Ionic GPS stucks at "Connecting" state.

[SunsetRunner]

HI,

i bought Ionic couple of months ago, and was working fine. All of sudden last night i started RUN mode manually which i do every day and GPS was stuck at "CONNECTING" state. GPS connection does not gets established now any more. i have tried to reset and restart ionic but all of no use.

will appreciate if some one comes up with same experience or solution.

[SunsetRunner · Accepted solution]

@SunsetRunner You haven’t moved and running from a different location? It al OST sounds like a gps cold start, in that it doesn’t know where it is and is having to download all the GPs telemetry. How long have you left it searching, as it can take a while, especially if you’re moving while it’s searching.

[SunsetRunner]

Thanks for reply.

firstly i have tried changing locations and then tried to lock GPS but it failed.

Secondly, i usually wait for not more than 5 mins. i guess should try to give it more time to download OST.

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@SunsetRunnerwrote:

@SunsetRunner You haven’t moved and running from a different location? It al OST sounds like a gps cold start, in that it doesn’t know where it is and is having to download all the GPs telemetry. How long have you left it searching, as it can take a while, especially if you’re moving while it’s searching.

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[SunsetRunner]

update:

just gave watch 15 mins in excercise mode after resetting watch and it worked.

Thanks for support.

[Tritium]

I have a similar issue but mine always takes a long time to connect in the first place (my partner has an Ionic and we run together sometimes - hers hooks up in seconds and mine takes ~5mins) but then sometimes drops signal while I'm running and gets stuck on 'connecting' I seriously nearly ripped it off and threw it this morning. I mostly run the same routes, occasionally going somewhere new. It happens on both types of route. I've done restarts and everything but it is just a lottery whether I get proper data at the end of my run or not. 

Sorry if I'm being thick but I didn't understand the solution provided here. Reset the watch to factory and start a fresh?

[Tim31415]

I experienced this also a couple of days ago. This was the first time, and it took about 6 minutes to find a GPS lock.

I was in the same location as always. I hope it is not yet another Ionic problem which this time surfaces after a few months.

[SunsetRunner]

@Tritium ,first of all i would like to share your grief. fitbit team has pretty bad software development team, with lots of bugs specially with ionics and customer support is equally pathetic.

you can try below mentioned steps, they worked for me at least:

Turn off mobile blue tooth

remove your device from mobile app

Reset your device by pressing left and Bottom right button.

turn on mobile blue tooth.

Add your device on mobile fitbit APP and sync it.

Go to outdoor location and open exercise mode and let GPS establish its self. it may take up to 10 mins for first time.

cheers.

[Tritium]

@SunsetRunner thank you for the info. I've followed your steps and my ionic just connected fairly quickly, though still more slowly than my partner's device. Guess I'll have to wait and see if I drop signal on my next run. 

I read with disappointment your comments about fitbit's customer service, I abandoned Garmin over the way they handled the massive issues caused in their January software update. They literally took the 'ignore it and it will go away' approach. I really hope I'm not driven from fitbit for the same sort of reasons. 

[Cyclonetog]

My ionic has gradually been getting worse. 

For 2 months it was ok, connecting fairly quickly. 

Now over the last few runs it has begun to struggle. 

I've waited outside the house, waiting to set off and getting cold, but got a connection after a few mins. 

The next run I waited as long as I could before I got too cold and just set off without GPS, it managed to attach about 1km in. 

Today I did the same and got round my 5.5k route without it ever connecting.  

I've tried resetting numerous times. I want a warranty replacement or a refund. 

Can any mods read this post and advise? And by read I mean actually read the post and not suggest a reset. 

Please don't tell me that tall buildings and trees will affect my GPS, none have gone up since the 2 months where it worked (sort of) properly. 

I still like the idea of the ionic, but it really doesn't do the specific tasks I bought it for very well at all. Which was to leave my phone behind while I had a GPS run with music. 

I have to move my ionic to my right wrist for music to work and GPS has totally jumped ship. 

[Colinm39]

I;m now having the same problem.. Everything else works on my Ionic except the GPS for Walking and Hiking since update and after 3 successive restarts on the Ionic.

I'm communicating with Support because my Surge connects immediately with Walking and Hiking at exactly the same time that I have initiated the Exercise GPS on the watch....and my Android phone always connects and provided I only Pause and Hold Finish I get a correct result.

[Emma92]

Thank you for your post. I’m experiencing the exact same problem! Just went on a 17k run, Ionic didn’t connect until 6 km in. Thursday, same situation. This wasn’t the case before, it used to connect within the minute! I’m participating in a 10-mile race next Sunday and will be very annoyed if this happens then.

