• Restart it. That fixed one owner’s severe battery drain.
• Update to 6.48.
• Factory reset and set it up from scratch, without restoring a backup.
• If it still crashes, ask Garmin for an exchange.

Is it acceptable?

For a $1,000 watch, no. Crashing during navigation and recording activities with gaps are basic failures, and one update in a month isn’t fast enough to fix them.

It isn’t a disaster either. Nothing has bricked, most problems have a workaround, and Garmin is engaging with owners. Fenix 8 owners say their watches took most of a year to settle, and Fenix 9 should follow the same path.

• Buy now if you want the brighter screen, the titanium case or inReach, and can live with a restart now and then. Set it up from scratch.
• Wait for two or three more updates if you’re relying on it for navigation in remote places, or for a race.
• Buy a discounted Fenix 8 if you want most of the same features on software that has had two years to settle. My Fenix 9 vs Fenix 8 guide covers the differences.

All 94 bugs, by area

Each entry says how many people reported it and whether it’s fixed. “Widely reported” means three or more owners or several reviewers. User counts are the distinct posters on the first page of each forum thread, so treat them as a minimum. For Reddit, I give upvotes and comments. Last updated 26 September 2026, software 6.48.

Fixed in software 6.48

• Garmin Locate showed confusing locations and times. Fixed.
• Messenger calls didn’t come through while the watch was still connected to the phone by Bluetooth. Fixed.
• The microphone stopped working if an incoming call interrupted Voice Assistant. Fixed.
• Battery drain on Pro models with an active inReach plan. Fixed, though some owners still report drain (see Battery below).
• Some watch face translation and layout errors. Fixed, though 6.48 introduced new ones (see Display below).
• Voice alerts played in Silent Mode. Fixed.
• Volume up and down steps were wrong. Fixed.

Source: Garmin’s 6.48 release notes. The rollout started at around 20% of watches, so not everyone has it yet. There’s no option to roll back to 6.38. One base Fenix 9 owner on r/GarminWatches says daily drain fell from 6 to 8% a day to 3% after the update, even though the fix was listed for inReach models, and a 43mm Pro owner on the forum went from 25% to 20% a day.

Two other launch problems were fixed outside the watch software. iPhone pairing drops that needed a full re-pair were fixed by Garmin Connect app 5.29 on 9 September, and a Messenger app update fixed a Garmin Messenger crash when replying by voice with music playing.

