Are our syncing issues caused by Fitbit Servers ?

[Colinm39]

Like many I have had syncing issues with my Fitbits.. Last night I had a weird experience.. I woke at 3am and decided to look at my phone and accidentally hit the Fitbit App..

An immediate sync to my One and Ionic.. and showed nearly 3 hours sleep on the Ionic...  It was so quick... Normally in the morning it can take up to 20 minutes of wheelies.. Even after taking into account all of the suggestions..   When it comes up with the "Scheduled message" I'm suspicious that it's in a server queue and just draining my phone battery.. I power off the Ionic and the One and it still wheelies, not even "Looking"..

So that makes me think me it could be a queuing issue on the Fitbit servers.... So I examined the times in key parts of the world when my instant sync occurred....

Australia 3-30 am All asleep..

Los Angeles 7am  - Just waking up

London 3pm Easing off....

Over to others for comment...

[MrMarv]

@Colinm39 - 

The only time I have ever had difficulty syncing to the servers, or rather the only scenario with syncing, I took care of by force quitting the iOS app, taking it out of memory and restarting it.

Sorry, I almost wish I was having problems so I could help by recounting my experiences - - - almost.

---- edit ----

Maybe it's different on the Android app, but on the iOS app, I can see the sync steps in a progress bar. At the beginning about 5 % fills as it connects to the device, it fills up pretty quick to about 50% where it pauses again. That is where I believe it is connecting to the Fitbit servers. It then takes off and fills the rest of the progress bar quickly. Sometimes there are one or two short pauses, but that is it.

I have never had the app take more than an estimated 15 seconds to complete a sync except for the time it pretty much froze at the middle and a force quit took care of that. Went right back to 5 second syncs.

---- end ----

Good luck in your informal poll.

[Colinm39]

@MrMarvThanks for the feedback... and before you digest this have a great New Years Day and 2018..

The Android has the same bar chart movement, but as part of that I'm refreshing the Dashboard on the PC to try and detect what the sequence is.. Sometimes I see the new steps on the server and not the phone in the middle of this procedure..

It would be nice for Fitbit to give us a sequencing so that we can make some decisions and help resolve this syncing issue..

My morning routine is to switch the phone on and try and sync via that.. I assumed that would be the same as restarting the App. I just had trouble syncing now and used your suggestion of Force Stopping the App, clearing Cache and then opening the App gain. Both the Ionic and the One synced immediately..  My only fast sync was what I reported earlier.. I didn't believe what I saw..  otherwise never your speeds..

As an offshoot I have found the multi syncing of the One and Ionic accurate, and what I was losing on shopping trolleys is now covered by the extra steps on the One.. Because the One isn't available to purchase now I have just paired my Zip to the Android.. Again a perfect multi sync..The One, Zip and Ionic all match for the step count. The one had the higher step count because I was charging the Ionic.. Christmas helps... 7 days on a charge for the Ionic...

Here is Fitbit Connect, on trying that and any selected Fitbit synced in my home environment.. immediately I selected a Fitbit.. Now approaching the evening in the USA and early morning in London so maybe my thinking about servers might be correct..

I used the WiFi connected to the phone to update the Zip Firmware, done in less than 3 minutes..  I used that method to reset the Ionic and that took 25 minutes, better than the initial 2 hours..

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@MrMarv wrote:

@Colinm39 - 

The only time I have ever had difficulty syncing to the servers, or rather the only scenario with syncing, I took care of by force quitting the iOS app, taking it out of memory and restarting it.

Sorry, I almost wish I was having problems so I could help by recounting my experiences - - - almost.

---- edit ----

Maybe it's different on the Android app, but on the iOS app, I can see the sync steps in a progress bar. At the beginning about 5 % fills as it connects to the device, it fills up pretty quick to about 50% where it pauses again. That is where I believe it is connecting to the Fitbit servers. It then takes off and fills the rest of the progress bar quickly. Sometimes there are one or two short pauses, but that is it.

I have never had the app take more than an estimated 15 seconds to complete a sync except for the time it pretty much froze at the middle and a force quit took care of that. Went right back to 5 second syncs.

---- end ----

Good luck in your informal poll.

---

[janel]

I have long been convinced that the problems are caused by the Fitbit servers, including often losing steps when I sync, syncs not completing, logged activities not showing up, and 250 steps per hour not being calculated.

For me on my iPhone with the ios app, the progress bar also pauses momentarily about halfway and then completes fairly quickly, but what hangs is the smaller "thinking" circle that seems to indicate continued communication with the Fitbit servers. Often it will just spin and spin and spin, and then the totals on the app revert to what they were before I synced, essentially losing the interim steps and activity.

