Garmin Dash Cam 'Lost GPS Signal' — How to Fix It

What it means

'Lost GPS signal' — or an 'acquiring satellites' message that never finishes — means the camera can't get a position fix.
Your video still records; what you lose is the speed, location, and accurate time stamp the camera normally burns onto the footage, and the clock can drift.
It's usually a cold start, a poor mounting spot, or a metallic/heated windscreen blocking the signal — rarely the camera itself.

Affected Models

Garmin Dash Cam 47 / 57 / 67W (built-in GPS)
Garmin Dash Cam Tandem
Garmin Dash Cam Live
Garmin Dash Cam Mini 2 (GPS via the magnetic mount on some versions)

Common Causes

Cold start — if the camera's been off for weeks, the first fix can take several minutes
Mounted behind a metallic-coated (athermic) or heated windscreen, which blocks GPS — common on many European cars
Mounted too low or hemmed in by other windscreen gadgets
Heavy cloud, a multi-storey car park, or an urban canyon of tall buildings
Firmware glitch (uncommon)

How to Fix It

Give it time under open sky.

Drive somewhere with a clear view of the sky and wait two to five minutes.
A cold start genuinely takes that long — don't write it off as a fault in the first sixty seconds.
Move the mount.

High on the windscreen, near the rear-view mirror, away from other electronics, with as much clear sky above it as possible.
That's the best spot for GPS and for the camera's view of the road.
Check for a metallic windscreen.

If your car has a heated or athermic front screen, it blocks GPS — but there's often a small uncoated patch near the rear-view mirror, marked in the owner's handbook.
Mount the camera there.
If there's no such patch, an external GPS antenna (where your model supports one) may be the only real fix.
Update the firmware.

GPS acquisition bugs do get fixed in firmware updates.
Use the Garmin Drive app or Garmin Express to bring the camera up to date.
Power-cycle to force a fresh search.

Unplug the camera, wait 30 seconds, plug it back in.
That clears the GPS state and starts a clean satellite search, which sometimes shakes loose a stuck 'acquiring' message.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does losing GPS stop the camera recording?

No.
Recording carries on as normal — you just lose the speed and location data overlaid on the video, and the on-screen clock can drift because it's normally synced from GPS.
If you mainly want the camera for accident evidence, the video itself is the part that matters; but a working GPS overlay adds useful context to a clip, so it's worth getting the mounting right.