Crashes during exercise

[BMCG]

10/3 morning run, tracking with GPS, looked at watch at mile 2,

checked a couple minutes later and it was the workout screen where you scroll to choose exercise. So I restarted “run” and went home. Synced to phone, 2+mile run is not there, was never recorded, didn’t sync. This is a MAJOR  reason for buying a gps tracker, it must work every time.  

Other problems-

finally got pandora stations to show up when I forced sync for 15th time on work WiFi, got Home put watch on charger, Home WiFi, pandora station and disappeared!!!! Fitbit Please fix software! Will Ben returning off not fixed in next couple weeks for refund. 

I was excited aboit Ionic becuase I like fitbit, battery life vs Apple Watch, and combined the function of my old gps running watch and all day tracker. But it was released with too many problems.  Please post update on firmware fixes that may be in the future. 

Moderator edit: edited title for clarity & format

[Whistler888]

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@Wizegeezer wrote:

Still crashes for me even after applying the latest update.  It never crashes if I use some of the workarounds suggested in this forum.  Not clear why fixing this hasn't been a priority for the engineering team since the problem affects Versa also.

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To everyone that has this problem.  My Ionic was immediately replaced because it randomly crashed.  Call Tech Support as the number linked below while you can.  The toll-free number has just been deleted from the Help webpage.

My replacement device has not crashed the past month.  So would suspect that new updated internal hardware has replaced defective ones.  Probs was a supplier issue or QC problems.  Personally would call them right now as no one on this Forum has any authority to get your device replaced or refunded.

[BenBenson]

Excellent advice. I hope it works for those with crashing issues!

[BenBenson]

@SunsetRunner that is a great point that the engineers haven't been able to
adjust the software to account for defective hardware. NASA can do it with
spacecraft sometimes so why can't Fitbit?

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Moderator edit: personal info removed

[MattFitbit]

Hi all!

Just wanted to thank you for your continued patience as our team works to resolve these intermittent crashes. I apologize that so many of you have had to put up with this experience for this long. 

With that being said, I do have a few questions which may help our engineers better determine what might be causing these crashes: 

1. How long were you running/exercising before the watch crashes? Is this time pretty regular or inconsistent?
2. What type of exercise are you using? Does it utilize GPS?
3. Were you listening to music on their device when doing the exercise, etc?

I appreciate your help with this. Looking forward to hearing more about your experiences. 

[PaulHaines]

Hi,
For me the time a crash occurred s totally random. 5 mins, 1 hour, can be
anything. Yes, I use GPS whilst in bike mode. No music or any other
service. I tried with notifications disabled too and it still occurs, so it
is not related to that.

[sfringer]

@MattFitbit I must say I'm a bit disappointed I have to explain my experience again, I was  pretty clear in many previous posts that I thought would have already been sent to the development team.
So here is my experience:

1. It is consistent. My crash occurs at the very first auto-cue, which is set to 1 mile. It does not happen every run, and definitely not when I interact with the screen before I reach the first auto-cue.
2. I am using a Run exercise which uses GPS.
3. I am not listening to music (or anything I would consider excessive, just occasionally checking stats)

[SunsetRunner]

Crash is totally random. Usually, during Workout ( no GPS ) and Bike ( GPS ). No music, no any cues or anything. I always use default tracking. I have been describing that for a few months. Aren't there any logs that could be somehow pushed back to developers? Any stored crashlogs ( I guess there may be not enough space for coredumps )? Isn't the device ready to handle such situations?

[TSMDR]

This seems to be the case for me also. Crashes seem random, but mainly connected GPS. Also happens occasionally on non GPS activities. 

I have soft reset/restarted the Versa, full factory reset including removing the device from my iPhone and deleting the app and starting fresh. Still the same. I have also started using Fitbit only watch faces but no difference. I don’t use music facility or notifications. 

None of this happened before the last two updates so something has changed which the Versa itself can’t handle! 

Im very disappointed as the look of the Versa and functionality is great, when it works,but I’ve lost faith in its ability to monitor my activities and now use my old garmin. 

I have reported all this to Fitbit support including other minor problems over the past 6 months but see that others have reported the same issues well over a year ago and nothing has changed sadly. 

Come on Fitbit, sort this all

out! You are letting your customers down badly and so much bad press can only do you damage driving customers to move away other devices. I can’t honestly say I could recommend any Fitbit device to anyone right now. 

Sadly having reported all

this before I don’t expect to see any positive changes any time soon!! 

[runnerboi418]

My experience mirrors @sfringer: crashes at the first auto cue point (but not in every run).

Happens both during GPS and treadmill runs.

If it doesn’t happen at the first auto cue point, it won’t happen on the run at all.

If’n I interact with the screen before the first auto-cue point, it won’t crash (or at least, it hasn’t yet).

BEK

[MattFitbit]

Hey peeps! 

Thanks for taking the time to get back to me with some of the specifics from these crashes. I will be sure to forward this info to our engineers as they work to determine a root cause. 