Soemtimes, if I close the app and reopen it, it will make a new connection and sync fully, but not always, and I shouldn't have to close and reopen the app every single time I want  to sync my steps or log an activity.

I should note that Fitbit Connect with the dongle on my Windows 7 machine syncs reliably, but carrying my computer to the gym with me really isn't an option.

I should further note that Fitbit Connect rarely works at all on my Mac with High Sierra. I have to reinstall the program there every time I try to sync on that machine, and it says "not found" two or three times before finally syncing. Again, this appears to be a problem with Macs not connecting to Fitbit's servers. I will be very surprised to see Fitbit admit this, however, since they seem determined to make everything be user error.

[Colinm39]

@MrMarvSome more syncing.. Yesterday I synced two of the Fitbits perfectly and I struggled with the Ionic again. Did a force restart and we synced immediately.

Here are the steps status of the Fitbits before and after the sync.  The Ionic was low because of domestics, plenty of low level walking on carpet and the One and Zip always pickup those steps.

               Ionic       Zip    One

Before     3,967    4,888   5,109

After        5,118     5,112   5,112   So the system has done a great job sorting them out 

Last night I did a 4am test and the Ionic synced immediately, and this morning, 5 hours later it synced within 3 minutes.

Another thing I have noticed is, when I create my Activity record on my phone for my sleep period, then  I go into the internet Fitbit Activity Log, the database has the Activity there... So that has replicated straight away...

[MrMarv]

@Colinm39 - 

Well it looks like you survived New Years - it's New Years Morning or early afternoon where you are with nearly 8 more hours of 2017 to go here.

Of course, I only have one device to keep me busy and, I suspect, sane.

Back when I was coding some Windows applications in addition to coding on the "Big Boys" a lot of Windows adaptors were experiencing "memory leaks" where pieces of memory were being marked as "in use" when they were not causing sluggish running. Other apps would "poke" data to an address that had been reserved for another app and caused that app to freeze, aka "crash".

The above experiences over the years is why I have started "force quitting" apps when something starts to work erratically.

As far as somethings immediately being updated, book water intake. Just to ensure I was right, I just forced a sync, checked the web dashboard for the "just now" sync message and booked 8 oz of water.  Went strait to the Web Food Log and the water was there. I believe food hits immediately as well {pause} yep, it sure does. I suspected as such as my data indicator on my iPhone was doing it's "turn, turn, turn" thing (Sorry Byrds).

As far as my Alta HR/iPhone SE pair, over the last 20 hours from 8:00 pm to 4:00 pm (GMT-8), I have force a sync 12 times. From swipe down and release to sync end has ranged from 6 to 15 seconds. Remember, for me, those are the only devices in the loop other than the Fitbit servers and the path between them. My SE is communicating in-house at 802.11ac rates on a Gigabit network. I can't remember the speed of our internet provider's pipe to my house, but that isn't that important as long as I have the sync times I am getting, and probably not even then.

[Colinm39]

@MrMarvMy thoughts exactly and going back to machine level coding in 1968...fixing issues and stepping through registers on our first Burroughs computer.. Them were the days.....burning the midnight oil, plenty of Port, thinking, and stepping through payroll programs..  Some days I must have been over 0.05 breath test but none of that existed then....

I was fortunate, only lived 4 minutes from my job and could always run tests, do the shopping and come back...

All of these Fitbit comparisons today keeps me sane because of my baseline training from Toolmaking, Production Engineering,  Production Manager and EDP in those days... and IT Manager and the last ten years 60-70 I was rolling out PC networks all over Australia..

I feel they have it easier today from our early days... Assembler, RPG II, Cobol. Fortan IV even CPM86 which we networked on our Construction sites...  Line of site radio communications.. No spare ports in the local exchanges in remote areas.. The list goes on and on...Old memories definitely help us through crisis today....

I just tried to Sync and immediate...  All parts of the world in different New Year Zones... Enjoying themselves and not syncing...

Synced again 12 minutes later

[MrMarv]

@Colinm39 - 

Another reason to pretty much discount my numbers - if their servers are at Corporate, I only live about 400 miles away.

From their corporate offices to you is going to be over 7,000 miles. I wonder what a trace-route would look like?

I started with Z80 assembler in the early 1980's.

[WendyB]

@MrMarvI'm in Sacramento and I have syncing Issues. Much closer than you.

It is different for me Some days no Problem. Others its takes an act of God to sync

Some of us have been trying to figure it out but have not. But it does seem to be Android related

[WendyB]

Happy New Years @Colinm39 @MrMarv

Still have 3 hours to go here

[WendyB]

I know you are Engineers @Colinm39 @MrMarv

But this was the first computer I ever worked on. Worked there 20 years and size reduced a lot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I

[Colinm39]

@MrMarv  Here you are....Tracert to Fitbit and to Sun.com and a Ping to Fitbit..  Not too bad from here..and the server Telstra, is my provider in Australia..and... I'm on a 94mbs download and 38mbs upload with my provider. It's the new Fibre Optic being rolled out in Australia.  Sold as 100/50

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@MrMarv wrote:

@Colinm39 - 

Another reason to pretty much discount my numbers - if their servers are at Corporate, I only live about 400 miles away.

