What caused the Garmin Connect outage? Reasons explored

Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are unable to access Garmin Connect due to a significant outage.

There has been a significant outage on the Garmin Connect app, the web application that lets users record their statistics and track their activities. Although the Garmin Connect app displays certain statistics, it is much less user-friendly.

Don't worry; Garmin's watches seem to be still collecting data. However, early on Wednesday morning, the Connect platform, which correlates fitness data and shares it with other platforms like Strava, crashed. As of right now, Garmin has not responded to inquiries regarding what went wrong or whether any personal information was lost.

The app, not the company website, was impacted by the issues, which began at approximately 0200 PT (1000 UTC). People who were eager to share their fitness objectives were nevertheless irritated.

One user of the app posted their reaction on X: "No way I’ve just finished a ten-mile run and Garmin is having an outage omfg"

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Few already started speculating about the reason behind the outage with one person writing: "my Garmin app says that they are currently experiencing an outage. I suspect they got hacked again. Anyone?"

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According to DownDector, a website that displays real outages, users appear to be affected from all over the world. Australia, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and numerous more nations have been affected.

Given that Garmin just announced the Garmin Instinct 3, their newest watch, this outage couldn't have happened at a worse moment.

The affected platforms and features

The following platforms are unavailable, according to Garmin's status page:

Garmin Connect
Garmin Dive
Garmin Golf
Connect IQ
Garmin Jr.
LiveTrack
Garmin Express
Tacx

Furthermore, a number of features are not available either, such as:

Activity Details
Activity Uploads
Challenges & Connections
Courses
Daily Summary
ECG
Garmin Coach
Garmin Pay
Incident Detection & Assistance
Reports
Segments
Strava
Third-Party Sync
Wellness Sync
Workouts

Reason for the outage

The Swiss fitness company has experienced issues before, and Garmin is not disclosing the reason for the outage. While responding to the issue, the manufacturer's servers were unavailable for five days in 2020 due to a suspected ransomware assault.

Yesterday's status page indicated that everything is good for the time being, therefore it's time to start telling others how far you ran today once more.

What is Garmin?

Gary Burrell and Min Kao established Garmin Ltd., formerly known as ProNav, in 1989 in Lenexa, Kansas, with its operating offices located in Olathe, Kansas.

The company is an international technology company with Swiss headquarters. The business has been formally incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, since 2010.

The business focuses on GNSS technology for outdoor, sporting, marine, automobile, and aviation applications.

As a result of their advancements in wearable technology, they have also been in competition with Fitbit and Apple, two consumer developers of activity trackers and smartwatches.

As part of Research Triangle Park, Garmin constructed a plant in Cary, North Carolina, in 2010. In addition to the USA, UK, and Taiwan, Garmin has operations in a number of additional nations.