Android 9.0 (Pie) not able to sync

[AlessFitbit]

Fitbit Update: 3/6/19

Hello everyone! 

We have some updated troubleshooting suggestions we'd like for all of you on Android Pie (9.0) to try. 

First, turn off Background Restrictions/Limitations: Phone settings > Apps & Notifications > Fitbit app > Background restrictions or Background limits.

Then, disable battery limitations:

1. Go to Settings > Apps > Fitbit app > Advanced > Battery > Battery optimization
2. Change view to All apps
3. Search for Fitbit app
4. Choose Not optimized

Please give the steps above a try to improve syncing with your Fitbit device and Android 9.0 OS. We're still researching and testing out long-term solutions to this ongoing syncing issue. We thank you for all your patience while we continue to work on this effort.

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Fitbit Update: 2/14/19

Hi everyone!

Thanks for all your reports and patience with these Android 9.0 syncing difficulties. We’re aware of this ongoing issue and have been working to identify a resolution as quickly as possible. 

We're sorry for any trouble. We appreciate your patience and look forward to getting you back on track as soon as possible. 

I'll let you know if I receive any additional information on this matter. 

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Fitbit Update: 10/3/18 

Hey Everyone!

Our team is still working on implementing a longterm fix for syncing with Android devices on Pie (9.0). 

For the background syncing issue, I have posted an update in the other floated thread which you can find here. 

We released Fitbit for Android version 2.80 today which contains improvements for that syncing issue. 

I'll make sure to keep you all updated with more information, as soon as I have it available. We're still working on this and I really appreciate everyone's patience. 

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Fitbit Update: 9/26/18

Hey everyone! 

Thanks so much for your patience and cooperation. We are aware of the issue and working with Google on a solution.

I will continue to provide updates here, so keep an eye on this thread. 

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Fitbit Update: 9/10/18 

Hi, everybody! 

Thanks for your patience while our team continues to work on improving syncing for those on Android Pie (9.0). They are actively working on this and for the time being, I recommend you keep the Fitbit app updated on the latest version for best syncing results. Right now that is version 2.78, so if you're not on this version please update! Also, another troubleshoot we recommend is performing a restart on your phone. 

When there are more improvements made in the future I'll announce them here. Stay tuned and subscribed to this thread. 

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Fitbit Update: 8/19/18

We have escalated these syncing issues for those who are now using Android Pie (9.0) to our team for investigation. There aren't any updates at the moment, but rest assured we will keep you informed in this thread when more information is available.

Thanks for your patience! 

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Fitbit Update: 8/11/18 

Hi, everyone! Thanks for stopping by the Community Forums. 

Seems like many of you who updated to Android Pie (9.0) are now having trouble syncing your Fitbit trackers. I'm going to escalate this to our team so they can look into it.

In the meantime, please update the Fitbit app to version 2.76.1 if you haven't yet. Let me know if that changes the syncing behavior. Please follow this thread for updates. I'll keep you all posted here! 

[MyWrath4]

I'm going to switch to the Google app as well. This whole Fitbit thing not syncing has gotten too irritating. 

[SunsetRunner]

Thanks Lanuza for the update.  I am sure you are as fustrated as us customers.

Is there a way that I can generate a log file and send it to you to assist in debugging the root cause?  If I can help, please let me know.

I upgraded the Fitbit app to 2.8 on Google Pixel 2 running stock Android Pie.  It synched my Fitbit One multiple times for a awhile until I connected my Pixel 2 with my earphones and subsequently my car.  After that my Pixel 2 will not sync.  When the Pixel 2 attempts to sync to the Fitbit One the phone cannot connect to the Fitbit One.  I just get the red circled explanation mark.

I upgraded the Fitbit app to 2.8 on my Google Nexus 5X and Asus tablet both running Android Oreo and they both can sync with the Fitbit One.

[Dood1971]

Sadly, I preordered the Charge 3 right before all this happened and it is on its way to my house... I am considering returning it. Can anyone verify that it works with Pie on a Pixel?

[SunsetRunner]

I've been laying low here for a while, trying to make sense of something I started noticing some time ago.

I was on a long-weekend vacation that involved a lot of walking. I also packed light, meaning that my Mac (that I've been using to sync my Fitbit One since updating my Pixel 2XL to Pie) was not part of the picture.