Crashes, reboots and freezes

• Crash during route navigation. One 47mm Pro inReach owner on the latest software counted 10 crashes on a single 10km route walk: 1km in, again after reloading the route, and again when scrolling data screens. The post has 166 upvotes and 155 comments on r/Garmin, the most-discussed Fenix 9 fault there. Most comments are jokes or Fenix 7, 8 and Epix owners saying navigation crashes on their watches too. Four more Fenix 9 owners in the thread report crashes: a 47mm Pro Solar twice while navigating with Spotify playing, another on a first run after starting Spotify, a Dutch owner still crashing after Garmin told them to update, and an owner moving from a Fenix 7X whose watch crashed mid-run and froze on a commute. A DC Rainmaker commenter reports a Fenix 9 Pro inReach crashing on a routed hike, and two owners in the thread say they had no problems. Widely reported. Open.
• Crash when a notification arrives as you resume a paused run. The screen goes blank, shows a blue triangle and reboots after about a minute. The same crash also happens on Fenix 8. Widely reported, about five owners, Garmin forum. Open, and Garmin staff are collecting data from affected owners.
• Freeze mid-activity with a gap in the recording. The watch freezes, recovers on its own, and leaves one to six minutes with no GPS or heart rate data. Owners link it to opening Messenger, taking an LTE call or changing data screens on 6.48. Widely reported, three owners, Garmin forum. Open, no Garmin reply.
• Constant reboots on some units. One 43mm Pro on 6.48 crashed around 10 times on 21 September, at least 8 on the 22nd and at least 15 on the 23rd, including three times in the first 1.5km of a run and while acquiring GPS; a factory reset didn’t help and the owner returned it (Garmin forum). Another Pro restarts every 10 to 15 minutes after a factory reset (Garmin forum), and a 47mm AMOLED reboots, lags and draws incomplete watch faces after updating to 6.48 (Garmin forum). Widely reported, though each is one owner and other owners say their watches are stable. Garmin is collecting details on the last one.
• Crash when saving a pool swim. The watch resets while saving after the workout summary, on 6.48. Widely reported, three owners, Garmin forum. The activity still syncs to Garmin Connect. One owner stopped it by changing the post-activity menu and a swim data field; Garmin suggests restoring swim activity settings to defaults.
• Random crash during a run. DC Rainmaker’s watch reset while he was running downhill with no button pressed, losing the minutes before he restarted it. His wife’s watch crashed twice while idle. Both were on production software. Single reviewer. Open.
• Restart when changing Sleep Focus settings. Reported on Fenix 9 Pro Solar on 6.38; one poster says the AMOLED model isn’t affected. Widely reported, three owners, Garmin forum. A 47mm Solar owner on r/Garmin posted video of the same crash (47 upvotes, 54 comments), added that the watch crashed overnight and vibrated repeatedly before restarting, and says Garmin is investigating after a phone call. One forum owner fixed it by setting the watch up again without restoring a backup.
• Freeze during a software update. The watch hangs mid-update and needs a restart. About four owners, Garmin forum. One found empty data fields in Garmin Connect were the cause. A separate owner’s brand-new watch stuck on a blue screen after updating to 6.38 and recovered on a second attempt.
• Repeated resets on a Fenix 9 Pro Solar inReach. The watch reset while scrolling menus, during runs and during strength sessions, alongside audio and wrist heart rate failing after calls. A few reports, two owners, Garmin forum. Open.
• Reboot when starting an activity with an HRM 600 paired. Reported on the 51mm Pro inReach, and worse after 6.48. A few reports, two owners, Garmin forum. Open.
• Random reboots that delete an already-saved activity and the day’s steps. This continued after a factory reset on 6.48, and other owners suspect a hardware fault. A matching post on r/GarminFenix describes the same reboots and lost data after a factory reset with no backup restored; it may be the same owner. Single report, Garmin forum.
• Crash when an LTE call arrives during Bluetooth audio. The call plays through the watch speaker, a tone sounds in the earbuds, and the watch freezes until the caller hangs up. Single report, reproducible, Garmin forum.
• Other single crash reports. Owners have reported crashes when scrolling data screens during an outdoor activity, opening Apps and Activities or starting an activity by voice, changing a weight in a live strength session on the phone and then the watch, the watch handing over to LTE mid-run, and opening the Evening Report. One Fenix 9 Pro Solar owner reported random shutdowns in menus after restoring settings from a Fenix 8, and another posted video of a Fenix 9 Pro Solar freezing on r/GarminWatches. Garmin staff have asked for data on most of these.
• Display freezes after connecting to a computer. The watch stays frozen after being unplugged from Garmin Express. A few reports, two owners, Garmin forum. Garmin is investigating. Holding the light button for about 15 seconds forces a restart.
• Freezes while idle, and the clock jumping back 50 minutes afterwards. One owner’s watch froze twice in a day with no activity running, then showed the wrong time (Garmin forum). Garmin is following up by email. Single report.
• Freeze while scrolling during an activity. On 6.48, scrolling between data screens during a run or ride freezes the watch, for up to 10 minutes when the map screen is involved (Garmin forum). Another owner’s watch crashes and restarts, with a blue triangle, every time they scroll to the third data screen on an outdoor walk; Garmin is investigating (Garmin forum). A third reports a crash after a notification. Single reports each.

