Why Does My Garmin Watch Show the “blue Triangle of Death” (and How to Fix It)
If your Garmin watch is displaying a blue triangle, you’re not alone: Forerunner, Fenix, and Epix watch users are reporting this issue today, and Garmin is looking into it. There is no official fix yet, but below I will share what users say worked for them.
The company told me via email: “Garmin is investigating reports of devices displaying a blue triangle when triggering GPS activity. Resetting by pressing and holding the power button may restore functionality. We will provide more information about the permanent fix when it is available.”
What’s the problem?
Users report that their watch goes into a “boot loop” where it keeps rebooting but never manages to fully start up. The clock displays a blue triangle, as shown in this Reddit post .
According to comments on various Reddit posts, Epix, Fenix, Forerunner, Venu and Vivoactive watches appear to be affected.
The blue triangle issue can be caused by triggering GPS activity, which Garmin acknowledges in its statement above. Some users noticed it happened after logging non-GPS activity, and one says it started while they were scrolling through a “weather app/widget.”
Reddit users speculate that the problem could be caused by a faulty GPS file. According to this theory, it doesn’t matter when your watch was last updated or whether you’re in the beta program (which provides early access to new features). Rather, the corrupted file will sync with your watch during normal use. This might explain why it started to affect so many people at the same time.
However, I was unable to reproduce this issue on the Vivoactive 5 or Forerunner 265. On both, I started and ended the GPS Walk several times and the watch remained functional. Earlier this morning I did some strength training without GPS on my 265S and also checked the weather from the same watch. No problems so far, but I’m hesitant to try using GPS.
How to solve the problem (possibly)
So far, Garmin has not made any announcements about a fix, other than to say that resetting the settings sometimes helps.
Reddit users went even further, recommending that users connect the watch to a PC using a data/charging cable and delete a specific file from the watch. Here’s a Reddit comment describing this procedure , but Garmin has not confirmed whether this accurately describes the problem or solution.
At this point, Garmin suggests holding the power button until the watch turns off and then turning the watch back on. On the Forerunner, the power button is in the top left corner and labeled “light.” Here are instructions on how to do this on other watch models. I’ll update this post with more information about the potential fix when it becomes available.