Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

vosadrian
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Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby vosadrian » Mon Jan 08, 2018 3:58 pm

Hi All,

My family has a couple of Edge 500s. I use one to ride to work. I have used it for about 5 years now with only some minor issues. When I leave work in the evening, I start the activity in an underground car park without GPS and it then acquires GPS while riding and I have been happy with doing this even though sometimes the GPS does not acquire for a couple of kms into my ride. Late last year (mid December??), I started having an issue where the rides would be recorded as a certain date in 1999, and always the same date, so Connect would then fail to upload since after the first time it thought the rides were duplicates. At first this only happened on my unit so I assumed it had an issue with my hardware. Then a few days later my wife complained her 500 was not uploading and it had the same thing. She rides indoors on a trainer without GPS so was starting the activity with no GPS and the date was identical to mine. Then a few days after that I noticed someone I follow on Strava with a ride recorded on the exact same date.

So it seems this issue is not isolate to my personal unit, and it it seems to have started only after a certain date recently, so it sounds like some sort of firmware bug. There is a workaround which is to wait until GPS is acquired before starting the activity, but this is an issue for my wife as she does her activity indoors without GPS. I did some Googling and cannot find much else about it, but I was just wondering if anyone had similar experience to me? Is there a solution?

Cheers,

Adrian
Last edited by vosadrian on Tue Jan 09, 2018 9:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

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MichaelB
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Data Problem

Postby MichaelB » Tue Jan 09, 2018 9:34 am

Can't offer anything helpful.

Suggestion is buy a Wahoo instead of the Garmin when you replace it though.

vosadrian
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby vosadrian » Tue Jan 09, 2018 10:03 am

No Wahoo for me. We'll see if they are reliable when they are as old as this 500 is. The 500 has been great for me with only minor issues until now (like one lost ride in 5 years or something). I also have a 520 for my good bike which had some minor teething issues when it was new and firmware had many bugs but is very good now. I suspect there is a bug in 500 firmware that was triggered by a recent date and it may be a case of getting enough people to complain to Garmin for them to support an obsolete device.

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MichaelB
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby MichaelB » Tue Jan 09, 2018 1:42 pm

Well, hope it all gets sorted.

I've been a longtime Garmin user as well (305/500/520 and tested the 1030) and they have worked pretty well. But the Wahoo is MUCH better in a lot of ways. Support is a major one.

The 520 was the worst one for me, and the USB died in 2 years, so it was toast. Got the Bolt & haven't looked back. The 500 was probably the best one so far.

vosadrian
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby vosadrian » Tue Jan 09, 2018 1:59 pm

MichaelB wrote:Well, hope it all gets sorted.

I've been a longtime Garmin user as well (305/500/520 and tested the 1030) and they have worked pretty well. But the Wahoo is MUCH better in a lot of ways. Support is a major one.

The 520 was the worst one for me, and the USB died in 2 years, so it was toast. Got the Bolt & haven't looked back. The 500 was probably the best one so far.
Yeah, the 500 has been a trusty favourite. I use it for my commuting. It has logged thousands of rides (surprised the USB connector still works!!)... perfectly all but once or twice until recently. I only got the 520 for the good bike as I travel with that bike and it is nice to upload via the phone. I only USB connect it occasionally for charging. Also I prefer using a different computer on each bike as the setup is quite different so I have them configured quite differently (one has PM, and is used for racing etc, while other is basic and just used for commuting). I've not tried the Wahoo, but I am pretty happy with the Garmin stuff as I have not had major issues that you seem to have had. Also, I use their fitness tracking and generally am pretty entrenched in the Garmin Connect Ecosystem.

Many years ago I used a Garmin Geko for multiple GPS things... mainly windsurfing and bike riding prior to my Edge. It developed an issue where it would get crazy dates for activities. It seemed to have some Y2K type bug but in around 2010. It was long obsolete, but enough users complained and they did a firmware update to fix the issue. There may be hope for the 500 yet!!

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Comedian
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby Comedian » Tue Jan 09, 2018 2:54 pm

The 500 has a basic GPS receiver, and I know they are very fussy about where they are when they are locked on. I also know they can take a long time to lock on. At the time the 800 was much less fussy. I don't know why your unit would suddenly start doing this.

Can you do the experiment and turn your garmin on as you leave the building. I know you'll miss the first few hundred metres, but just for interest sake?

vosadrian
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby vosadrian » Tue Jan 09, 2018 3:24 pm

Comedian wrote:The 500 has a basic GPS receiver, and I know they are very fussy about where they are when they are locked on. I also know they can take a long time to lock on. At the time the 800 was much less fussy. I don't know why your unit would suddenly start doing this.