Speed and lag

• Slow buttons and menus. Owners measure the Start button at two to three seconds and Lap at about a second, with sluggish menus and screen wake. Widely reported: about eight owners agree in Fenix 9 Pro: Poor performance? (almost 3,000 views) and about five in a second thread. No Garmin reply. On Reddit, a Fenix 9 Pro Solar inReach owner found starting and stopping workouts takes one to two seconds, another posted video of slow responses to presses (22 comments), and an owner moving from Fenix 8 found menus only “a tiny bit faster”. Others call the menus snappy. In my own testing, opening a sport profile takes about a second, discarding a workout takes four to five seconds and a cold boot takes 76 seconds.
• Map panning and zooming are still slow. Garmin claims panning is up to 30% faster than Fenix 8. My tests found panning with layers on still takes up to six seconds, and peripheral tiles can take 15 to 16 seconds to draw (full test results). DC Rainmaker found the map “far slower than all of its competitors”, and GPS Training, Mountaineer Journey and The Run Testers all report lag. Widely reported. Not everyone agrees: an r/Garmin video comparing Fenix 9 Pro with Tactix 8 (168 upvotes) shows a clear improvement, and a Fenix 9 Pro Solar owner navigating Swiss glaciers reported “no more lagging”. It’s unlikely to be fixed by software, because Garmin draws its vector maps live on the watch.

Battery

• Severe drain on the 51mm Pro inReach. One owner’s titanium 51mm lasted under 48 hours with inReach and LTE switched off, and the watch was laggy. The post has 89 upvotes and 51 comments on r/Garmin. Restarting the watch fixed it. A second owner of the same model loses about 25% a day, almost all of it to “system”, after copying settings from a Fenix 8. Three other owners in the thread report normal battery life, including 75% left after seven days on a non-inReach Pro. A few reports. A restart is the first fix to try.
• High drain on the 43mm. DC Rainmaker saw “super high battery burn rates” on two 43mm units worn by his wife, though one ran normally on his own profile. TechRadar’s 43mm Pro inReach used 17% on a two-hour hike. Widely reported by reviewers. It’s unclear whether the 6.48 inReach fix covers it.
• Heavy drain after a restart, or from “system”. Reported on the Garmin forum, with one owner seeing 98% fall to 90% after a restart. The thread has 30 replies and almost 2,500 views. Other owners report overnight drops from 50% to flat and 100% to 50%, and daily drain of 45 to 50% attributed to “system/other”, including on a base Fenix 9 without inReach. Widely reported. No Garmin reply, and no owner in the thread says 6.48 fixed it.
• Overnight drain. One owner lost 14% in eight and a half hours and another went from 38% to zero in three hours with no sleep recorded. On r/GarminWatches, a 47mm Pro owner lost 46% in 23 hours with inReach and LTE off (18 comments). On r/Garmin, a Fenix 9 Pro owner went from 80% to 15% overnight twice, the second time on 6.48, with only an audio icon in the battery log and no music or voice assistant set up. A third reported drain and overheating after an update that stopped after powering off for 30 seconds and recharging. Garmin’s advice points to Pulse Ox, LTE and Connect IQ settings. Widely reported. Open.
• Fast drain during navigation with music. A Fenix 9 Pro went from 60% to flat about two hours into a run with map navigation on and music playing to AirPods. The owner also reports occasional random reboots. The post has 42 upvotes and 43 comments on r/GarminWatches and was cross-posted to r/GarminFenix. Single report. Open.
• Watch switches itself off after a run. A 47mm Pro owner lost more than 70% on a 40-minute run using Spotify on the watch, and the watch then shut down overnight, so morning alarms didn’t sound. It didn’t switch to battery saver first. Single report, posted on r/Garmin and r/GarminFenix.
• Battery estimate moves the wrong way when the phone connects or disconnects. Single report, F9 Bug List thread.
• Battery icon wrong on every watch face. A few reports, two owners, Garmin forum. Open.

For how Garmin’s battery figures compare across models, see Sports Watch Battery Life.

