Charge 3 exercises stopped on its own

[SunsetRunner]

Yesterday, during a Weights exercise, the tracker "stopped" the exercise on its own. (?!)

One moment it was working, the next time I flicked my wrist to check my HR, it was back to the regular clock face without me ever ending the exercise explicitly.

I immediately started the exercise again and continued working out. When I checked the Fitbit app afterwards, it had logged my first exercise as if I had ended it myself, and the second one (again a Weights exercise), as if it was a run / bike exercise, since it shows a pace and distance. (?!?!)

Screenshot from the Fitbit app after the issue with my Weight exercises

This issue, couple with a myriad more I encountered over the last few days, made me put the tracker in the drawer. I'm now back on my trusted Charge 2. I will wait for a week or two, and if these issues are not fixed in a software update, I'm shipping this half-baked product back. This is unacceptable from a major brand like Fitbit. Embarrassing.

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[YojanaFitbit]

Welcome to the Forums @Antiquarius and @miturtle. thanks for getting back @Heardc and @Mslovecats. My apologies for the delay.

Thanks for the steps that you've tried until now. If the restart is not solving the issues on your Charge 3. I'd suggest to try the steps suggested here since it might be that it is an issue related to connected GPS: Why isn't GPS working on my Fitbit device? And from the clock face, swipe to Settings and tap Reboot Device. 

Please let me know specifically with what exercises you're having this issues with. Also try to use a different exercise to confirm if you're getting the same results. 

In your case @Heardc, you can read more about Fitbit accuracy and how it tracks floors here: How accurate are Fitbit devices?

@Antiquarius How are you tracking those exercises. Are you using SmartTrack or from the Fitbit Charge 3 shortcuts? Did you try to restart it? Most Fitbit devices automatically recognize and record high-movement activities such as walk, run, or sport at least 15 minutes long through the SmartTrack feature. See basic stats about your activity in Fitbit Today on certain Fitbit devices, or sync your device and review your exercise history in the Fitbit app.

Choose which activities your device tracks automatically from the list of options, or change the amount of time required for the activity to be recorded. 

@Mslovecats How are you tracking your steps? Did you check this article: How accurate are Fitbit devices?

@miturtle I've checked with our team and they've replied to you. Please keep an eye on your email inbox, they will be glad to keep assisting you.

See you around. 

[Mslovecats]

Hello YojanaFitbit,

The issue with my FitBit Charge 3 HR has nothing to do with GPS. The device
suddenly stops tracking the exercise after I set it to start tracking the
activity. This happens regardless of the type of activity, whether a Walk,
Yoga, or Workout. Since resetting the tracker and giving it to my daughter,
she has also experienced this problem.

The issue is not about accurate tracking of steps. The issue is that the
device suddenly stops tracking the exercise and goes back to the regular
default clock/watch state as if the exercise was never tracked in the first
place.

[Antiquarius]

Today, the tracker messed up again and stopping during my exercise. It was saying I did NO exercise at all. I gave another call to the company. No help there. I came back here and saw the message about rebooting. I gave that a try, and my exercise finally tasked over...at 4 hours 33 minutes in duration! It was only maybe an hour and 45 minutes.

The tracker also learned a new trick, it is refusing to task over one of my hours of steps. The tracker says I have done all my hours so far, but the dashboard is ignoring my 10:00 hour. Always something.

[aboyce]

I just experienced the same issue tonight with my Charge 3. I went to a Turbo Kick class that lasted over and hour and I had to restart my workout twice because I looked down and it was back at the regular clock face. I just got this on Mother’s Day so it’s a bit frustrating. I restarted my Fitbit so hopefully it works but we will see.

[loosesocks]

Glad to have found this discussion thread!

I bought the Charge 3 about 1.5 months ago as I damaged my Charge 2 (due to a fall while running).

Initially, for the 1st week, all seems good. Then the problem of "auto-stop" and sudden disconnection from the phone while running problem came.