Can you do the experiment and turn your garmin on as you leave the building. I know you'll miss the first few hundred metres, but just for interest sake?
A little more detail. The time is displayed before GPS signal acquisition. At this time the time is incorrect. When it gets GPS acquisition, it then reads the correct time. At this point if you start the activity recording, all will be good.

I have a software engineering background. My guess is that for some reason when the unit boots up it is not accepting the time it has stored in its internal clock (or the internal clock is reset or lost time for some reason). Then it resets the time to zero, which happens to be around 10am 22/8/99. It then keeps this time until it gets GPS acquisition and then it accepts the time from the GPS signal as the new time. If you happen to start the activity before the time is correct, it will start recording at the time when you press start. The file is created based on that start time, and the data is recorded for the incorrect time until it is corrected. As a result, Connect and Strava will date that activity at the incorrectly recorded time. I think the bug is in whatever causes the time to be incorrect on bootup... probably some bug in a boundary condition check resulting in a reset to zero.

Here is a couple of activities that this happened on:

https://www.strava.com/activities/1322630110
https://www.strava.com/activities/1318106293

Notice that if you go to strava analysis and then select to see based on time, the activity is 20 years long. Also elapsed time on activity is 160639:02:01.

So there is a workaround for me... just wait until GPS acquisition before pressing start. Unfortunately this is a pain for my wife who uses hers indoors without GPS to record her KICKR sessions.

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biker jk
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby biker jk » Tue Jan 09, 2018 4:33 pm

Is the 500 Garmin's modern version of H.G. Wells' time machine? :lol:

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CaffeineAU
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby CaffeineAU » Tue Jan 09, 2018 7:20 pm

Does the device have a separate back up battery for the RTC? Perhaps that is flat.

Gerry.M
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby Gerry.M » Wed Jan 10, 2018 7:49 am

Mine has started doing the same in recent weeks, as has a colleagues at work so i don't think it's simply a battery issue.

A corrupted ride from last week was one where I hit record before it had acquired a GPS lock, so likely that's the cause but having said that I've often done this over the last 5yrs of owning it.

vosadrian
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby vosadrian » Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:48 am

Gerry.M wrote:Mine has started doing the same in recent weeks, as has a colleagues at work so i don't think it's simply a battery issue.

A corrupted ride from last week was one where I hit record before it had acquired a GPS lock, so likely that's the cause but having said that I've often done this over the last 5yrs of owning it.
I have hit record before satellite acquisition hundreds of times riding home from work. It only started causing an issue in recent weeks. It is a firmware bug that causes it to reject the time it has stored and reset to 0. A little research reveals that the time of 10am AEST 22 Aug 99 was a time that caused a rollover of the clock on the GPS time system (midnight in USA)... so this must be 0 time for the Garmin products. I am pretty sure the on board clock uses the rechargeable battery for power. I would say this issue cannot be fixed without Garmin intervention. There is of course a workaround which is to wait for GPS acquisition before hitting record which is fine for most but not all.

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queequeg
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby queequeg » Wed Jan 10, 2018 1:49 pm

vosadrian wrote:
Gerry.M wrote:Mine has started doing the same in recent weeks, as has a colleagues at work so i don't think it's simply a battery issue.

A corrupted ride from last week was one where I hit record before it had acquired a GPS lock, so likely that's the cause but having said that I've often done this over the last 5yrs of owning it.
I have hit record before satellite acquisition hundreds of times riding home from work. It only started causing an issue in recent weeks. It is a firmware bug that causes it to reject the time it has stored and reset to 0. A little research reveals that the time of 10am AEST 22 Aug 99 was a time that caused a rollover of the clock on the GPS time system (midnight in USA)... so this must be 0 time for the Garmin products. I am pretty sure the on board clock uses the rechargeable battery for power. I would say this issue cannot be fixed without Garmin intervention. There is of course a workaround which is to wait for GPS acquisition before hitting record which is fine for most but not all.
Ah, the fun of date Epochs.

I went and had a look, and it seems GPS uses a 1024 week window for determining the dates. The original epoch used was back in 1980, which is what led to the last rollover in August 1999. The next one is not due until 2019.
So, it makes sense that any GPS device released after August 1999 would use the 1999 rollover date as the Epoch. So, until it acquires a GPS Signal, it won't know what the current GPS Week is, and since you can't set the clock on the Garmin (as time/location comes from the signal), the real question is what else is going on in the Garmin Firmware that it now is not keeping track of the date at the last powerup.
'11 Lynskey Cooper CX, '00 Hillbrick Steel Racing (Total Rebuild '10), '16 Cervelo R5, '18 Mason BokekTi

vosadrian
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby vosadrian » Wed Jan 10, 2018 2:04 pm

queequeg wrote: Ah, the fun of date Epochs.