@sfringer I understand that you have voiced your experience before, so I apologize for any redundancy. I am simply trying to get information that is current, as OS 3.0 was released not too long ago. I appreciate you getting back to me!

Feel free to let me know if you experience these crashes again. I will continue to monitor this thread for feedback. Thanks! 

[Wizegeezer]

Hi Matt, My crashes are fairly easy to reproduce and started after the May 2018 update, if that gives any clues.  Here are my answers to your questions:

1. How long were you running/exercising before the watch crashes? Is this time pretty regular or inconsistent?   This happens at the first Auto Cue which I set for every 2 minutes.  If I turn Auto Cue off, I don't get crashes.  It also crashes if I set Auto Cue to distance.
2. What type of exercise are you using? Does it utilize GPS?  I only run and GPS is always on.
3. Were you listening to music on their device when doing the exercise, etc?  Sometimes but not always.  Doesn't seem to affect the crashes one way or the other.

I've found that if I interact with the screen at the beginning of a run, it never crashes.  This is @runnerboi418 's workaround.   I also found that if I set a distance or time target in the OS 3.0 version of the Exercise App, it doesn't seem to crash. I don't have enough experience yet to determine if this is real or just a coincidence, however.  

I've also done several factory resets of the Ionic which also doesn't seem to help this issue.

Thanks for your help.

[LarryRed]

Hi, I am now finding my Fitbit crashes randomly during exercise. Two out of four swims in the past week (started it then at some point crashed and recorded nothing, but then worked when restarted exercise).. My wife’s did similar and when she started it again completely miscaultated lengths. Today it crashed in the gym but realised I was doing exercise but recorded no heart rate for a while. 

Whats more annoying it wouldn’t sync so turned phone on and off and it then deleted a whole host of active minutes this morning. 

This is the first set of issues I have had with it since buying it last August, but struggling to see the point of a fitness tracker if it doesn’t track any exercise? 

[SantiR]

@LarryRed Welcome to the Fitbit forums and I hope you're doing well @Wizegeezer! Thanks for also reporting the situation you are experiencing with the exercises crashing. Thanks for sharing those details regarding this.

I will forward this information to the correct place. Thanks for helping our team to know the specifics you are experiencing. 

@Wizegeezer Thanks for sharing that workaround. I'm sure it will be helpful for other users in the meantime this gets sorted. 

Thanks for your patience. Have a great day! 

[ScottKilbo]

This would be a great fix to have.  It's constantly doing this to me.

[Wizegeezer]

Thanks for your reply @SantiR . Also, to be clear, everything I mentioned has previously been posted in this forum multiple times over the past year .

[wait_4_it]

I'm seeing a lot of reports of the same issues. I'm seeing a lot of thanks for the info statements. What I'm hoping for is a solution. My Ionic crashes and restarts during GPS and non-GPS tracked workouts. It also crashes when I'm sitting at my desk, eating dinner or reading a book. I've done enough Factory Resets to reset the factory and still see the same "random" issues. It's occurred on both the previous OS build and the latest. I love the concept and tolerate the reality for now, but sooner or later will have to look for another device.

Is the dev team working on this? It seems able to be reproduced judging by the 16 pages of reporting in this thread.

...and by the way what happened to the promised sp02 function and the right swipe? If right swipe isn't going to be utilized it seems silly not to release it to another function.

[scottdl51]

Mine started doing the same thing about a month ago.  It has happened at least 5 times and has become very frustrating.

In response to a request posted:

1. How long were you running/exercising before the watch crashes? Is this time pretty regular or inconsistent?  ----- Anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes into the exercise being tracked.
2. What type of exercise are you using? Does it utilize GPS? ----Treadmill walking, elliptical, and weightlifting.  No GPS in use when these occurred.
3. Were you listening to music on their device when doing the exercise, etc?  No, never used the music function.

[MattFitbit]

Hi all. Just checking in here. 

@scottdl51 @wait_4_it @Wizegeezer @ScottKilbo I really appreciate the detailed reports so many of you have provided. I am forwarding this information to our product team as they work to identify a root cause. Though I do not have a timeline for resolution yet, I will keep you updated as more info comes in. 

If you have any additional questions, you know where to find me!

[SunsetRunner]

@MattFitbit what other "additional questions" do you expect which are different than "when is it going to be fixed"? It has been going on longer than half of the current Ionic lifetime.

[md85]

This is crazy how long this is taking.  Im so lucky that Fitbit sent me a replacement pebble in super quick time.  I decided to sell it and I bought a Garmin Fenix 6 months ago. 

Never looked back.  The thing picks up GPS signals inside the house, never crashes, hardly uses any battery and the data that comes from that thing is amazing.  Apps are great, ANT+, the list goes on.

Its sad that the Ionic didn't live up to its potential.  Its a beautiful watch, but truly useless.  I suggest ppl just move on from the company and get something else.  Not sure how the moderators can keep on asking the same dumb questions.  Ppl on this forum have tried so hard to help out but just keep getting fed the same old script.