The "auto-stop" happened without me knowing until I flipped the watch to only see the clock face or when the watch vibrate to ask me if I'm on exercise (I have the auto-detect exercise on).

This problem is getting very regular now. I exercise for about 5 times a week. Initially it happened maybe about 1 a week but now it can happened like 3 times a week (auto-stop, disconnect from phone etc)

The disconnect from phone happens during my long distance running (more than 10km). On 3 to 4 occasions, the disconnection always happened at around 19km.

At first I thought it was my phone's bluetooth issue, but I see that all other records were able to sync without any problem.

I'll try some of the methods mentioned in this discussion thread (resetting, de-link bluetooth connection and re-link etc) to see if the problem will persist during my runs this weekend.

[cweb2021]

I'm having the same issue and FitBit Support has actually replaced my tracker, and of course it is happening again.

Last night I charged the track and restart it, and let it charge over night.  This morning I went for my jog and the tracker refused to connect to GPS.  That happens from time to time, so I figured I'd just do without.  NOPE.  Started Run from the Exersice menu, look down a few minutes later and it's stopped.  Tried again and the same thing.  Restarted tracker!   Same thing!  Gave up.

This has been an issue for six months!!!

FibBit doesn't seem to care.  I'm not sure why they made me go without a tracker for two weeks when they replaced mine in April.  They clearly knew it was a software issue 5 months ago.

Has anyone found a way to at least get it working for a little while?

[miturtle]

I posted in this thread earlier, after having about 4-5 months of constant issues with the **ahem** Charge 3 I got for Xmas. I was so excited about the new features and then to have them be functionally useless was a real letdown.

Lately I have had some success by turning off my phone while I exercise. I know this sucks when you want to use the connectivity to track via GPS etc, I guess I simply can't do that until fitbit fixes this **ahem**. But it's not done the auto stop thing since I started doing this. You don't have to turn off the whole phone I guess, turning off the Wifi and the Bluetooth works fine. I've been doing this for maybe 1.5 weeks and it's not dropped a workout yet.... watch this space. 

BTW I don't think this is a good solution, I think fitbit really needs to get on with fixing whatever is the root of this problem. But as a stopgap so I'm not so frustrated that I want to smash it against a wall, it is working (so far). 

[Buddaah]

I'm having the SAME issue with my new Charge 3 HR while trying to tack running! Wtf! My charge 2 was so much more reliable when it comes to tracking my runs and bikes and other exercises! Let me know if you find a fix for this issue otherwise I'm going to return this piece OS.

[RocksSoxBills14]

Adding my voice here as well in hopes that it's prompting FitBit to do some debugging of the firmware. It happened the first time for me just this past Sunday while taking a walk and having started the walk as an exercise on the FitBit. I looked down and it was just back on the clock face. It didn't do it later in the day while playing hockey (I had it set to "Exercise"), but it did happen today while at the gym (on "Weights"). I was only working out for about a minute before it just shut off on its own.

While these exercises stopping on their own has only happened twice so far, I have noticed my FitBit restarting itself a number of times over the past few days as well.  I'll look at the screen, it will go black and become unresponsive for a few seconds while it reboots, then comes back on.

Hopefully this will be addressed soon!

[magic_mushy]

Hi I've had it happen again twice in the past 2 weeks. In both instances I had taken my heart rate up to about 160BPM for 15 minutes, then took a rest for 2 minutes. The Charge 3 ATM seems to have a hard time recognising that I'm having a break and my heart rate is decreasing.

I'm wearing a chest strap to compare measurements. I can see the chest strap measurement dropping to under 100BPM in 2minutes. Meanwhile the Charge 3 can be seen tearing off to 167BPM. Then it gets confused and stops the exercise.

Yes I'm wearing the Charge 3 the correct 2 finger distance, ect... ect...

[cweb2021]

I've found that if I start the Fitbit app, then turn off blue tooth for a
few seconds while still in the fitbit app and turn it back on. This seems
to get it to connect and stay connected.

It'd be nice if it would be fixed, but this is the fastest work around I've
found.

