Blue “triangle of death” issue renders thousands of Garmin cycling computers and smartwatches temporarily unusable... but there are now numerous fixes (sort of)

Several models of Garmin cycling computers and smartwatches are facing a bug which forces the device to crash and enter a reboot loop when accessing any GPS-related activities. The tech giant has now published a number of resolutions on its website specific to individual devices, although many users are still claiming the workarounds failed for them. 

The issues were first reported yesterday with several users posting the dreaded blue “triangle of death” on various social media platforms. So far, the non-exhaustive list of devices affected by the issue includes the cycling computers Garmin Edge 1040 and 1050, as well many within its smartwatch series, including Descent, Forerunner, Epix, Tactix 7, Fenix 7/8, Venu 3, Vivoactive 4/5 and the recently launched Instinct 3.

The issue seems to be caused by any activity that attempts to make use of the GPS feature, so if you’re about to start an outdoor ride or a run, just hovering over the options on the watch or the cycling computer is enough to make the device crash and restart in just a few seconds.

This means that users can still access indoor activities, but success ratios have varied depending on the device — and how quickly the user can navigate to switch the activity to an indoor version.

Blue "triangle of death" on Garmin smartwatches (images shared by users on social media)

Garmin has been somewhat vague about what caused the outage since the start of this debacle, but one of the fixes published on its website now confirm a corrupted pre-cache file (CPE.bin file) that tells the device how to connect to the GPS satellites is responsible (confirmed because Garmin recommends deleting the CPE.bin file to fix Garmin Edge devices). The situation is similar to the January 2021 GPS blackout caused by Sony’s GPS chipsets, except that time, Garmin wasn’t the only one affected, with other wearable and activity tracking device manufacturers like Suunto, Coros and Wahoo also facing issues.

Many users have expressed disappointment and anger at their devices being bricked at random, causing them to lose their activity streaks, some even calling this "the final straw needed to switch to Coros/Polar”.

Others have taken the opportunity to make memes and jokes out of the situation, comparing the company’s blue triangle logo to the Squid Game Triangle. One person shared a screenshot of their device captioned, “Garmin has the audacity to call me unproductive”, while another cheekily labelled the collective distress event as the “Great Garmin Bootloop 2025” (although I prefer Garminator 2: Fudgement Day).

Garmin steps competition
byu/burboniuch inGarmin

How to fix it

As we've already mentioned, the fixes differ depending on your device and involve varying levels of difficulty. For Garmin Edge cycling computers, we're now being told to skip straight to removing the offending CPE.bin file to fix the device. You'll need to connect it to a Windows computer, locate the Garmin folder, find the RemoteSW folder within that, and then delete the CPE.bin file within that. Disconnect your device and you should be good to go, but if not then you'll need to do a master reset. Head to Garmin's website for instructions. 

For most of the watches affected included the Forerunner series, Garmin is only recommending a complete factory reset to fix the issue, which unfortunately means you'll lose data from your Garmin Wallet, Connect IQ content, your customised data fields and "some loss of steps" (sorry new year's resolutioners). If you think you have no option but to go nuclear, you can factory reset by pressing and holding the upper left power button on your device for 30-60 seconds until the screen goes blank and the device restarts.

An explainer article from tech guru DC Rainmaker does include instructions for manually removing the offending file from any affected device, but it's a little more involved than Garmin's fix for Edge computers.

road.cc has reached out to Garmin for additional comment. In the meantime, let us know in the comments whether you are facing any issues with your Garmin devices or not. And if yes, have you managed to find a workaround?