From their corporate offices to you is going to be over 7,000 miles. I wonder what a trace-route would look like?

I started with Z80 assembler in the early 1980's.

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[Colinm39]

@WendyBThe first real mainframe I worked on was at our University and had paper tape input.... My first program output was in paper tape. I took it home, not knowing what the next plan at my course was...

My children draped it around the trees in our back yard..

Next week re-input again so I could do the next lesson....

The computer room had large signs hanging from the ceiling letting the gawking visitors identify the equipment....Again.... Them were the days.  and no Disc drives......CDC equipment that looked like the photos in Wikipedia. That had an ICL mainframe for the students.. Only mag tape driven.

Amazingly we have a large funded health project in Australia funded by ???. For people who join, It's linking "sleeping" mobile phones at night ,to get massive "number crunching" power to do some genetic analysis.

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@WendyB wrote:

I know you are Engineers @Colinm39 @MrMarv

But this was the first computer I ever worked on. Worked there 20 years and size reduced a lot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I

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[WavyDavey]

Apps the size of Fitbit's will typically have clusters of database servers to sync, that are spread out globally, and never running off of the main domain site.

Running a ping or traceroute is fun, but it's not informative in terms of Fitbit's sync. It would be if the entire Fitbit operation was running off a single server location, as it may have in the early days. But you don't sell millions of units to only have them run against a single database location. If you've heard of this happening, please share, as that would be an awesome story to tell (alas I don't think it exists).

Also, I've run Fitbit sync through numerous VPN exit points, and there really wasn't any notable difference in sync speeds through them.

 Ironically, this thread is posted in the one forum that doesn't cover  sync---the web dashboard. 🙂

[WendyB]

Might want to head here as a post was started by Fitbit about syncing

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/Re-Ionic-not-syncing-correctly-and-not-receiving-Notifications...

@Colinm39@MrMarv

[MrMarv]

@Colinm39 - Your kid's TP'd your backyard using your homework - - - OMG, as the kids say - - - that is far more funny than "The dog ate it".

@WavyDavey - The tracert comment was more of a remembrance of how many servers it use to take to get to Microsoft in Washington state from SoCal "back in the day" when it mattered (12 on a good day) and what it would be at 7 - 8 times the "crow fly" distance.

@WendyB - Sacramento? Really? Born at Mercy General at 40th and J. Raised in Elverta. First job at Lucky Stores in North Highlands. Graduated from Rio Linda Senior High. Joined the Marine Corps the winter after graduation, spending eight years, and sadly never went back again except for visits. And missed the place awful for a while after each visit.

Never worked on main-frames. Taught myself to code in a derivative of Dartmouth Basic on a Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 1 starting in 1981. What my now wife called my "$1,000 Thinking Toy". Had a little experience locally and then someone took a chance on me and offered me a job with a manufacturing software house whose code resided on Minis - first was a Prime Computer 9000 series. That was in 1985.

[WendyB]

@MrMarv Moved to Sacramento 30 years ago. Live in Antelope next to Elverta. Do most my walking at Gibson Ranch you probably know it.

[MrMarv]

@WendyB - 

Used to ride in that area when I was really young before I got a horse. About 5 miles from "The house that built me" (sorry, Miranda) at the end of El Modena Ave.

I wonder how the area survived between my leaving in 1970 and you showing up circa 1987.

Small world, indeed.

I guess we should put away "old home week" for another day and get back to helping people.

 I wish you and yours a great 2018.

[Colinm39]

@WavyDaveyThanks for the input.. That explains the Cloudfare part of the Fitbit Tracert..

Interesting reading in this Wikipedia link

Interesting

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@WavyDavey wrote:

Apps the size of Fitbit's will typically have clusters of database servers to sync, that are spread out globally, and never running off of the main domain site.

Running a ping or traceroute is fun, but it's not informative in terms of Fitbit's sync. It would be if the entire Fitbit operation was running off a single server location, as it may have in the early days. But you don't sell millions of units to only have them run against a single database location. If you've heard of this happening, please share, as that would be an awesome story to tell (alas I don't think it exists).

Also, I've run Fitbit sync through numerous VPN exit points, and there really wasn't any notable difference in sync speeds through them.

 Ironically, this thread is posted in the one forum that doesn't cover  sync---the web dashboard. 🙂

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[rr56]

how do you force sync?