Fitbit Pay stopped working after latest update

[Robyn-TWR]

Since the recent firmware update to the Ionic, Fitbit Pay has stopped working. I have deleted and reinstalled the card multiple times. I have also shutdown my Ionic and restarted it. Nothing works. At the payment point, my Ionic vibrates but the payment terminal asks me to insert it swipe my card. Obviously,, I can’t swipe or insert my watch - so something is no longer working correctly. Can Fitbit please help

[Colinm39]

@Robyn-TWRI still have to take my card because of the retailers who won't upgrade their Tap and Pay devices.. These types won't even activate on tapping my card, so I have to insert the card. The staff behind the counter know there is a problem and the standard advice is, "the company won't replace the Tap and Pay terminal". In my area it's geographically an older area where many still use passbook accounts and cash so the retailers in my smaller shopping centers aren't affected by lost business...YET...

But the big BUT, these retailers are going to miss out on business eventually because within a few metres there are the new shops, new products and new clientele.. as I found out the last 3 days. Multilevel apartments being built, with modern shops at ground level and of course all of the latest gear....

So any failures I have is the terminal being out of date or faulty.

[Robyn-TWR]

I hear what you are saying @Colinm39 and I don’t know why it is that contactless payments never ever fail if I use my iPhone to pay. Not once has that ever failed. I can confidently leave my wallet and card at home. Doesn’t matter the age of the EFT terminal. It just works. But not so for Fitbit Pay, since the upgrade. The very same EFT terminal that succeeded with a payment in the morning can fail later that same day. I’ve been testing this out a lot, making multiple small purchases to try and get this sorted before we go on holiday next week. 

[SantiR]

@Colinm39 Thank you very much for sharing all of those details about your experience with Fitbit Pay. I'm sure this will be very useful for other users too. 

@Robyn-TWR Thanks for sharing your experience. Did customer support helped you out to get this sorted? If they did, please share the solution with us!

@RJFord Welcome to the Fitbit forums! Thanks for following the instructions provided. Thanks for your feedback on this. I will send it over to the right place.

In the meantime, try changing your clock face and see if that helps with the payments.

@Ynot Thanks for sharing your help on this thread.

Keep me posted! 

[RJFord]

Will do and revert on result.

Ok, I switched to the Fitbit moment clockface and did 3 transactions. 2 worked and one failed like before. 

As one last thing to try I will follow again the earlier instructions from the beginning and never install the non Fitbit clockface and see whether that makes a difference

Ok, after doing all steps again and then going down to my local coles that failed earlier today I attempted a transaction again and it failed so I had to use my card.

so that’s it for me until Fitbit provide the fix. Another 1.5 hours I will never get back.

Is it possible to revert my Fitbit to the earlier version of the software as it never failed?

Else can someone confirm Fitbit acknowledges the problem and will fix  by when?

Anything other than silence is greatly appreciated

thanks and hopefully resolution comes soon.

rich

Moderator Edit: Merged User's Posts

[Ynot]

Hi Rich

As far as I am aware Fitbit are in complete denial and the problem is with us users. 

Regards

Ynot 

[Colinm39]

I have just done a test on behalf of an Australian user in Melbourne and went to the Coles store that they were have difficulty.  Here is the link for the topic

My Ionic worked with Fitbit Pay CBA at their Coles store and my feeling of helplessness, I cannot put my finger on any of these issues and can't help.

[Robyn-TWR]

@Robyn-TWR Thanks for sharing your experience. Did customer support helped you out to get this sorted? If they did, please share the solution with us!

@SantiR Unfortunately support was not able to help me. I figured out on my own to try a different clock face. That still has it working only say 8-9 times out of 10, which is not a solid fix.  I can’t rely on Fitbit Pay. I’m not happy with how this whole issue is being handled. 

[RJFord]

Thanks and it appears that way. Let’s hope they step up to the plate and get as back as advocates of the product.

R

[AntW]

Hi All,

I have tried all of the suggestions offered with soft resets, factory resets, removing and reinstalling the fitbit app, removing and adding credit cards and using fitbit only clockfaces. All unsuccessful. 

My new morning ritual listed below has delivered a 100% success rate:

1. Wake up in the morning and fire up the fitbit app to allow sleep data syncing. (Optional)
2. Close the app fully (on iphone X, swipe hold up, then swipe the app closed. This appears to be a pretty key step as communication with the fitbit app seems to break fitbit pay pretty quickly. Often zero, sometimes only one successful transaction.
3. Soft restart watch. On Versa, hold down left and bottom buttons for 10 seconds until fitbit logo appears.
4. After entering PIN, use fitbit pay all day with no problems.
5. Cross fingers that this is the day Fitbit release a firmware patch. (optional, but you never know...)
6. Repeat from step 1.

I should note that after 24 hours of using fitbit pay with no issues (with the fitbit app closed), I was asked to reenter my PIN at which point transactions started failing again. I conclude that fitbit pay works perfectly after a reset as long as it doesn't talk to the fitbit app, but only for 24 hours. Hence, I do it each day and have had great success.

I've done this for about a week now and although resetting each morning takes all of 10 seconds out my day, it has made fitbit pay reliable until a proper solution is rolled out through a new firmware upgrade. I also have to credit @smau7 in another thread for discovering this workaround.

If you're like me and you will try anything to get your beloved fitbit pay working reliably, please have a go and reply to this thread if this works for you (or not). I look forward to reading your story.