GPS

• Accuracy trails Forerunner 970. Fenix 9 Pro scored 79% in my standard 10-mile test, against 92% for Forerunner 970, and 63% in the difficult sections. It bounced off tall buildings and took about 10m to recover after a tunnel (full results). DC Rainmaker found Max Accuracy mode cut into buildings by 10 to 20m downtown but otherwise rated GPS as good. Three forum owners separately say tracks are less consistent than on Fenix 7 or Forerunner 965. Open.
• Battery modes record less often than the profile setting. Extended Battery sometimes drops to one point every two seconds and Max Battery to every five, even with recording set to every second. Found by Michael George at gps-details and covered in my constellation shedding article. Garmin doesn’t document it.
• One wrist much worse in open water. DC Rainmaker wore two watches with identical settings and the right-wrist unit “oddly struggled for most of this swim”. Single report. Reason unknown.

The watch also drops GLONASS mid-activity to save power. That’s by design rather than a bug, and it’s explained in the same article. My GPS accuracy hub has results for every watch I’ve tested.

Heart rate and health

• Wrist heart rate stops mid-activity. The sensor LEDs switch off until the watch is restarted, mainly when playing Bluetooth music or using the map heavily. Seen on 6.38 and 6.48. Widely reported, three owners, Garmin forum. Garmin says it has seen no other reports and is contacting the posters.
• Slow or wrong heart rate at the start of a workout. Breaking Eighty found that about half the time, heart rate sat near 100bpm for up to nine minutes before jumping to the true value. Tom’s Guide saw a short wrong spike at the start of a half marathon. Two forum owners say wrist heart rate lags about five seconds behind a Venu 4 during rapid effort changes. Widely reported. The sensor is the same Elevate Gen 5 used on Fenix 8. More on wrist sensors in my heart rate hub.
• Stress score missing and Endurance Score disappearing. DC Rainmaker’s watch kept saying it needed three days of data for stress despite weeks of 24/7 wear. Endurance Score would vanish, claim it needed two weeks of data, then return half a day later. Single reviewer. Open.
• Call and message vibrations stop when the wrist heart rate sensor is off. A few reports, two owners, Garmin forum. Open.
• Sleep times recorded wrongly. A Fenix 9 Pro Solar inReach owner found one night logged as falling asleep two hours later than they did, something their Fenix 6 Pro never did. Single report, r/GarminWatches.
• Incident detection too sensitive. A 43mm Pro set it off three times in ten days: leaning on a car, knocking a hat brim, and glancing at the watch quickly after a hill sprint. The owner’s Fenix 7 Pro never triggered it. Single report, r/GarminWatches.
• ECG setup never completes. The owner is in Czechia, and ECG worked on their Fenix 8. Single report. Open.
• Wrist sensor completely dead. Single report, probably a hardware fault.