I went and had a look, and it seems GPS uses a 1024 week window for determining the dates. The original epoch used was back in 1980, which is what led to the last rollover in August 1999. The next one is not due until 2019.
So, it makes sense that any GPS device released after August 1999 would use the 1999 rollover date as the Epoch. So, until it acquires a GPS Signal, it won't know what the current GPS Week is, and since you can't set the clock on the Garmin (as time/location comes from the signal), the real question is what else is going on in the Garmin Firmware that it now is not keeping track of the date at the last powerup.
Yeah that is pretty much what I worked out. I have worked on a few products that have real time clocks (RTC). Often the firmware will load the time from the RTC on bootup and do a sanity check to make sure it is not corrupt. If it thinks it is corrupt it will reset it to zero as even though incorrect, at least functions that depend on a valid RTC will not fall over. I suspect there is a bug in this operation and the RTC is being reset even though it is not corrupt. Probably only Garmin can fix this.

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kb
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby kb » Wed Jan 10, 2018 4:06 pm

queequeg wrote: Ah, the fun of date Epochs.

I went and had a look, and it seems GPS uses a 1024 week window for determining the dates. The original epoch used was back in 1980, which is what led to the last rollover in August 1999. The next one is not due until 2019.
So, it makes sense that any GPS device released after August 1999 would use the 1999 rollover date as the Epoch. So, until it acquires a GPS Signal, it won't know what the current GPS Week is, and since you can't set the clock on the Garmin (as time/location comes from the signal), the real question is what else is going on in the Garmin Firmware that it now is not keeping track of the date at the last powerup.
Yeah, the Edge 1000 gets the occasional 2019 ride if it hasn’t been used for a while and GPS signal hasn’t been acquired
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queequeg
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby queequeg » Wed Jan 10, 2018 5:56 pm

kb wrote:
queequeg wrote: Ah, the fun of date Epochs.

I went and had a look, and it seems GPS uses a 1024 week window for determining the dates. The original epoch used was back in 1980, which is what led to the last rollover in August 1999. The next one is not due until 2019.
So, it makes sense that any GPS device released after August 1999 would use the 1999 rollover date as the Epoch. So, until it acquires a GPS Signal, it won't know what the current GPS Week is, and since you can't set the clock on the Garmin (as time/location comes from the signal), the real question is what else is going on in the Garmin Firmware that it now is not keeping track of the date at the last powerup.
Yeah, the Edge 1000 gets the occasional 2019 ride if it hasn’t been used for a while and GPS signal hasn’t been acquired
The next Rollover is April 6th 2019.

https://www.gps.gov/cgsic/meetings/2017/powers.pdf

Apparently they are moving to a 13-bit number for the GPS Week, so when that is done it should not be an issue anymore.

For devices that stop working next year, the only fix will be from the hardware manufacturer.
'11 Lynskey Cooper CX, '00 Hillbrick Steel Racing (Total Rebuild '10), '16 Cervelo R5, '18 Mason BokekTi

Airies
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby Airies » Thu Dec 13, 2018 7:15 pm

My Garmin edge 500 tracks everything all ok but It's a hit or miss whether it uploads on Garmin connect. It says it syncs but of late more often then not doesn't upload. Is it safe to assume that come April next year it will somehow fix itself or is it safe to say that it's passed its use by date.?

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ft_critical
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby ft_critical » Fri Dec 14, 2018 8:14 am

I have the same issue, just save the ride everytime - holding the save/reset button for 3 seconds. It is only if you plug it straight into your PC that it records that 1999 date. For mine it is 22 August 1999 which is, coincidentally, my birthday

vosadrian
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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby vosadrian » Fri Dec 14, 2018 8:46 am

ft_critical wrote:I have the same issue, just save the ride everytime - holding the save/reset button for 3 seconds. It is only if you plug it straight into your PC that it records that 1999 date. For mine it is 22 August 1999 which is, coincidentally, my birthday
That is different to the issue my 500 has. I did save the ride after every ride and then power the 500 off before later plugging it in to upload. My issue was that if you turn the unit on, before it gets GPS lock it will read the date time as 10am, 22nd August 99. When it gets the GPS lock, the time/date will then be updated to be correct. If you start recording the activity when the time/date is wrong, Strava/Connect will use the date you started the activity as the date of the activity, and this is OK the first time, as it will just record as that date (and throw all your data in Strava out). After that, every time you upload a new ride, it will be recognised as a duplicate. There would be ways to manually edit the fit file to correct the issue, but really this is a bug that Garmin should fix but since this is an old unsupported product, they probably will not. I also doubt the problem will fix at the GPS rollover date in 2019, although I suspect it may behave differently.

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Re: Garmin Edge 500 Date Problem

Postby Strawburger » Fri Dec 14, 2018 9:27 pm

Mine has started doing this too. Weird hey!

If I don’t save the ride and turn it off, it retains the time. If I save the ride and turn off, when I fire it back up then I need to get the satellite lock to correct the time before starting the next ride
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