Missing GPS data

[DrYool]

On a walking holiday last week I recorded a number of GPS trails using my Fitbit Ionic. While all appeared to work fine judging from my Ionic (i.e. there were no problems when it was in operation), some of these have successfully transferred to Strava, others haven't. On looking at the latter on the Fitbit website, they appear not to have any associated GPS data, and instead only record the number of steps taken (they're also anomalously recorded as "walks" rather than the "runs" that I'm forced to record my walked GPS trails as). What's happened here? Nothing at the time suggested that they hadn't worked, and I synced within a day or so of logging them.

I'd like to know: 1. If the data can still be recovered - i.e. is it still on my Fitbit?; 2. If not, why has this happened?; 3. What can I do in the future to ensure that I don't lose GPS data? My main reason for selecting the Ionic was this ability to log GPS, and it's been pretty good at it so far, hence my consternation at it seeming not to remember what it happily logged just last week.

Thanks in advance for any assistance you can offer.

Cheers,

Andrew.

[Rich_Laue]

You say that they are recorded as walks, not runs, and have no GPS data .Do you ever manually record a walk? Could these possibly be auto detected walks? If so, then yes the GPS would not have been turned on and only events with GPS data are sent to Strava. 

See the Exercise FAQ

[bbarrera]

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@DrYool wrote:

I'd like to know: 1. If the data can still be recovered - i.e. is it still on my Fitbit?; 2. If not, why has this happened?; 3. What can I do in the future to ensure that I don't lose GPS data? My main reason for selecting the Ionic was this ability to log GPS, and it's been pretty good at it so far, hence my consternation at it seeming not to remember what it happily logged just last week.

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@DrYool hope this helps:

1. Can data be recovered? You should contact Fitbit technical support to see if the data was ever uploaded to Fitbit servers.

2. If data is not on Fitbit servers, then something happened. Could be an Ionic bug, some other bug between Ionic and Fitbit servers, or perhaps you didn't properly end/save the GPS tracked run. Hard to say for sure.

[DrYool]

Hi Rich.

Thanks for replying. I think the runs / walks thing is a red herring, I just mentioned it because it's how my "missing" tracks appear to have been recorded at Fitbit's end. They certainly weren't logged as this at the time - in fact, I can't log things as "walks" from my Ionic, only "runs", "cycles" or "swims". Instead, I logged the activity as a "run" and my Ionic recorded all of the usual stuff at the time (e.g. connection, distance, speed, etc.). The deviation from normal came when, after syncing, only some of my activities seem to have been properly handled by my Ionic / the Fitbit app / the Fitbit website. Hence why I'm wondering what went wrong. I'd really rather not have to resort to carrying a backup GPS logger all the time.

Cheers, Andrew.

[DrYool]

Hi bbarrera.

Thanks for getting back to me. While my GPS track has gone AWOL, I can definitely see from the information that was uploaded to Fitbit that I was walking at the time in question - the steps were logged as normal. Why the GPS information - which looked to have been recorded absolutely normally - didn't make it isn't clear to me, hence my question.

I guess I want to be sure that it's not something like the Ionic only stores a certain number of GPS tracks, and because I waited a day or so before syncing, it just got deleted. Or that it's not down to an error during syncing which resulted in the GPS data failing to transfer but my Ionic assuming that it had and deleting it.

I was kind-of hoping that Fitbit might at least be able to advise on how GPS data is stored, synced and deleted from my Ionic so that I might be more careful at one or other of these stages. I'm pretty sure it got logged fine, but somewhere along the line it seems to have gotten forgotten. And that's not something that's happened much in the past (= the six months I've owned my Ionic).

Cheers, Andrew.

[bbarrera]

@DrYool page 74 of the Ionic manual:

Memory

Ionic stores your stats and data for 7 days in between the times you sync your watch. Stored data consists of All-Day stats (including steps, distance, calories burned, active minutes, heart rate, and stationary vs. active hours) as well as sleep stages, SmartTrack activity, and exercise data.

We recommend syncing your watch at least once a day.

source: https://staticcs.fitbit.com/content/assets/help/manuals/manual_ionic_en_US.pdf

That is the theory.

My advice: ignore the normal step count. Focus on getting Fitbit tech support to help you understand how GPS tracked activity could have failed to sync. Other people have posted on the forum about losing GPS tracked activities, you aren't alone but its not a widespread problem right now (when initially released, you could kill GPS tracking with incoming notification but that was fixed). The Ionic is the first Fitbit that supports apps, there have been bugs and there continues to be bugs. Speaking as an engineer, in my humble opinion the Ionic is still not "fully baked" yet.

Unfortunately the Ionic doesn't save tracked exercises in a form that you can easily download over USB or BLE. The only way I know how to possible recover, or determine if an activity was recorded and then lost, is to contact Fitbit technical support.

[Rich_Laue]

Hey @DrYool you say that you haven't loaded walk on your ionic yet .

This confirms that the walk tracking was auto detected, and therefore it would be expected not to have GPS data with the walk. 

Auto detected walks do not turn on the GPS. 

When it comes to exercises that you can start from the ionic. you have a choice of seven out of tweenty that can be loaded into the ionic. 

How do I edit or delete Fitbit data and activities?

How do I track my exercise and activities with Fitbit?

Learn all the ways you can track activities with Fitbit.

[bbarrera]

@DrYool fyi you should review this thread as it is one possible reason you lost the GPS tracked activity:

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/Crashes-during-exercise/td-p/2225154/page/7

[Peach]

I am experiencing the same problem, I swipe and choose excercise, then ‘Walk’ wait for the GPS to show as ‘Connected’. I do my walk, I hit finish and save the excercise.  But when it syncs I only see steps and now map.  Has happened three times now.  I have tried restarting my Ionic, but has not resolved the issue.  Very frustrating.

[Keci76]

I'm having the same issue with my gps on my ionic. I swipe over to either run or walk and the GPS signal stays on "connecting" and never finds the GPS signal. So my run or walk has no map or distance data. This seems to have just started happening the past week or so. My activity is in the same area and it connected fine before. 

[byoo]

I've posted my GPS issue here. I went for a run, and then I synced my Ionic with the mobile app - now the GPS data is missing...

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/Ionic-GPS-data-is-missing-in-my-Fitbit-App-after-my-exercise-a...