Workouts and training

• Pace Pro breaks. The first split shows as km 2, ahead or behind disappears for the whole run, and no target pace reaches Garmin Connect. Still present on 6.48. Widely reported, three owners, Garmin forum. Open, and Garmin has offered to investigate.
• Pool swims miss lengths. Owners of the 47mm and 51mm Pro report 10 to 34% of lengths missing: 86 of 100 lengths in a 20m pool, and 39 of 60 in another session, with stroke types also misidentified. The same owners say Fenix 8 counted correctly. Widely reported, five or six owners across 20m, 25m, 25-yard and 50m pools, Garmin forum. No Garmin reply. Open.
• Rucking pack weight doesn’t reach Garmin Connect. The weight shows on the watch but is blank in the Connect app and website. Widely reported, four owners, Garmin forum. Garmin says it can’t reproduce it. Open.
• Sync errors and wrong training data. Activities fail to sync, and TrueUp, training load and Training Readiness come out wrong. About six owners, Garmin forum. Still reported after 6.48.
• Rucking shows zero Active Calories. Active Calories stayed at zero for DC Rainmaker’s whole rucking session. Garmin told him the next update would fix it, but it isn’t in the 6.48 notes. Single reviewer. Acknowledged. Rucking on Fenix 9 explained.
• Garmin Epic miscalculates and won’t end. DC Rainmaker found “numerous bugs” in how Epic totals mixed activity types, so remaining distance and climb are wrong when a swim is included. Three forum owners report an Epic that stays active after its end date. The workaround is to delete it or set a past end date on Garmin Connect web. Widely reported. Open.
• Strength rep and set counters are wrong. The rep count shown during rest is wrong on 6.48 (two owners), and the set number can read 65535 or 65536 (two owners). Holding a button won’t change weight in 0.5kg steps, only a tap works; Garmin has logged that one. Open.
• Daily goal notifications arrive when switched off. Widely reported, three owners, Garmin forum. Owners say the bug came across from the Fenix 8 beta. Open.
• Self-evaluation prompt missing after structured strength and HIIT workouts. It still appears after runs. Single report, Garmin forum. Garmin is investigating; the owner suspects a backup restored from an Epix Pro.
• Data field problems during activities. DC Rainmaker’s Lap GAP field didn’t appear. One owner found the heart rate graph field turns grey if data pages are edited mid-activity, the grade field swings between 8% and 14% on a steady climb, and the Back button does nothing in a run unless it’s set as the lap key. Single reports.
• Training Effect missing after a run. Aerobic and Anaerobic Training Effect disappeared from both the watch summary and Garmin Connect after a standard outdoor run on a Fenix 9 Pro Solar, despite continuous heart rate data. Single report, r/Garmin.
• Golf shots missed. A Fenix 9 Pro detects only about 20% of driver shots, where the owner’s Fenix 8 rarely missed one. A replacement unit behaved the same. Garmin support said it had no other reports and sent CT10 club sensors. Single report, r/Garmin.
• Nutrition tracking fails. One Connect+ subscriber’s Nutrition glance keeps saying they need to subscribe. Another owner can use Nutrition on the watch some days, on the phone other days, and sometimes not at all. A few reports, r/Garmin and r/GarminWatches. Open.
• Other single reports. Owners have reported pace and heart rate alerts not firing, the watch’s steps graph staying at zero while the step count updates, indoor tennis logging 0.15 miles in two hours where a Fenix 6 Pro logged 1.5 to 2 miles, Stamina zone times not matching the recorded pace with a Stryd pod, the barometer graph resetting to zero after pool swims (also seen on Fenix 8 Pro), indoor XC ski activities not syncing properly to Strava, and font sizes that won’t shrink again once increased. DC Rainmaker had one rucking session that didn’t send LiveTrack or course data.

Maps and navigation

• Weather overlay shows no rain. The precipitation map layer stays blank. Widely reported, four owners, Garmin forum. Open, no Garmin reply.
• TopoActive street names disappear after a couple of seconds. The precipitation layer causes it, and turning that layer off fixes it. Widely reported, three owners, Garmin forum. Workaround available.
• Late off-course alerts and no turn prompts on hiking routes. One owner found off-course warnings fire about 100m late and routes saved as hikes give no turn prompts; saving them as runs works. Mountaineer Journey also found off-route alerts “a little delayed”. A few reports. Open.
• Rerouting didn’t work at first. TechRadar’s first-impressions test found the watch wouldn’t reroute after going off course. It worked once the launch software had fully rolled out. Resolved.
• Auto-zoom overrides manual zoom and can’t be turned off. A few reports, two owners. Open.
• Nameless “ghost” layer in the map layers menu. It can be switched on and off but has no name or description. Widely reported, about eight owners including some who set up from scratch, Garmin forum (over 1,100 views). No Garmin reply. Open.
• Course point alerts repeat every few seconds. One owner navigating a race got alerts about every three seconds near aid stations and had to turn navigation off (Garmin forum). Garmin says three alerts per course point is normal and suggests turning off Guidance Alerts. Single report.
• Rendering errors. On the MIP Solar model, gravel roads show as thick white lines with black squares. Outdoor Maps+ Topo Pro trails lose their colour coding on 6.48. One owner’s map page wouldn’t return to the data screens. Single reports each.
• Wahoo Kickr power drops out. Power from a Kickr paired over ANT+ drops to zero for long stretches and reads about 20W off the Wahoo app. Single report. Wi-Fi interference has been suggested but not confirmed.