[Jonmick]

Hi, over the last week I have been seeing the same issues as listed in this thread. I did weights yesterday for 1 hr and the tracker stopped on its own early in the exercise then again this morning on a 10km run the tracker stopped after 3km and didn't auto detect that I was still running. 

On top of this my step count was a lot lower than expected for the 10km run I do about 3 times a week. 

The charge 3 has been a complete let down for me. 

In future I will be choosing a competitor tracker. I can't deal with the lack of software support from fitbit.

Not interested in New dashboards just a device that works!

Cheers

Mike

[Outsidecenter]

Hi. My Charge 3 died and I was sent a replacement device. While I waited for it to arrive, I switched to an Ionic. I did not experience any issues with it randomly stopping during workouts so I continued to use it at crossfit class even after the replacement Charge 3 arrived. Well, all good things must come to an end as the Ionic ultimately died as well. I switched to the new replacement Charge 3 and not three minutes into my first crossfit workout with it and it stopped tracking my exercise. I restarted it and it did not stop again that day but there is clearly a problem with the Charge 3. 

[nrol_joel]

Yes, I am seeing the same thing on my brand new Inspire HR.  I was doing a "workout" exercise for an hour.  About 18 minutes into it I felt a vibration on my wrist and the exercise stopped recording.  

[GSM65]

Hi, I'm having the same issue. My Charge 3, which I bought five days ago, has twice stopped logging treadmill walking sessions halfway through, and the heart rate it's picking up is wildly different from what the treadmill grips tell me, and from my own estimation. Additionally today it seems to have counted a third less steps than it has in the preceeding two days.

I need my sessions to be recorded as accurately as possible. How can a product that gets reviews as the best fitness tracker in its class be so terrible? I have done a soft reboot and will see how it performs in the next two days.

If I do a hard reset will I lose all the data already synced to the app? 

[Ichthyes]

wait! is the charge 3 supposed to stop an exercise on its own? Mine doesn't - I wish it would!

[RocksSoxBills14]

In this case, we are talking about a bug, not a feature. The FitBit will crash at random, sometimes in the middle of workouts, resulting in it and the app logging a partial workout as a complete one. This can mean, say, missing a whole quarter or half mile from a run, from when it first crashes to when you actually notice it and re-start the exercise function on your FitBit. This happened to me just this past weekend... I was about halfway into a run when I looked at my FitBit and saw the home screen instead of the standard workout screen/info, so I knew it had crashed. I restarted the "Run" feature, finished my workout, and when I got home, it showed that I ran for a half mile before I restarted the activity.

[Mslovecats]

So is the defective Charge 3 covered by warranty at all? What are we
supposed to do? Is it possible to get a replacement from FitBit? It sounds
like this problem recurs so reliably that I wonder if all Charge 3s have
this problem. And I wonder if the problem is related to the OLED display --
if so, that might suggest that the new Inspire also has the same problem.

[RocksSoxBills14]

It should be covered under their standard warranty, but admittedly I don't know how long that is for. I chatted with customer support on Saturday, and they are sending me a replacement device. In the meantime, Fitbit did release a new firmware update recently, and mine was updated this morning. My guess is that this bug is addressed in that firmware, so I'm going to keep an eye on my original Charge 3 over the next few days to see how it acts.

It seems like the firmware update thread is full of people having problems, so I wasn't sure if posting there would be annoying to people, but the update seems to have fixed these issues, as well as some secondary ones (sporadic notifications/alerts, crashing when not working out).

I was out of town last week, so I missed my new FitBit arriving, and kept using my "old" one for a few days until I got home.  I did 3 runs and 2 weight workouts with it, and never once did it crash since updating the firmware.  The replacement that customer service sent me also seems to be holding rock steady.

It seems like there were some serious quality control issues with the Charge 3, but at least for me, the firmware update seems to have fixed the problems with both of my Charge 3s.  I hope you all are having the same results!

Moderator edit: merged reply

[Mslovecats]

Thanks for the update! This is encouraging news.