[Colinm39]

@Emma92 I had the tools to convince Fitbit that my GPS was faulty.. The phone GPS, my Surge and an App on my phone which always showed on average 11 active satellites. When Fitbit  informed me there was an issue I had a replacement Ionic in 3 business days from overseas.  My Ionic would never connect to the GPS and I started to get accelerated battery loss after 6 months.

When you did your last run did the Fitbit algorithms fill in the missing km's.. ?. If so you will get some data.

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@Emma92 wrote:

Thank you for your post. I’m experiencing the exact same problem! Just went on a 17k run, Ionic didn’t connect until 6 km in. Thursday, same situation. This wasn’t the case before, it used to connect within the minute! I’m participating in a 10-mile race next Sunday and will be very annoyed if this happens then.

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[Emma92]

Hi Colin,

I've just contacted my reseller, luckily they have excellent client service and are sending me a new Ionic as we speak. So there's still hope for Sunday's race 😉

Yes, the algorithms did fill in the missing kms, but they're pretty far off (I think they estimated my pace at 1 minute/km faster than I was actually going). And as we can't seem to edit GPS tracked routes, there's nothing to be done.

Hope your new Ionic serves you better than the last one, and thanks for replying!

[Colinm39]

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@Emma92 wrote:

Hi Colin,

I've just contacted my reseller, luckily they have excellent client service and are sending me a new Ionic as we speak. So there's still hope for Sunday's race 😉

Yes, the algorithms did fill in the missing kms, but they're pretty far off (I think they estimated my pace at 1 minute/km faster than I was actually going). And as we can't seem to edit GPS tracked routes, there's nothing to be done.

Hope your new Ionic serves you better than the last one, and thanks for replying!

@Emma92That's why it's important you have your stride correct. because the Ionic uses the stride when it drops connection.  I have mine set manually to overcome other issues.

My new Ionic took nearly 5 hours to do a perfect update.. The previous one only took 29 minutes and both of those were Bluetooth via phone connected to my WiFi which is connected to my Fibre 100mbs download.. So it found a slow download site.... but a perfect update..

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[Colinm39]

A couple of weeks after my replacement Ionic of 5 months old. and the only issue was GPS not connecting in the last month..... Keeping in mind Fitbit replaced this Ionic in 3 business days from overseas to Australia, excellent response.... and on the 2nd charge 7 days battery  and the GPS connects immediately. After some GPS and Workouts the 3rd charge battery is at 40% for 4+ days.

Today was a comparison day using the GPS Walk, Surge and the Ionic in multi mode.. To test accuracy, and, "can I have two maps in multi mode". Both maps synced perfectly and the accuracy was unbelievable, so I plotted it with Google Map My Run.. here are the results.

[Nastiasn]

Hi @Colinm39,

My ionic also seems to be always in the "connecting" state when i switch the gps on and start a run. I am afraid if the gps is not working on my ionic...so many problems since i bought it  just 2 days ago....

How long does it take for Ionic to finally really connect to gps?

Cheers

Nat

[Colinm39]

@NastiasnMy replacement Ionic connects within seconds.

Before I lodged my case I downloaded the GPS Status App from the App Store to check satellite coverage, typically 12 active  Satellites.

I then used Mobile Track on the phone and at the same time started the Walking exercise GPS.

I stopped both and took screen shots of the results. If you use android phone you cannot pause and restart or you will lose the GPS track.

After answering the typical cut and paste emails my case was strong enough to support the replacement. But, I also used the Surge tracking accurately..

[azieg]

Since few days I cannot connect to GPS.

Last week my Ionic's GPS started to act streange - it started to lose signal and afterwards couldn't restore it. I think the problem started few days after updating the watch.

I have Ionic since January, and before I had no problems with it.

Usually GPS was connecting very fast and I had no problem with losing the signal.

Now GPS doesn't work... 

I have tried all the sugestions written here but nothing works.

[New_Jen]

I’m having the same problem. It used to work fine. After the May update I had an issue with it taking about 3 tries and 10 minutes to connect, then the next time it worked okay, and one other time it gave me a little trouble but captured most of my walk.

i only did the most recent update a couple weeks ago and just tried an outdoor walk last night. I used the same route as always and it was a nice, clear night. The ionic failed to connect after 15 minutes. I stopped and started it again and no connection after another 15 minutes. It never connected at all.

I tried again tonight, and before starting I tried the steps above in this post. First attempt to connect didn’t work. After 3 minutes, I stopped and tried agai; waited a few more minutes and stopped again. Finally I tried a third time and just let it run; it finally connected after 30 minutes when I was a block from home.

What would cause this? It used to connect in 30 seconds to a minute?

[SunsetRunner]

Cause is definitely bad software development. Ionic stores some geo location data in its directory. Some times it just gets lost due to bugs. In this scenario ionic downloads all data from beginning which might take variable time.


Regards

Moderator edit: personal info removed