Here's the interesting thing, though. My One successfully sync'ed several times over that long weekend, without my doing anything! It happened in the dead of night (about 2am). The previous day, I had walked more than my daily step goal, so when the sync succeeded, I was awakened by a notification congratulating me on meeting my goal. I went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, the "keep alive" notification showed the last sync as being just a few minutes before my alarm went off at 6:30. Just for grins, I initiated a sync right then, but that sync failed. I should also note that my One was across the fairly-small hotel room on the desk, while my phone was by the bed, on the nightstand.

This was when I was running version 2.78 of the app.

The thing is, I've noticed similar behavior, even before my trip. If it's going to happen, it seems to happen in the middle of the night, with the phone on the charger, being unused. That said, I once saw it sync while I was actively using my phone before getting out of bed (I woke up a little while before my alarm), and once I even had the thing sync (and give me a "exceeded your step goal" notification) while I was on the couch in our living room watching TV and checking Reddit (My one was in my bedroom at the time).

Is there a common thread in all this? I don't know. I've seen syncs go through while on charger, and not. I've seem them go through while the phone is idle, or busy. Successful syncs have happened anywhere between about 9pm through about 6am.

There's also another aspect of this that I've been trying to make sense of as well.

The "keep-alive" notification shows the time of the last successful sync. Since it's the only way to reliably keep my data updated, every morning when I wander over to my Mac, I kick off a sync using Fitbit Connect on my Mac I only do this once each day. The Fitbit app on my phone will, at times, eventually display the time of the Mac-based sync in its notification. Sometimes I see the updated sync time within an hour or two, and sometimes it'll never update to show that morning's sync time until sometime the next day. Now, whether the sync time in the notification updates or not, in no case will a current step count be displayed on Fitbit's web-based dashboard. This means that, by whatever means the app on my phone determines that it should display a different updated sync time, my step data was *not* updated on Fitbit's website. Bottom line: in these cases, the app on my phone is not able to get the data off my One.

So adding this information into the mix, it appears that, if the app gets the last successful sync time from Fitbit's website, for some reason the app cannot even do that reliably. Perhaps the way the app's logic has been coded means that if the app feels its sync attempt has "actively failed" (meaning that the app was able to detect my One nearby, but for some reason was unable to connect to and sync it) is treated differently from a sync attempt that has "passively failed" (meaning that the app was not able to detect my One nearby, and so never even attempted to sync it). So one path through the code gets the last sync time from Fitbit's website (which updates the "keep-alive" notification's sync time), where the other doesn't (which leaves the "keep-alive notification's sync time unchanged).

Assuming the above accurately reflects what's going on inside the app, I don't know if it's the "actively failed" or "passively failed" scenario that causes the "keep-alive" notification's sync time to be updated.

It just occurred to me that there's an experiment I can devise to dig into this some more. I can create a situation where the app on my phone will see nothing but "passive failures" by wrapping my One in foil to block any communication with it. If I then put my phone into airplane mode, unwrap the tracker, sync it via the Mac, rewrap the One, and turn off airplane mode, the app on my phone will only see "passive failures" yet the data on Fitbit's website will have been regularly updated. If I then see changing times in the app's "keep-alive" notification, I'll know that the app "phones home" to Fitbit's website during "passive failures"

When I do this, I'll post back here, in the hopes that it might help the Fitbit dev team.

Oh, I should also mention that updating to 2.80 (and now 2.80.1) doesn't seem to have materially changed anything. I did the usual gyrations after updating to 2.80  (deleting the app's cache and data from my phone, and rebooting my One) and guess what? It worked...for less than an hour.

As the Talking Heads said, "Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was..."

[kevshill]

The 3rd October update doesn't seem to have solved the issue. Even tried reinstalling the app and reset of the Fitbit Versa.

😞 What else can I try?

Update (7th Oct):

After resetting the Versa, I had tried to run through the setup using the re-installed app on Android Pie. This kept timing out and a popup mentioning to restart Bluetooth. Effectively was not able to setup the reset Versa using the Androind App after multiple attempts.

I then tried the setup of the reset Versa with the app on Windows 10 on my laptop. This worked....

