Fitbit Charge 6 Black Screen

[Sbarry6]

Bought charge 6 just over a month ago.  Suddenly black screen with 60+% charge left.  Tried to reboot a few time and nothing happened.   
Contacted support, the only advice is to clean the back and the pins.  Both are shiny and clean. 

[Julia_G · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Sbarry6 , I would recommend checking when your Charge 6 last synced and what the battery status was at that time in order to confirm whether this is a charging issue or something else.  You can see when it last synced in your app by clicking on the icon top left (smartphone and watch icon) - where you can see the battery status at the last sync.  If the sync was some time ago you should charge your Fitbit before trying other shooting steps.

When you are confident that it has had a good charge, I would recommend trying the restart procedure again.  If that still has no effect, you could try is changing the clock face, which sometimes fixes a blank screen issue.  You can change the clock face using the app.  The instructions are here .  Be sure to sync your Charge 6 after changing the clock face on the app.

If that fixes your issue then you can return to your previously chosen clock face if you prefer.

If you are unable to solve this issue by either a restart or changing the clock face and also if you are unable to force a sync, then I would recommend getting in touch with Fitbit Customer Support again, as your Fitbit is almost brand new and is definitely not working as expected!

Good luck and let us know how it goes.  Welcome to the forums!

[Tscharf]

This happened to my daughter’s Fitbit charge 6 on only her second day of wearing it. 98% battery and went black. Not even a vibrate. Did the 3 button press and it came back on. Gave it a reboot and hoping it won’t happen again. This isn’t a great start to a brand new device. 

[flyinghenry]

Just want to report back that I also had this issue, for me, the charging works, it still tracks heart beat and steps. The issue is the software need an upgrade, so open the Fitbit app and click on charge 6 icon with the battery status, then it will ask to upgrade, during the upgrade the screen is back to normal and start showing the upgrade progress and it works perfectly after.

[agbr45]

Hi 

I exchanged my Charge 6 in less than a month after I had bought it because it did the same thing. I now have the second one and it is doing the same thing, it is constantly going black screen. I charge it up and it’s all fully charged 100% sync it to my phone It has done it again recently. Today, July 10 makes one month exactly since I bought it and I am going to return it AGAIN! I never had this problem when I had the charge 5! 

[CiiZii]

Completely frustrating.  I've had mine almost a year, and initially it was OK, then started seeing the black screen more often but randomly.  Then several months ago it would go black overnight (I don't sleep with it).  Putting in on charger overnight prevented the black screen.  Then over a month ago it started going black randomly through the day while on my wrist!  It is definitely not a charge level issue.
I'm checking the forums for a solution, and just seeing total dysfunction, so I guess I'll be calling support soon.

[Julia_G]

Hi, @CiiZii , have you tried changing the clock face, as I mentioned in my post above?  Here’s what I suggest: you could try is changing the clock face, which sometimes fixes a blank screen issue.  You can change the clock face using the app.  The instructions are here .  Be sure to sync your Charge 6 after changing the clock face on the app.

Let us know if this fixes it for you.  Welcome to the forums!

[CiiZii]

@Julia_G  - I've just changed the clockface and also uninstalled EVERY app - from Notifications all the way down to Find my Phone.

If the problem doesn't re-appear in a few days, I'll change the clockface back, wait a few days, then repeat that process for adding apps back in, one by one.

[bobdob]

I had mine exchanged under warranty after experiencing too many black-screen-lockups (it was happening approximately once a week) and dead-end workarounds (for me too it was fine for about the first 2 months, then something seemed to have triggered it). It seemed like a software issue to me based on the behavior but I figured it wouldn't hurt to replace it while waiting for a software fix. Now there's an update but I am a bit afraid to install it.

If you contact support expect them to ask you to try a few things before exchanging it. They actually had me excited after they had me do a full data reset, after which I had no problems for 3 full weeks... until an unexpected battery drain caused it to die, after which the weekly pain resumed. New one is still fine after about a month (no surprise battery draining or locked up black screens). I have been making sure to not let the battery go much under 50%.

[CiiZii]

I changed the clockface from "Target" to "Ripple", and also uninstalled EVERY app, and that DID resolve the issue.  However I have not yet tried changing back to the previous clockface and adding back the other apps.

In fact I'm just now re-installing "Target" clockface, so we'll see what happens - maybe this uninstall/re-install process is key (ie switching to Ripple is a fresh install, and switching back to Target is also a fresh install).

Based on my software experience, and given the symptoms and suggested workarounds, I highly suspect a memory leak (where eventually memory is all reserved, and the device locks up). 

Also, I noticed previously in the Fitbit app that, for example, the clockfaces had a "Developer" type of reference with different names, which indicates to me these are kind of side-projects.  (Unfortunately I don't see those different names in the FItbit App anymore...??).  Anyway, I suspect they are not tested well, especially in combination with all the other apps and features available...  If I had to guess, I'd say clockfaces are probably coded by Interns...

