Activity Tracking with App Freezes with Long Distance or Elapsed Time

[benasaur]

Hello,

I'm getting into some very long distance runs in my marathon training and have encountered this error at least twice when approaching a certain time or mileage. Basically, the app stops recording at about 16 or 17 miles (at a time of 3:00 to 3:15 hrs). The distance stops incrementing but the timer continues to tick. The "finish" button cannot be pressed; pressing it does not result in any noticeable action. I've found that if the phone is rebooted and the app relaunched, the tracker will resume and the finish button can be pressed, but all GPS info recorded from the app freeze moment is lost.

The timestamp for these errors (from commencement of exercise) is ~3:01 and 3:15. The mileage at which the error occurred is 16.5 and 17.3. Links to the two runs with errors are here:
https://www.fitbit.com/activities/exercise/14157196410
https://www.fitbit.com/activities/exercise/13578097964

I recall reading about a similar error and tried to clear out the cache and delete app data. This seemed to help, but the problem is recurring. I lost another long run as well but that could have been because of user error (I may have accidentally hit pause).

I did some poking around on the forums and noticed that the error is similar to this thread (https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Blaze/Fitbit-Blaze-freezing-after-starting-activity-tracking/m-p/268...), where after the app stops, the intermediate GPS track is lost but the final position is recorded, resulting in a straight line. However, I am using the App to track instead of the connected Blaze (I don't use that mode because the GPS polls too often and results in a jagged track, and recently the Blaze no longer operates in connected mode anyway).

While I am using the Blaze, I think this may be an app problem as opposed to a Blaze-specific issue, because since I am not operating the Blaze in connected mode, the syncing does not occur until after the error.

Much thanks and appreciation for your assistance.

Phone: HTC U11 Android 8.0.0

Fitbit app: 2.71 (latest)

[FerdinandFitbit]

Hi there @benasaur. Great to have you in the Fitbit community Forums! 🙂

I'm sorry to hear that you're having problems with your exercise tracking freezing when reaching a certain distance. I was about to suggest trying the tips I provided in the post you mentioned but I do understand that this is more related to the app itself rather than to the tracker, so thanks for pointing that out!

Again, I'm not really sure what could be causing this. I think clearing the cache and deleting app data was a great call but since that has not made much difference, you could try logging out of the app, logging back in and probably going to your location services on your phone settings and rebooting the GPS options and see if that makes any difference.

Please, let me know how it goes!

Ps. I'm moving your post to the Android app board for categorization purposes.

[benasaur]

Thanks for the previous response. I'd like to report that another long run failed in the same manner as before and this time the run failed to sync to Strava as well.

The error time is 3:08 and the distance was 16.9 miles. This time I had expected the error to recur so I kept a close eye on the tracking, and as soon as it stopped, I rebooted the phone and relaunched the app. The app was then able to resume tracking until the end (~18 miles), but the run did not sync to Strava which is doubly annoying.

Immediately prior to this run, I had cleared the cache and deleted app data, and rebooted the phone before logging back into the app and begin tracking. I can verify that this did not fix the problem.

https://www.fitbit.com/activities/exercise/14352849257

[benasaur]

I just tried to download the TCX file from the desktop Fitbit page and manually upload it into Strava. There was an error as follows. There is no problem with the file name. Just to eliminate the possibility of actual server error, I'll try again tomorrow, but I'm wondering about the integrity of the TCX file.

Server Error. This can be caused by file names with odd characters like % or foreign characters. 

[Rickster76]

I get exactly the same problem.  On long distance walks the app won't let me stop recording the exercise so I have to reboot my phone and only then can I finish the exercise. The latest occurrence was 3 days ago when I did a 40km walk.  I had to restart my phone to get the app the respond.  Then I found out that it hadn't recorded the last 4kms so I only had data for 36kms. 

This has happened three times to me now.  I have not tried anything to remedy it, however,  Shorter walks are not a problem.