If your Garmin watch is showing a blue triangle, you’re not alone—users of Forerunner, Fenix, and Epix watches have been reporting this issue today, and Garmin is looking into it. There’s no official fix yet, but I’ll share below what users are saying has worked for them.
The company told me in an email: “Garmin is researching reports of devices displaying a blue triangle when starting a GPS activity. A reset by pressing and holding the power button may restore functionality. We will provide more information on a permanent fix when available.”
What is the problem?
Users are reporting that their watch will go into a “boot loop,” where it keeps rebooting but never managing to fully start up. The watch displays a blue triangle, as shown in this Reddit post.
Epix, Fenix, Forerunner, Venu, and Vivoactive watches seem to be affected, according to comments in various Reddit posts.
The blue triangle issue may be triggered by starting a GPS activity, which Garmin acknowledges in its statement above. Some users noticed it happened after logging a non-GPS activity, and one says it started when they scrolled over a “weather app/widget.”
Reddit users are speculating that the issue may have been caused by a faulty GPS file. According to this theory, it doesn’t matter when your watch was last updated, or whether you are in the beta program (which grants early access to new features). Rather, the corrupted file would be synced to your watch during normal use. That would explain why it started affecting so many people at once.
That said, I wasn’t able to reproduce this issue on a Vivoactive 5 or a Forerunner 265. On both, I started and finished a GPS “Walk” activity several times and the watch stayed functional. Earlier this morning I did a non-GPS strength activity on my 265S and also viewed the weather from the same watch. No issues so far, but I’m hesitant to try a GPS activity.
How to fix the issue (maybe)
So far, Garmin has not issued any statements about a fix, besides noting that a reset sometimes helps.
Redditors have gone a few steps further, recommending that users connect the watch to a PC with a data/charging cable, and deleting a specific file from the watch. Here is the Reddit comment describing this procedure, but Garmin has not confirmed whether this accurately describes the issue or the fix.
Garmin’s suggestion at this point is to hold the power button until the watch turns off, and then turn the watch on again. On a Forerunner, the power button is the top left one, labeled “light.” Here are instructions for how to do this on other watch models. I’ll update this post with more information on a potential fix when it is available.
