Recent Garmin Pilot Update

[Greg Ellis]

I posted this in the general section but figured it also belonged here as well.

I had an issue opening Smartcharts this morning with my Garmin Pilot on my ipad.  I contacted Garmin and two techs could not help me so they had me upload my data logs.  Low and behold, 20 minutes later, there is an update to Garmin Pilot that fixes the problem.  It was not there earlier today because the tech had me delete and reload the app which did not solve the issue.  Just wanted to let you guys know if you are having this issue that there is a new update to Garmin Pilot available in the app store.  v26.2.1

[Rick Junkin]

That's the second update to correct fairly significant issues in about two weeks. Makes me wonder, what's going on at Garmin with the GP team?

Anybody have any insight?

[kortopates]

That's the second update to correct fairly significant issues in about two weeks. Makes me wonder, what's going on at Garmin with the GP team?
Anybody have any insight?

I agree, but frankly i was just really thankful that they had a update fix for the first issue the day after i uploaded data to GP team, but i wasn’t the first. As it was a show stopper for me - i cancelled my flight.
The second issue didn’t shut me down but had me closing down GP each time it occurred but luckily it wasn’t all the time - but they had the fix practically the day after i ran into it.
At least they’re responsive but never had these issues before smart charts.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[flyboy0681]

On 2/26/2026 at 10:31 AM, Greg Ellis said:

 Low and behold, 20 minutes later, there is an update to Garmin Pilot that fixes the problem.  

I've been a software developer for the past 45 years and the one thing that I have learned (the hard way) more than once is to never put a quick fix out there without having it thoroughly tested. Even the most innocuous change can have serious repercussions. Take it from me.

[MikeOH]

28 minutes ago, flyboy0681 said:

I've been a software developer for the past 45 years and the one thing that I have learned (the hard way) more than once is to never put a quick fix out there without having it thoroughly tested. Even the most innocuous change can have serious repercussions. Take it from me.

+1

While I spent my career in hardware design the same principle applied; quick fixes rarely were!

Frankly, if the 'fix' was issued only 20 minutes after, and actually based on, Greg Ellis' complaint, that does NOT speak well of Garmin's QA system.  Yeah, IMHO

[PT20J]

Well, I started out in analog signal processing, switched to digital hardware, did a stint in embedded operating systems and ended up managing enterprise software development for a Fortune 500 company. So, I’ve managed to screw up a lot of things. 

I think it extremely unlikely that Garmin came up with a fix for a new problem and released it in 20 minutes. Most likely, they knew about the issue, had a fix, tested it and were about to release it anyway. Companies like Garmin have QA processes that must be followed before updates get out the door. 

[kortopates]

I was in software all my life till retiring about 13 years ago as a Chief Engineer at a large company. Skip is right, I am sure the fix was in progress, I know the first fix I mentioned above was in progress when I talked to them and got it the next day. I think folks are greatly simplifying a very complex topic. Of course they have detailed test plans for any release and for quite some time we have automated test engines that could run test in a couple hours that would take human testers days to complete and document. My personal guess on what going on is that after releasing significantly new functionality, like smart charts, the test team doesn't always accurately foresee all the ways it might be used and sometimes a small update opens a vulnerability not seen before. If that's what it is I am sure their test team is trying to fill these gaps. I doubt it's something like Foreflight where they let go half the staff. 

[hazek]

Or they simply reverted to a stable release.

[EricJ]

Software development and testing is changing very rapidly with AI development agents.   Any assumptions you have or may have had about how things work or worked in the past are pretty much moot now.   I wouldn't be surprised at all that a large company did a release in 20 minutes, or that it didn't work, or even that it did.