Display and watch faces

• Call screen stays on after the call ends, and ringing continues after answering on the phone. Also affects Fenix 8. Widely reported, three owners, Garmin forum. Garmin is reviewing it.
• Flashlight brightness pop-up stays on screen and blocks the up and down buttons. This is new in 6.48. Single report, Garmin forum. Garmin’s team is reviewing it.
• Wrist gesture stops working after a call. Reported on the 51mm AMOLED on 6.48, and a restart fixes it. A few reports, two owners. A third owner loses the gesture during treadmill runs.
• Watch face bugs. Garmin has reproduced the Forge face showing a white heart rate graph until the face refreshes. Three owners say the Dynamo side bar doesn’t match its data. Two report the Sand Dunes hour hand drawing wrongly, though Garmin couldn’t reproduce it on 6.48. After 6.48, one 51mm owner found the stock face had shrunk and one saw Romanian day names cut to two letters.
• Sunrise and sunset arrow doesn’t rotate. The direction arrow in the sunrise and sunset widget stopped following the wrist after 6.38, on both the 51mm AMOLED and 51mm Solar Pro inReach. A few reports, one on r/Garmin and one on the Garmin forum. Open.
• MIP screen leaves a white patch. On a Fenix 9 Solar, pressing Lap between gym sets briefly leaves part of the screen white. Single report with video, r/Garmin (17 comments). Open.
• MIP brightness steps don’t work on 6.48. On the Pro Solar, raising brightness from 5% to 10 or 15% does nothing, and lowering it back to 10% makes the screen brighter. A few reports, two owners, Garmin forum. Garmin couldn’t reproduce it and asked for video.
• Morning Report display faults. One owner’s screen stayed lit for about 30 minutes, and another’s looked cloudy and pixelated during the report. Single reports each.
• Other single reports. Colour Shift does nothing while Do Not Disturb is on. The screen distorted for three to four seconds when a notification arrived. The Pulse Ox widget has no button haptics. TechRadar found the touchscreen oversensitive, opening the weather forecast in the shower. In the Sleep focus mode, the screen switches on randomly when the watch is off the wrist. The World Time face’s outer numbers are clipped when the always-on display shifts to prevent burn-in; Garmin couldn’t reproduce it. The tide widget shows feet with every unit set to metric. Maps switch to night colours after sunset even with night mode turned off. Button and notification vibration stopped after sleep Pulse Ox was enabled, until a restart.

Bluetooth, music and calls

• Music crackles and cuts out during runs. It happens with AirPods Pro 3, Beats Fit Pro and Shokz, and is worse when skipping tracks, on lap alerts, or with LTE and an HRM 600 running together. Widely reported, about nine owners across two threads. Garmin suggested turning off the phone’s Bluetooth. Open.
• AirPods disconnect repeatedly and come back at full volume. One owner counted six disconnections in a 15km run on 6.48. Widely reported, about five owners, Garmin forum. Open, no Garmin reply.
• Shorter Bluetooth range than Forerunner 970, 965 or Epix. About five owners, Garmin forum. Garmin says there’s no range reduction on Fenix 9. Disputed.
• Tinny or crackly call audio until the volume is changed. Reported with iPhones on 6.48. Widely reported, three owners. Open.
• Speaker distorts at high volume. I found the speaker sounds broken at its default volume, and the F9 Bug List thread reports crackle at high volume. A GarminNews roundup of other reviews says it sounds “tinny at higher volumes”. Other owners say it’s louder than Fenix 8’s. Widely reported. Open.
• Airplane Mode doesn’t block Bluetooth. Activities still sync when saved, and call notifications still arrive. A few reports, one on the Garmin forum, where staff moved it to email support, and one with video on r/GarminWatches. Open.
• Won’t pair with a new iPhone. A 47mm inReach that worked with an iPhone 17 refused to connect to a new iPhone 18 Pro. Single report, r/GarminWatches (21 comments).
• Notifications stop on Android. After an update, notifications stopped every few hours on a Nothing Phone 3 while Garmin Connect still showed the watch connected, alongside battery drain. Re-pairing fixes it for five or six hours. The same phone works with Fenix 8. Single report, r/Garmin.
• Static on voice notes after 6.48. Recorded voice notes carry a loud high-pitched hiss that wasn’t there before the update. A few reports, two owners of the 51mm Pro, Garmin forum; one says a replacement watch does the same. Open.
• Other single reports. Garmin Connect stops serving weather and Connect IQ to the watch while Bluetooth stays connected, until the iPhone is restarted. Garmin Pay shows as disabled when it’s enabled in Connect, and a US owner couldn’t get any of their cards to work with it. Call volume on a base Fenix 9 stays low even at maximum. Siri repeats its prompts. Messenger voice messages send as zero seconds long. Switching off headphones during a Messenger LTE call drops the call. Connect IQ store search returned nothing for two owners.

