Most sync attempts give 'Can't Sync' after looong attempt

[MarkSilberbauer]

Hi there,

I have an iPhone SE 2022 and Inspire 3 (FW version 188.58).

I have given permission to iOS to allow the fitbit app to background refresh.

I noticed that there was no syncing taking place automatically. So I started trying to sync manually and saw that any attempts to sync take long enough for the phone display to lock. Waking the phone again to check the progress inevitably shows that sync failed. This lead me to suspect that the screen timeout puts the phone into sleep which then immediately fails the sync. 

So I set the screen timeout to "never" (always on) and attempt to sync. This is successful about 1 out of 4 attempts, the other three giving a "can't sync" error. The time to conclude the sync (regardless of success / fail) is in minutes, usually longer than 3 minutes and some even take as long as 10 minutes.

Tried the following to improve the sync time:

• Restarting fitbit: doesn't work
• Restarting iphone: doesn't work
• Turning bluetooth on and off: doesn't work
• "Forgetting device" on bluetooth on iphone and re-pairing the BT connection: doesn't work

Tried more intrusive changes and found that the following worked to improve the sync time, but only temporarily:

• Removing the device from fitbit app, and re-adding it: sync'ed within a few seconds, but things went back to problematic after a day or two. Tried this a couple of times more and it didn't improve at all on one of the occaisions.
• Deleting, reinstalling the Fitbit app (Apple app store) and factory resetting the fitbit worked for the first day then went back to problematic again thereafter.

At this stage it seems like if it has to sync more than day, it gets overwhelmed or something? Or some intermittent random connection issue causes an eventual timeout.

Either way, the above makes for an extremely frustrating snyc process.  Any ideas out there or similar experiences?

Thanks

[JuanFitbit]

@MarkSilberbauer Nice to see you here. Thank you for your message and efforts.

Please sync your Inspire 3 or try this first thing in the morning when the Inspire 3 doesn't have recorded much, as most of the data not sync will get lost.  

Swipe down from the clock screen to find the Settings app .
2. Open the Settings app  > Device Info > Clear User Data.
3. Swipe up, then press Hold 3 Sec for 3 seconds and release.
4. When you see the Fitbit logo and Inspire 3 vibrates, your data is erased.

Try to setup the tracker as a new device on the Fitbit app. 

[MarkSilberbauer]

Many thanks for the for the reply, Juan.

I cleared the user data as suggested and tested it over the weekend. Unfortunately, it hasn't helped. This is unsurprising considering I had previously tried a factory reset to remedy the problem (see my list of attempted fixes). But it's always good to check again just to make sure.

My working theory at this stage is that if I can get the app to sync automatically in the background multiple times a day in smaller increments, the quantity of data being synced will be less and will not overwhelm the synchronisation process. Then I will at least circumvent these frustrating sync failures.

[JuanFitbit]

@MarkSilberbauer , Thank you for your further efforts and information. 

The amount of data stored on the Inspire 3 will influence how long it will take for your synchronisation to be finished. Meaning, if you sync every 3rd day it will take longer as if you sync once or twice a day. 

Seems that the issue comes from the missing firmware update. You mentioned that the the Inspire 3 has v188.58. The current version is v194.61

Try to sync 1 or twice a day until you get the banner shown on the Fitbit app. The banner will indicate that your update is ready for you. 
Then follow the instructions here: How do I update my Fitbit device?

[MarkSilberbauer]

Agreed. Looking forward to the update being made available in my region.
Hope it fixes the issues.
Thanks, Mark
--
Sent from my phone

[MarkSilberbauer]

Hi all, in case anyone has this problem: The sync suddenly started working again after being broken for months. It is now syncing reliably and automatically on a daily basis. There was no firmware update - I'm still on the same firmware 188.58 - so it must've been either an app update or an iOS update the fixed the issue 🤷‍:male_sign: