If you’ve looked at your wrist lately and wondered if you suddenly developed the sprinting speed of an Olympic athlete—or the pace of a slow-moving turtle—you aren’t alone. Garmin’s Version 27.09 firmware update was supposed to be a routine patch, but for a huge chunk of Forerunner users, it’s turned their $500 GPS watches into expensive random-number generators.
“My GPS is Drifting into the Ocean”
Over the last few days, the Garmin Forums and Reddit have been a mess of maps showing runners “swimming” through buildings or running straight through the middle of lakes. The common thread? Instantaneous pace fluctuations.
Users are reporting that their watches will suddenly drop from a steady 8:00/mile to a 14:00/mile pace while running in an open field with clear skies. It’s not just a visual glitch, either; it’s nuking workout data, messing up VO2 Max calculations, and making “Pace Pro” features essentially useless.
What exactly is broken?
Based on the chatter from the community, the 27.09 update seems to have hit three main areas:
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The “Overshooting” Glitch: GPS tracks are consistently drifting 50–100 meters off the actual path, even in “All Systems + Multi-Band” mode.
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Battery Drain: Some users on the Forerunner 255 and 955 are seeing their battery life crater, losing 20-30% overnight while the watch is just sitting on a nightstand.
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Stuck syncing: The dreaded “Transfer in Progress” screen that never actually finishes.
Can you fix it?
Garmin hasn’t pushed a “hotfix” yet, which is frustrating for those of us in the middle of a marathon block. However, a few runners have found success with a hard reset (holding the light button until it shuts off), though that’s a temporary band-aid at best.
If your training depends on accurate data, you might want to hold off on syncing your watch to Garmin Connect until 27.10 (or whatever the “we fixed it” patch is called) rolls out.
Also Read: The Garmin Forerunner 970 is Here, But I’m Still Wearing the 965—Here’s Why!
Besides all the reports of the 27.09 issues, there has not been an answer from Garmin, I have a 965 with heart rate issues and the only thing to do is wait, or buy a Polar Verity, which is not what is expected for the price tag of the 965, it has been since January and we have not heard from Garmin when is the next update coming, in fact, we have not heard anything from them.