LTE and inReach

• Satellite messages fail with a clear sky and good signal. Widely reported, three owners, Garmin forum. The workaround is to set the watch to satellite only rather than LTE and satellite. No Garmin reply.
• Satellite demo never connects. It stays on “connecting” with two bars. A few reports, two owners, on the 51mm Pro. Open.
• Emergency contacts can’t be saved. After activating an inReach plan, Garmin Connect asks for emergency contacts but rejects every attempt with a generic error. Single report, r/Garmin. The owner has a support ticket open.
• inReach activation blocked by an old account. One owner couldn’t activate inReach because of an old Earthmate account from an inReach Mini (Garmin forum), and another was blocked by an old Roadpost balance that support cleared. Single reports each.
• “Unable to send message” alerts with nothing sent. The watch repeatedly reported failed messages while out of coverage, although the owner hadn’t tried to send one. Garmin Locate may be the cause. Single report.
• Morning Report gets no weather over LTE. Single report.

DC Rainmaker and TechRadar both describe satellite messaging as slow and fiddly, with a 20 to 30 second lock time and a fallback mode that asks you to take the watch off and turn it round. That’s a limit of the geostationary satellite system rather than a bug.

Garmin Express on Mac

• Maps won’t install and updates fail on Macs. Transfers stop at 40 to 50% with “Some files could not be sent”, and map layers show as 0.0KB. Garmin Express still isn’t built for Apple Silicon, and macOS 27 made it worse. Outdoor Maps+ downloads such as swisstopo also show as 0.0KB on Fenix 9 while working on Fenix 8. This is the most widely confirmed Fenix 9 problem, with four to seven owners in each of four forum threads, including this one, and a matching report on r/GarminWatches. Garmin says it is investigating and told DC Rainmaker a new Express would come before the end of the year. The workarounds are a Windows PC, downloading maps over Wi-Fi on the watch, the Awesome Maps Connect IQ app for swisstopo and Canadian maps, or Terento. More detail here.

Translations

• Language errors. Vietnamese is listed as “Việt Nam” in settings rather than “Tiếng Việt”, and Czech text is missing from Sleep Coach insights on 6.48. Garmin has logged both.