[bobdob]

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@CiiZii wrote:

Based on my software experience, and given the symptoms and suggested workarounds, I highly suspect a memory leak (where eventually memory is all reserved, and the device locks up). 

Yes, I agree. 

I just got the latest (210.26) firmware and unfortunately I can confirm it did not fix the "easy" bug I had noticed - which is that the battery level shown seems to gradually deviate from the actual battery level, which can cause your battery to run out unexpectedly when you think you have 20% or more remaining. You can see this by checking the battery level, then restarting the fitbit and checking again. If it's been 5 days since charging I'll often see a discrepancy of 15% or more.

And I think that leads to the memory leak you mentioned. My lockups seemed to have a correlation to an instance where my fitbit had a dead battery. My replacement hasn't had a lockup yet (it has now been 2 months) but I also charge it when it gets below 40%, sometimes sooner just to be safe.

[cubscout1]

I have  fully charged my Fitbit and tried chany the clock face, it'says it still installing another clock face and have to wait til that is done it then comes unable to connect and to make sure Fitbit is connected to power and phone is nearby which it is

[LeonWes]

My Fitbit 6 all of a sudden went blank. I had a 100% charge on it. I tried the the pushing of the side button 3 X multiple times. I tried pushing the screen face 2X. nothing on both. I was going to try the changing of the clock face. Instead, i picked up my phone, signed in to my fitbit account and decided to try doing an update. Hit the update on my phone, ran to get my fitbit, placed the fitbit next to my phone. the fitbit face lit up with the fitbit symbol with a small mark under it. it was updating!  After the update my fitbit 6 is working normal again. It was pure luck to try this and it worked!

[LeonWes]

I signed into my phone's fitbit account and did an update with my fitbit near my phone. My fitbit turned on and updated and now it works fine.

[EmanuelH]

I have an actual solution that should be able to inform fitbit that they can help this without having people send hardware back.

I had the same issue on my charge 6. Looked at the app and saw that the unit was still alive as it kept track of metrics. Tried changing clock faces to see if it would do anything and the screen showed the load bar, but then went black again. This confirmed to me that it is likely a software issue, not hardware. At that point I googled how to restart the device, to get the software to get out of the bug. The solution is using the charger, which did not work, however charging did work. I removed it from the charger because at this point I had double checked I had no update waiting and surrendered to the fact that I would just have to wait a week for it to die. Said and done, a couple of days ago it ran out of battery. I checked the app to make sure, and when it said ”looking” cause it was no longer connected I put the tracker on the charger and it fired right up, screen and all. This also explains why installing a software update solves the issue, but it is obviously not a solution that works for everyone. What fitbit should do is add a remote restart function in the app that allows a user to restart the unit, and, obviously, find the actual bug and solve it.

Tl;dr: If unit is alive in app but screen dead, changing watch faces can show you the screen still works. Then turn it off and on again by waiting for the battery to die before charging it.

[maxandpeter]

Having the same problem.  I am not a happy camper right now!  Can't even get it to come back on!  Starting to regret moving up from the Charge 3.  That thing was a workhorse until it just wore out.

[EmanuelH]

Did you try my solution in the post above? 

[HollyM]

Hoping this works because mine is doing everything you said above - will charge, syncs and tracks on phone - just black face and no vibration (which is a bummer as my favorite feature is the notification for text messages/calls and the alarm).  Changing the clock face shows me the screen still works.  It is at 95% right now but if this works- I will confirm once it dies and I can recharge.  

[JeanMT]

Something like this happens to me with EVERY Fitbit I have ever owned (Alta, Alta HR, Charge 3, Charge 4, Charge 5, and Charge 6). I really like the devices, and used to love the app/browser dashboard - until Google took a lot of functionality away from the app and closed the browser dashboard down

Mine usually last 5-8 months, and I contact Fitbit and they send me one new one, so I get a bit over a year out of each purchase. I figure it has something to do with my personal magnetic field. I always go through the restart and changing clock face procedures. Sometimes, it comes back from these efforts, but for me it never lasts very long, so even if it does come back, I know the screen will fail permanently soon

I just had it happen again (to my replacement, so have to get a new one, sigh), and was looking for the restart instructions, and came across this, and wanted to add my two cents for anyone else who has this happen to them. This time, the screen portion is grey, and when tapped or wrist turned up, flashes the screen for a fraction of a second (the other devices wouldn't even do that)

Fortunately, I have an Inspire (2 or 3) I bought when a previous unit went out, that I keep just for being able to use a Fitbit until they send a replacement or I can get out to buy another. They used to send the replacement without having to receive the dysfunctional unit first, but people probably abused this, they want to figure out why it failed, or most likely, they want to refurbish the unit and send it out as a replacement for other failed units, rather than the new ones they used to send, or at least for my older units, they looked new, unlike the most recent).