Charge 5 - stuck with logo and then later red circle with white X in the center

[nancya59]

In the end, my Charge 5 is working... but it's been a bad day....   I'll describe in case others experience the same.....

I woke up in the night and looked at the time.   11:30pm - all good... within 30 minutes, I looked again and the face showed the logo flashing... I connected it to the charger and tried to reboot many times... the watch vibrated when I pressed the button but the logo kept flashing.. there was no indication that it was responding to the reboot request.   I then checked this forum.  Others had reported similar issues and several said to let the battery drain and then restart it.   I disconnected the charger ahd left it alone.

Later in the night, I woke up again and the Charge 5 was dark.   Perhaps the battery was dead now.  I connected it to the charger and the logo appeared.  This time it was not flashing but rather displayed as a solid light.   It stayed this way.  I left the watch connected to the charger and went back to sleep.

In the morning, the watch was displaying a red circle with a white X in the middle.  I tried to reboot it, but nothing would change.   The watch vibrated when I pressed the button but the red circle remained.   At this point, I started a chat with the support people.

It should be noted that I tried to sync the watch during this time and the sync request failed.

The first support person asked me to clean the back with rubbing alcohol, plug the charger into a different USB port and try again.   I asked him if he would wait while I did that.  He said yes but when I returned, he had asked if I was still there (I wasn't at that moment) and then he disconnected.   BUT, the reboot took away the red circle with the X in the center.  I saw the logo for a moment and then the face was black - showing nothing.     I tried to reboot again and the same - the logo showed for a moment and then nothing.   

I started a new chat with another person.   The old chat could not be located so I repeated the story.   During the chat, I tried to sync again and this time, the sync worked.   But the watch face was still displaying nothing - it was completely black.    Much time spent taking pictures, etc.   She created a case.....   I tried to reboot and ***** IT WORKED ****.   The regular watch face came back and all seemed normal!   At this point, my login session timed out (base connection) and the window closed - along with the chat which was a pop-up from that window.   I had a bit of warning but I was looking at my Charge 5 at the time and missed pressing CONTINUE in time.  So the chat was gone.

Since my Charge 5 was working again, I did not connect to a new support chat.

The take-aways....   I'm not sure what really fixed it.   But, cleaning the back with rubbing alcohol was not something I ever tried.   And the first reboot request did not do the trick.  So I don't know the magic step, but perhaps this experience will help someone else.

[DavideFitbit · Accepted solution]

Hi, welcome to the FItbit Community forums, @nancya59.  

Thank you for all the information that you've shared about this issue with the Charge 5 and for confirming that you were able to resolve it after the steps you mentioned earlier. I'm sure this will be useful for other users as well. 

See you around. 

[Broken5]

I am having this same issue.  I went swimming yesterday, set the activity to swimming, which locks the screen.  When I was done the screen was black and wouldn't come on.  I put it on the charger to reset it and it did a lot of vibrating and flashing but never came on.  I left it on

the charger overnight and when I woke up it was flas6the logo.  I have tried to re set  it multiple times, it just keeps flashing and vibrating.  I did get the x, but it went away when I tried another reset.  What can I do?

[Happysammy]

Same here! I went swimming my fitbit charge 5 died, seemingly the battery died and since then when i try to charge it it just shows the fitbit logo, shows me it’s charging and then shuts off and repeats the same thing over and over. It went from 5% to 13% in 2 hours but still will not stay on. Help!

[nancya59]

I think, because this issue already has a 'best reply' marked, it may be considered closed.   I did not have the swimming component but 2 of you did.   You might want enter your problem as a NEW ISSUE, including the swimming component, rather than a reply on this one.   Perhaps it will have a better chance of being addressed by the FitBit people.

I hope this helps!  

[DavideFitbit]

Hi, welcome to the Fitbit Community forums, @Broken5 @Happysammy. 

Thank you for sharing all these details about the inconvenience you've been having with your Charge 5 and for confirming that you already tried a few troubleshooting steps. 

I've been informed that you already contacted the Customer Support team for further assistance with this and it seems they've provided you with more instructions. In this case, they will let you know how to proceed. 

Thanks again for taking the time to share your experience and feedback about this.