Not bugs, but catching owners out

• Battery life well short of Garmin’s figures. One owner got nine to 13 days instead of 31 until turning off “OK Garmin”, which roughly doubled it. Another got eight days with the always-on display on.
• Beeps in activities despite Silent Mode. Owners on the Garmin forum and r/Garmin reported this. Activity sounds are set inside the Activity focus mode, which overrides Silent Mode, and 6.48 fixed voice alerts playing in Silent Mode. The always-on display staying lit during activities works the same way.
• No forced multi-band setting. Max Accuracy is the old All + Multi-Band mode under a new name, and SatIQ now runs in every mode.
• AMOLED dims too aggressively. Four or more forum owners have complained, and Garmin says it works as designed. On r/Garmin, owners say the dimmed always-on screen is unreadable in sun until a wrist gesture wakes it, and the gesture often fails with the watch worn on the inside of the wrist.
• No black-on-white menus on MIP. A Fenix 6 Pro owner who moved to the 9 Pro Solar misses the option, which made menus easier to read outdoors.
• MIP Solar screen looks dull. A Fenix 9 Pro Solar screenshot in DC Rainmaker’s review prompted an r/GarminWatches thread (44 upvotes, 81 comments) asking whether the MIP display is dimmer than earlier models. DC Rainmaker wrote that anyone claiming MIP is easier to see in any lighting in 2026 is “factually wrong”. Other owners prefer it for its always-on visibility. Nobody has shown a fault, so this is a design trade-off.
• Raw titanium scratches quickly. Three or four forum owners report bezel scratches after a few days. The case is Grade 2 titanium, which is softer than the Grade 5 used on Marq, and scratches on the raw finish can be polished out.
• Missing course point field and screen. There’s no distance-to-next-course-point field or course points list like Edge 850 has. Garmin treats it as a feature request.
• Alerts pull you back from the watch face to the activity. Garmin says that’s intended.
• Portal face numbers stay bright in always-on mode. Garmin says Portal dims without changing the numbers; Portal 2 switches to outlined digits.
• Concept2 PM5 shows no power. Another owner gets power by pairing the PM5 as a fitness trainer over ANT+ with an open connection and updating the PM5 firmware.
• Sleep not detected. Garmin says there are no widespread reports; another owner points to the Sleep focus schedule not matching actual bedtime.
• Battery saver can’t be scheduled. Owners on the forum and r/Garmin want it to switch on automatically during sleep hours. That’s a feature request.
• Skin temperature is blank at first. It needs days to weeks of wear before it shows.
• Blank white map. The map theme is set to None.
• Navigation arrow flips 180°. The compass needs calibrating.
• Connect IQ apps listed as incompatible. WhatsApp, YouTube Music, FlightScanner and Garmin’s own Hydration app were missing at launch, according to owners on the forum and r/GarminWatches. They’re waiting on their developers to add Fenix 9 support.
• ArcheryX won’t calibrate with a recurve bow. It’s built for compound bows.
• The NRST shortcut does nothing. It’s an aviation feature.
• Battery reads 94% just after unplugging, and the battery widget shows a July charge date. The date updates at the next charge.

Found a Fenix 9 bug that isn’t listed, or had one of these fixed? Say so in the comments, with your model and software version, and I’ll add it.

More on Fenix 9 and Garmin

• Garmin Fenix hub: every Fenix model, test and guide
• Garmin hub: all Garmin watches, bike computers and features
• Best Garmin Fenix: which model to buy
• Fix Files: weekly fixes and workarounds for sports watch faults
• Fenix 9 vs Fenix 9 Pro: hardware compared
• Garmin Fenix 9 vs Apple Watch Ultra 4

Quick answers

How many bugs does the Fenix 9 have?
94 so far, counted across Garmin’s forum, Reddit and reviews. Seven are fixed in software 6.48, about 30 are widely reported and the rest come from one or two owners each.

Which Fenix 9 bugs are the most serious?
Crashes during navigation and activities, battery drain, pool swims missing lengths, Pace Pro failing, and maps failing to install from a Mac.

Has Garmin fixed any Fenix 9 bugs?
Seven, in software 6.48 on 15 September, mostly for inReach, calls and volume. The activity crashes are still open.

Should I buy a Fenix 9 now or wait?
Buy now if you want the new screen, titanium case or inReach and can put up with the odd restart. Wait for two or three more updates if you need it for remote navigation or a race, or buy a discounted Fenix 8.

How do I stop my Fenix 9 crashing?
Restart it, update to 6.48, then factory reset and set it up from scratch without restoring a backup from an older Garmin. If it still crashes, ask Garmin for an exchange.

Why is my Fenix 9 battery draining so fast?
Restart the watch first, which fixed one owner’s severe drain. Then check the battery log: turning off OK Garmin, the always-on display and all-day Pulse Ox fixes most cases. Drain logged as system often follows restoring settings from an older watch, and a clean setup is the fix.

Does the Fenix 9 have map lag?
Less than Fenix 8, but yes. Panning with layers on still takes up to six seconds, and outer map tiles can take 15 seconds or more to draw.

Can I roll back Fenix 9 software?
No. Garmin staff have confirmed there’s no option to roll back software on Fenix 9.

Last Updated on 26 September 2026 by the5krunner