[Robyn-TWR]

Thanks @AntW. I’ve more or less been doing this and it is helping. The App is fully closed down multiple times a day on my iPhone X. I don’t leave it in the background. Since the Fitbit Pay issues started, I’ve been doing a daily shutdown of the Ionic. It’s whats one of the things that got me to around 8/10 success rate. To get it to work at all, it took a factory reset and change of clock face. Before that, it didn’t work at all. 

Wait, are you saying a restart after each time you’ve synced with the App?  I’ll try that. It’s a nuisance, as I sync multiple times a day for challenges & to chat with  my fellow steppers ..... but I already often restart the Ionic just before I make a purchase. 

[Sbgatov]

Don’t worry, your entire watch will stop working soon. And my advice, don’t be fooled by their replacements. If you had it work for longer than 5-6 mos, you’re more than maxed out. This product should be sold on Wish because of its crappy quality, but instead they charge premium prices in stores like best buy and target. Bunch of BS

[RJFord]

Thanks @AntW. I followed your instructions and am pleased to advise I had success today at my local coles which had consistently failed since the upgrade. Even managed to do a part refund via the Fitbit as I was double charged on some cherries. I will continue to test with vendors that have been failing since the upgrade and report back.

This is a doable workaround for me until Fitbit provide a fix and FYI my setup is as follows:

fitbit ionic

3rd party weather clockface

iphone 6

nab visa credit card

thanks again

[SantiR]

Hello everyone! Thanks for sharing your feedback, experiences, and solutions on this thread regarding Fitbit Pay.

I just wanted to add the following information you need to confirm when paying at a POS using Fitbit Pay:

• Make sure the merchant uses contactless payment methods. Make sure you’ve added a card in the Wallet section of the Fitbit app.
• Make sure the watch face is near the reader and that the cashier knows you’re using a contactless payment. 
• You must wear your watch on your wrist to make payments with Fitbit Pay.
• If prompted, enter your 4-digit watch PIN code.
• When the payment succeeds, your watch vibrates and you’ll see a confirmation on the screen.

Keep me posted! 

[Azza_h]

Isn’t that all pretty obvious, We all know how contactless payments work the eftpos terminals are recognising we are trying to make a contactless payment but are returning authorisation errors.

My work around for whenever a payment fails is to take my watch off my wrist wait a few seconds and then put it back on my wrist then enter my unlock code and that seems to make it work for a day or so 

[RJFord]

Thanks will do and is important to understand the customer context here. Most of us are habitual in our use of Fitbit pay. For me that means many of my transactions are with the same vendors over and over again. Eg: groceries, petrol, coffee, regular cafes etc.

Thus it is very clear and apparent when a problem is introduced. Ie: before the latest upgrade Fitbit pay had never failed at any vendor ever. Post upgrade it works with some and not with others. Fallback is to use contactless on physical card which always works and confirms vendor contactless system is fine. Ideally, preference is not to carry cash or card but that requires trust and confidence with Fitbit pay. Something we had and have now lost.

The workaround provided yesterday has thus far confirmed 2 of my regular vendors which failed after Fitbit upgrade are now working again.  I will continue to work through these vendors where I had the failure to confirm further. 

Thus us I would conclude the issue is some sort of compatibility problem between the Fitbit app on the phone and contactless software from watch.

Moderator: Are Fitbit going to acknowledge the issue and work on a fix for us?

cheers. 

Rich

[Robyn-TWR]

@SantiR

We know all this already. Many of us have said several times that we have been using Fitbit Pay since before the firmware upgrade and that it was working fine prior to said upgrade - therefore we know this. We’re looking for something new

[Colinm39]

In Australia at the Shaver Shop.  I paid with the Ionic and the staff member asked me what watch.. Why?... His reply, "Fitbit and Garmin watches work here, but not Apple watches".

[Robyn-TWR]

All I can say is that Apple Pay has never failed me - not once. I use Apple Pay more regularly too, as I have my own card loaded on it. The Ionic has my husband’s card loaded on it. If I could load his card on Apple Pay, I would - but his card is Westpac and Westpac are not associated with Apple Pay

[graker]

Ever since the latest software update for my Versa i have basically been unable to use PayWay via the watch sometimes it works other times the watch vibrates as usual but terminal says not available or unknown error this has only happened since the update I have tried removing and re adding the card , deleting and reinstalling app and even a factory reset still no change even holding the left button to bring card up before use does nothing to help 
If this a known issue and will it be fixed soon ?

I have done all the above fixes and have tried using my Versa at retailers it previously worked at before update and still I can not use Fitbit pay, I have also returned my Versa for replacement and the new one still does not work.

[SilviaFitbit]

Hey @Azza_h. Thanks for sharing what's working for you. I would like you to confirm that you've tried the procedure mentioned above in this post. What kind of error are you getting on your Ionic when Fitbit Pay isn't working? 

Thanks for continue sharing those details @RJFord. Your feedback is appreciated and we're at Fitbit are always trying to provide you with troubleshooting that can fix the issue that you're having. I've shared your post with our Support team, they will continue assisting you with this matter. So far, there's no bug about Fitbit Pay. 

Hey there @Robyn-TWR. I've shared your post with our Support team and they've mentioned that you already have a case with them and it has been escalated to another Support level. They will continue assisting via email. 

Thanks for sharing those details @Colinm39. 

Great to see you around @graker. I appreciate that you've mentioned that you've tried the procedure mentioned above. In this case, I've shared your post with our Support team they will continue assisting you via email. 

Hope this helps! I'll be around if you need further assistance.