... and voila the device also started syncing with the OnePlus - Android Pie - Fitbit app as well. Sync seems to be working for the last one day without a problem.

So hopefully am past the problem 🙂

thought this could be a workaround that other folks could try.

(just to reiterate phone is OnePlus 6, app version is 2.80.1 and Fitbit is Versa on 32.32.10.15 )

[pampurio97]

Before the 2 October update, I couldn't sync Fitbit Charge 2 with my OnePlus 6 running Android 9, at all. Plus, the workarounds posted here didn't work.

After the update, I'm not having any issue with syncing. It works in background as well

[sueb859]

I have a One and this latest update did not resolve my issues.

[jerseystar]

Early this evening I received, and installed, a new Android 9 update. And . . . just now when I tried doing a manual sync with my Fitbit Zip, it immediately synced. Perhaps in spite of all good intentions on the part of Fitbit, what was needed was a change in Android 9. I've noticed some other odd behaviors on my Pixel phone -- hopefully the latest Android 9 update will take care of that as well. Really hoping that the syncing continues.

[Dood1971]

My new Charge 3 had been syncing properly for a few hours. The zip had not. Fingers crossed the 3 continues to work.

[Kujal]

Hi, I actually updated/upgraded the sotware on My android. Than deleted the old fitbit app and the reloaded it updated at the play store. Now I can sync.Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

[SunsetRunner]

Oh, and updating Pie to the October security update didn't change a thing.

[elwright360]

Nothing works. I'm tired of it.

Elaine Wright

[kevshill]

Device OnePlus 6

app version currently 2.80.1  

Android pie update seems to have broken the sync.

the compatible devices list has only OnePlus one from the OnePlus list. Thats a pretty old device and one would assume that the later devices from  OnePlus are also supported.

any timeline on the fix?

Solved:

Check https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Android-App/Android-9-0-Pie-not-able-to-sync/m-p/2988341/highlight/t...

[SunsetRunner]

Upgraded Fitbit app 2.8 to 2.80.2 on my Google Pixel 2 running stock Android Pie.  Attempted to sync my Fitbit One. The Fitbit app could not connect to the Fitbit One resulting in a red circle with an explanation mark.

No chamge.

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hello everyone!

I'd like to thank you all for your patience and understanding through this matter. We truly appreciate it.

Unfortunately we do not have any news or updates as of yet but we are working on it. Hopefully there will be something to share soon.

Feel free to reach out with any questions.

[Cookiemom4]

Is Fitbit planning to continue supporting Android in the future?

We have done everything. We have updated our os, removed our Fitbit from the account, removed the app from the phone added the app back, added the Fitbit back, reset the Fitbit, and none of it helps in the long run. When is Fitbit going to repair this problem?

[TheBrian]

This worked for me on OnePlus 6.

[jerseystar]

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@jerseystar wrote:

Early this evening I received, and installed, a new Android 9 update. And . . . just now when I tried doing a manual sync with my Fitbit Zip, it immediately synced. Perhaps in spite of all good intentions on the part of Fitbit, what was needed was a change in Android 9. I've noticed some other odd behaviors on my Pixel phone -- hopefully the latest Android 9 update will take care of that as well. Really hoping that the syncing continues.

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Okay, just discovered a second piece to this. When I tried it later last night and this morning, got the can't connect. But . . . if I turn off "Keep-Alive Widget", so the only think on is All-Day Sync -- my Pixel immediately synced with my Zip. Hopefully it keeps doing it. Yay!!

[SunsetRunner]

@jerseystar -- that's really interesting. So you turned off "Keep-Alive Widget" and had "All-Day Sync" on; what about "Always Connected"?

Oh, and when you said that your Zip synced immediately, was that the app initiating the sync by itself, or did you manually initiate it?

I'd like to replicate your situation to see if it'll work for me with my One...

[jerseystar]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

@jerseystar -- that's really interesting. So you turned off "Keep-Alive Widget" and had "All-Day Sync" on; what about "Always Connected"?

Oh, and when you said that your Zip synced immediately, was that the app initiating the sync by itself, or did you manually initiate it?

I'd like to replicate your situation to see if it'll work for me with my One...

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Only had "All Day Sync" on. I hit "sync" and it promptly synced.