This feature request is actually a bug report posted on advise from the Fitbit Escalation team. It is a suggested fix to the bug report . File name collisions are a bug in the Fitbit app, because they are causing trouble beyond the users' control. I have tried to submit a bug report via support Twitter/Email but it is very hard to communicate the problem clearly.
Perhaps the problem is that English is not my native language. Maybe someone else can communicate the problem clearly. I will post the correspondence, cleared of names and pleasantries, below.
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Twitter/SpO2
There is a bug where every exported ECG overwrites the previous one if it was exported in the same minute.
Please have a developer look at the bug and other low hanging fruit improvements here: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Sense/ECG-improvement-recommendations-from-a-heart-patient/m-p/45785...
Twitter/Fitbit
Thanks! We created a case for you and someone will reach out to you soon.
Email/Fitbit
Thanks for the contacting us through our social support, and for all the information provided, please note that we’re constantly striving to improve Fitbit products and services, and we very much appreciate all of the input we receive from our customers.
In order to further assist you, we’d like to verify if you’re able to see the record date once you’ve downloaded the PDF file, as you should see there. From the community post it says that you’re able to see the export date not the record date. If possible please provide a screenshoot of the PDF files you’ve downloaded.
Email/SpO2
The content of the exported PDF is fine, it does show the recorded date/time correctly.
When saving/exporting the PDF however, the automatically generated file name for the file stored in the downloads folder has the date/time when the report was generated, not when it was recorded. So if you generate 3 reports in the same minute from ECGs recorded earlier, they will all have the same automatically generated file name. All exports will overwrite each other because they have the same file name.
You can try this yourself on the Android app. Create three ECGs with Fitbit Sense. Then sync the Sense in the Android app. Go to the Report page in the app. Next, within the same minute on the clock, go to each report, export, okay, back, back, next report, export, okay, back etc.
You’ll end up with three notifications in the app telling you the PDF is ready for download.
Download all three of them. Go to your downloads folder. Observe there is only one file. It’s the last one you exported. The previous ones were overwritten because the same file name is used.
Email/Fitbit
We’ve reviewed your case with our team and this case we’d like you to change the file’s name before exporting a new file, so it won’t be overwritten.
Email/SpO2
I’m slightly surprised you ask me this, because I explained in the community thread communicated to your colleague who opened case #38445059 that renaming the file is a functioning workaround indeed.
Of course, it would not make sense to ask Fitbit users to manually rename every file when exporting a couple of dozen reports, when the Fitbit app can simply generate a unique filename, like the ECG recording time rather than the ECG exporting time.
Email/Fitbit
We’re sorry for asking to change the files’ name again when you’ve already tried this workaround. We’ve double checked your case with our high support team, and we’d like to share with you that we still doesn’t have the option to save each file with different name, as this function works the same as a computer does, therefore, if you save the file with the same name it will be overwritten.
Email/SpO2
Correct. If you save the file with the same name, it will indeed be overwritten. The filename should be unique, so it doesn’t get overwritten.
But here is the problem:Not me, but the Fitbit app decides the file name. I cannot change the name. So Fitbit should choose a different file name.
This is how the Fitbit app causes the problem:
Fitbit generates a filename called ECGReport_{$EXPORT_TIME_MINUTES}.pdf.
The $EXPORT_TIME_MINUTES is in hours+minutes. If you export 5 previously recorded ECG’s in a row, they will all be exported in the same minute or two. So you get the following exported files:
- ECGReport_19 Nov 2020_21-16.pdf
- ECGReport_19 Nov 2020_21-16.pdf
- ECGReport_19 Nov 2020_21-16.pdf
- ECGReport_19 Nov 2020_21-17.pdf
- ECGReport_19 Nov 2020_21-17.pdf
Do you see the problem here? The first three will overwrite each other, and the last two will overwrite each other, leaving you with only two files after five exports.
This is the solution I’m proposing:
We need two small changes to fix this.
- Add seconds to the file name. hours-minutes-seconds.
- Technically two exports can be completed on the same second. Since it’s physically impossible to record two ECG’s in the same second, you can use the time of the ECG recording - e.g. $RECORD_TIME_SECONDS - rather than the time of the ECG export to make the filename. This is guaranteed to be unique.
Now, the previously mentioned files would look like this:
- ECGReport_17 Nov 2020_12-20.pdf
- ECGReport_17 Nov 2020_19-45.pdf
- ECGReport_18 Nov 2020_11-20.pdf
- ECGReport_18 Nov 2020_11-22.pdf
- ECGReport_19 Nov 2020_21-58.pdf
Do you see how this solves the problem?
As an added bonus, the file names are now a lot more valuable, because the export date is not relevant when searching for “that one weekend in september when my heart felt strange”. The record date is relevant.
I hope this helps to clarify the issue.
Email/Fitbit
We’re part of the Escalations team and we’d be happy to assist you with your Fitbit Sense’s ECG files issue.
We have forwarded your inquiry to the appropriate department for proper handling. Expect another email from us as soon as possible.
Email/Fitbit
We suggest you to export one ECG scan result at a time and make a copy of the PDF file before downloading another one.
Email/SpO2
What we need to do is get the problem fixed in the Fitbit app so the workaround is no longer necessary. I’m not looking for support; I’m only trying to help fix a bug in the Fitbit app with this correspondence. The problem is that the Fitbit app that generates bad filenames and it can be fixed in the app by the developers. I only wish that the Fitbit team acknowledges the problem and understands the solution I have previously suggested.
Email/Fitbit
We appreciate your feedback. We’ve reached out to our team for further assistance.
We’ll get back to you as soon as we receive a response from them.
Email/Fitbit
The feature that you are looking for is not yet included on our product road map. We’re constantly striving to improve Fitbit products and services, and we very much appreciate all of the input we receive from our customers. The best place to make your voice heard is the Ideas board on our community (community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Requests/idb-p/features). Please take a moment to visit and give us your feedback.
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Emphasis in that last one is mine. It is not a feature, the current implementation has a bug. And I know it's not on the roadmap, it should be on the road map. That's why I contacted Fitbit in the first place.
Are we seriously having to vote for which bugs should be on the roadmap to fixing now?
I am so utterly disappointed with this. This was 10 days of communicating. I'm a developer myself on an international team. We use English as a general language. A bug is a bug, we don't negotiate over such things. If it breaks during normal usage, it's a bug. I've never experienced such a big misunderstanding, to the point where I'm wondering if this is a tactic. "Slowly pretend to help but disregard everything."
And then these follow up emails "please tell us how we are doing." What do I even say? The individual support agents are very nice and polite. Once they make a case with the development team it's not their fault that the dev team don't read about the actual problem/solution and just tell support to have the customer manually rename every file exported in the download folder before I do a new export? I mean... really? What the actual ...
Moderator Edit: Formatting
