So after finally getting outside to ride I discovered today my Garmin 520 is not connecting to gps? Tried everything to no avail. I think last firmware update was last oct-November maybe. Don’t remember but have not been out side since last September so sometime after that. Anybody have same issue in the last 6 months and any clue how to fix it? I have not tried a complete factory reset yet was hoping I wouldn’t have to try that. I don’t know if tha5 would work anyway.


Any help would be appreciated.

how long did you let it try? I think you will have to do a factory reset though

A GPS when new does not know the time or where it is. It often can take quite a few minutes to figure that stuff out. If your battery ran all the way down, you might have the same situation as a new GPS. Try it for 15 to 20 minutes where there is a clear view of the sky.

GPS units often are poor in accuracy for the first 10 to 20 minutes after not being used for a while, the GPS has to load updated info from the satellites on their orbits. That is why I suggested you try it for 15 to 20 minutes.

If that does not do it, then see if your firmware needs updating.

In addition to the other suggestions, have you tried reaching out to Garmin. Even if it's not under warranty, my experience has been that their support is pretty good at working with you to resolve issues like this without sending it in for repair. Worst case, most issues they will fix for a fee, even if it's not under warranty. I've had them replace two out of warranty Vivoactive watches for about $100 each.

I recently had an update when I
connected it to my computer.
Ride name used to say the city ,
now it says the county.
Probably some other changes to do with
privacy & location .
Privacy stuff like selling user data ,
location, Strava & other info concerns.
Maybe the default settings now
lean to user privacy.

GPS enabled ?

While I've seldom had issues with my Garmin, others do. For a certain number of those it seems that doing a re-set, particularly after an update solves their problems. However I've never had a re-set solve the occassional issue on my Edge 500, but it did solve an issue on a Nuvi one time.

I thinks some devices have two different kinds of resets... one will just do minor resets of default settings and clear whatever caches the program uses. Another will completely wipe out your saved info as well as user settings. So just like a computer..... back it up.

As another said.... Call Garmin. Don't email. They have always been willing to help me rectify things that don't require physical servicing on the phone even with stuff many years out of warranty.

Thanks for all the tips....I tried this morning again to no resolution. Messed with it outside for some time. I wasn't ready to do a reset yet so I called Garmin. CS was great. They told me that the firmware update last fall had a couple of issues with some people that when it updated it would mistakenly delete the GPS file and therefore not allow some units to obviously connect to GPS.


They said I would need to send it in to get the head reconfigured by a tech person to fix the issue. I ask the CS person to just send me the file and where to put it and I could do it myself and not be down my beloved 520 for weeks. They said they could not do that.


So I went to the Garmin help page and went back to October and read through the archives to see if anyone had the back end way to fix it. After of about 20 minutes of searching sure enough I found a guy who put the file out and directions where to put it for the fix. Sure enough it worked like a charm. Copied the file to the head unit, restarted the 520. It did the GPS update and after about 5 minutes it was back online. PERFECT!!!


Garmin CS is good they have helped me once before with no complaints. Just wish they would have sent me the file and saved me the work.


Bottom line I am back up and running....thanks all!!


Ride on

They Garmin CS person said the same thing. In the off season a person should once every 3-4 weeks take the unit and go for a drive with it. Just to make sure its all good...keep the files fresh or something. Long periods of not using the GPS like over winter can cause issues sometimes he said. Lesson learned for me I guess.

I never bother to use each of my GPS units on a frequent basis. Some of mine have not been used for a couple years. But, I have always found that if I turn it on outside where there is a clear view of the sky for a 15 to 20 minutes, that way the GPS can download the revised satellite orbit information.

When you first turn on a GPS, it looks at the internal clock and looks at the orbit data in its database and tries to figure out where the satellites should be. It then tries to get a location fix based on that data and it starts assuming that your location has not changed much since it was last used. Thus, if the internal clock is wrong or if the orbit data is old or if you have moved the GPS unit a few thousand miles from last time it was used, each of those things can cause it to start up much slower and with poor accuracy.

I am not disagreeing with the Garmin tech you talked to, the Garmin people built a business on GPS units and they know their stuff. (I used to own stock in Garmin a decade and a half ago so I have an idea on the company history.) I am just elaborating more on why it can start up kind of slow.

Nope, I hear what your saying for sure. I waited an hour for the signal, then I called Garmin and got to the software issue.


I have never had my 520 take more than 2 minutes to find a signal. I start and finish in the same place every ride mostly too. Just was a weird deal. Just glad I got it figured out quickly

Wow, I've never had my 500 take more than 8-10 minutes to find signal and that didn't have glonass! The 520 is much faster, but I've only had it for a year or so and haven't had it off for any long periods of time. But the 500 sat for 4 months and it still only took the usual 8-10 minutes to find satellites. I *have* had issues where it says "Working ..." for long periods of time. When it finally finishes (this can take 20-30 minutes), I notice that all of the files on the device get current timestamps. I don't know what on earth (pun intended) it is doing reading the files on stored disk. But this situation only happened if when I unplugged the garmin from Mac without ejecting first. Shame on me.