Garmin reports massive outage affecting its products

Garmin – a major technology company with a line of truck products that includes navigation and electronic logging devices – is experiencing an outage that appears to be affecting not only the company’s products, but also its service centers and internal and external communications.

The Olathe, Kan.-based company announced the outage Thursday, July 23 in a message posted to its website and on its social media channels.

“We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin.com and Garmin Connect,” the message stated. “This outage also affects our call centers, and we are currently unable to receive any calls, emails or online chats. We are working to resolve this issue as quickly as possible and apologize for this inconvenience.”

We are currently experiencing an outage that affects Garmin Connect, and as a result, the Garmin Connect website and mobile app are down at this time. (1/2)

— Garmin (@Garmin) July 23, 2020

Garmin Connect is the company’s online fitness community.

In addition to its dēzl series of truck GPS systems, Garmin also offers a subscription-free ELD device.

The tech news website ZDNet first reported the outage on Wednesday and claims the issue may be connected to a possible ransomware attack. The site also mentions that the outage is impacting some of Garmin’s aviation products.

What if your ELD isn’t working?

If a driver’s ELD is not working for any reason, even a technical issue beyond the driver’s control, the driver is still responsible for maintaining a record of duty.

Last November, one of the nation’s largest ELD providers, Omnitracs, experienced a major outage, forcing all its users to temporarily revert to paper logs.

Tom Crowley with OOIDA’s Business Services Department, says that’s exactly what the regulations require.

“If a driver has any idea that it is malfunctioning and the malfunctioning light has come on, then they need to switch over to using paper logs,” Crowley said in an interview with Land Line Now. “All drivers are supposed to carry a supply of paper logs with them as part of the ELD requirements.”

Crowley says drivers must be able to recreate the previous seven days on their logs. He said beyond the eight-day grace period, the FMCSA requires carriers to file an extension request to allow the use of paper logs beyond the grace period. A driver must depend on their carrier filing the exemption request.