Next, on your phone, open up Garmin Connect Mobile. Or, on a computer, Garmin Express (on a computer, simply let it sync automatically).On a phone, then select ‘More’ to access more optionsSelect ‘Garmin Devices’ to see your devicesThen tap to sync. That should sync a new file over.In my case, Fix #1 didn’t work. So, I moved on to Fix #2ix #2: Soft reboot your unit, then syncLong-hold the upper left button for about 20-30 seconds, until it forces off. Then power back on.Next, on your phone, open up Garmin Connect Mobile.Then select ‘More’ to access more optionsSelect ‘Garmin Devices’ to see your devicesThen tap to sync. That should sync a new file over. You’ll notice it might take a bit longer to sync.This fixed one of my watches, though it hasn’t fixed one of the other ones yet. I’d recommend pausing until Garmin has other fix options, before resetting your watch. But, in the event you want to do that (or it’s decided that’s the only option), then to reset the watch, you’ll do this next step:Fix #3: Factory reset:This method is if you can’t get yourself out of a boot loop. You’ll lose all data on your watch, though, all of your activity/history/etc is already synced on Garmin Connect. This is mostly annoying in that you may need to re-setup all your settings (some Garmin watches will restore them automatically). Note: If you’re a little bit techie, you can try Fix 4 first, which will save you the hard reset.
Power off the watch (long hold power button until it shuts off).
If the watch is still boot looping, then do an unprompted factory reset (steps here).
Then go through setting up your watch again. Yes, it sucks.
The bad CPE file has already been removed from Garmin’s servers, so all of these steps are really about getting it cleaned off your watch, and getting the fresh copy back.
Fix 4: Manually Removing the Offending File
This method can technically be done prior to Fix 3, and has worked for some people instead of a full reset. Equally though, if Fix 3 isn’t working, then you’ll need to do this too. Essentially, we need to get rid of the bad file from the file system, this does it a bit more surgically, as opposed to the ‘blow up the whole building’ approach of Fix 3.
On PC: Once powered off, then have your computer ready and hold the upper left button (light button) down while connecting it to a computer. On some devices, this is instead holding the start/stop button. It should then enumerate on your computer where you can navigate to the /Garmin/RemoteSW folder, and within that, delete the file called GPE.bin file. This file is the problem child file.
On Mac: You’ll need a tool like Android File Transfer, OpenMTP, or MacDroid (which is what I use). Once powered off, then have your computer ready and hold the upper left button (light button) down while connecting it to a computer. On some devices, this is instead holding the start/stop button. It should then enumerate on your computer where you can navigate to the /Garmin/RemoteSW folder, and within that, delete the file called GPE.bin. This file is the problem child file.
Extra Tips: If #4 isn’t working, it’s likely because the file isn’t going away. Triple-check that the GPE.bin file is actually gone after dismounting/disconnecting. Sometimes it takes two tries. Second, if you can’t get the watch to mount (most likely on a Mac), double-check that Garmin Express is closed (especially in the upper taskbar), and there are some webcam apps that will hold the connection open. Close those. Sometimes rebooting the Mac will let you see it. As one who constantly has to deal with getting MTP devices to show up on a Mac, it can be fickle to get it to mount. Finally, in the case of my Forerunner 965, oddly, letting the battery get down to almost empty (3%) seemed to finally kick it out of its wonky boot loop (which it was doing for 6hrs+). It quietly grabbed the file behind the scenes, and all was well. No reset was required.
Technically, if you can access the file system when connected to a computer without holding the button, then that works too. Either way, you’ll want to kill off the GPE.bin file. Fear not, Garmin will sync a new clean copy to your watch.
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