Various new Sense issues as of yesterday, 2/27/24

[sarcazm]

- Sense not tracking sleep or other health metrics collected while sleeping (except SpO2)
Slept from 8:37pm-ish 2/27 - 8:25am/8:26am 2/28SpO2 recorded and no other Health Metrics. Matches data on watch face.

- Sense/app shows lack of data collection happened as though not wearing watch while sleeping for roughly 20min:
last time stamp before breakfirst time stop after break
- Recurring issue that didn't fix upon restart w/ not finding phone even after restart and forgetting/re-adding Sense Controls w/ new code in Bluetooth (Sense itself never dropped/lost BT except when BT was off during phone restart but was there as soon as I turned BT on):
Can't find phone even after hard restart and...after forgetting device and re-adding device w/code

- Received notification to update Fitbit App in Play Store after all of this, including clearing app cache, and no Sense-to-app issues resolved, including having no heart rate data being properly transferred/stored from watch to app:
Nothing since yesterday

- HR on Sense randomly showing "--" but starts showing live HR data again when I manually resync app to watch w/ swipe down which is really weird as watch should work independent of syncing?  I thought?  Manually syncing watch shouldn't - again this is how it used to work even with App issues - shouldn't change whether watch is collecting/displaying data.  Hard to catch this despite it continually happening on photo; so far have been testing manual sync w/ swipe down on App and watching HR show back up on Sense testing hypothesis as to whether it has been consistent and it has been.

[Guy_]

Hi @sarcazm - thanks for all the information which may boil down mainly to 2 issues if the watch is not faulty.

There might be a problem with the clock face, try switching to another one to get a constant HR display.

The other issue is a syncing problem known with the new V4 Fitbit App causing intermittent transfer. 

If you have done all of

Logout of the Fitbit App and swipe off the active window and in Android clear the storage cache and force stop it and then restart the phone.

And made sure there are no other devices running the Fitbit App switched on or other watches running.

And restarted the watch by holding the button for 10 seconds till it vibrates and the logo appears and wait for it to start.

Then Logged in and wait for any pair, link or Fixit prompts.

You should be able to get a full sync of data.

Note if you factory reset or shutdown the watch without a successful sync first you can lose data.

[sarcazm · Accepted solution]

Guy,

Oh short of a factory reset I did all of that - old hat at trying to resolve Sense/app issues. 

The craziest thing worked, and it shouldn't have(?): I gave up and decided to manually log my sleep with the + button on the bottom righthand screen when you open the app, and filled in my assumed sleep/wake times for last night through this morning, thinking it would give me the plain dark blue graph you get when you nap for an hour.  Instead, it filled in all my missing sleep data as though it was normal, and then my missing heart rate data, and also my health metrics.  After I synced again the data went to my watch - all the Premium tracking stuff included. 

Weirder still it wouldn't sync - from the app to my watch - my heart time in zones and the breakdown under the heart rate section (all said 0) but under the active minutes section that was filled in.  

The data is somehow being collected on the Sense but not displaying on the Sense until a forced trigger via the app and then syncing makes it happen.

Does this make any sense to you?  

[Guy_]

@sarcazm - the sleep info displayed on the watch is a calculated result, even though the data is captured by the watch.

For the calculation to take place the data must be retrieved by the app, sent to the servers for analysis, sent back to the app then sent to the watch.

As there are syncing / connection issues with the app it can fail to work completely at any point.

The best chance of unlocking the app is the logout step, the others repair some connections.

Manually changes to the parameters forces a new calculation which may work if the conditions are all working.

See also How to do a quick fix for Fitbit App not syncing

In some cases removing the Bluetooth entries and remaking them [via a new watch setup step and replace process] can help if the failure is with the watch connection.

As you are good at investigation you may find the free SimpleCheckUp app useful for finding what's actually happening from the watches perspective.

[Guy_]

@sarcazm- it is best to avoid a factory reset if at all possible as it can actually make matters worse or even stop the watch working, only do it as a last resort if it is absolutely necessary.

[sarcazm]

I didn't realize the local data on the watch had to bounce around before being visible on the watch.  On the app yes, but on the watch itself that seems weird and unnecessary to me, but I didn't design the thing so am speaking from a non-dev POV.  

I've got that dl'd already and it was working fine the entire time - Sys-Info too.

I haaaaaaaaate having to delete and re-setup the watch and go through all that time and annoyance if I can ever avoid it.  But if it continues to happen I'll try that next time (logging out and in did nothing, nor doing the deletions via BT) - nor did deleting and reinstalling the app... you name it).  

[Guy_]

@sarcazm- various versions of the app are worse than others, so avoid reinstalling the app if you find a version that works, as that too can introduce new problems. I'm still running V3.51.1 and don't have any issues with connections or calculations, which at times can be slow so some patience is required where the results are calculated [Sleep, Health metrics]. It seems the V4 Fitbit App was released in September 2023, way before being properly tested and operational.

[sarcazm]

I would love it forever if companies did real beta testing before releasing programs/updates and relying on the customer to perform the mandatory beta test in real time with a standard update practically forced upon everyone (except people like you who either deal with fighting the app when insists on updating like a toddler throwing a tantrum) and using the live release as the beta test phase... only without actually listening to the users regarding fixing known issues.  

And not just FB but so many apps just say their updates are "bug fixes and performance enhancements" without addressing what bugs were fixed or enhancements made.  Also hardly ever are the known issues and requests, even with a large voting block, addressed.  I mean, I may not be able to program anything modern, but I'm used to working with devoted teams of proprietary coders and if I brought complaints from the client to them, or even just my own issues, they would be fixed if remotely possible, because if the customer ain't happy it could cause even more work later.  And I can't imagine the large corporations we worked with being remotely cool being treated like beta testers on a live release.

[sarcazm]

btw, what smartwatch/tracker are you using currently?

[Guy_]

@sarcazm - a Sense ( From 2020 )

[Guy_]

@sarcazm - you are right about bug fixes and performance improvements being totally inadequate. 

If the software was properly tested there shouldn't be any bugs to fix, and if any were found the app should be immediately rolled back to the previous working release.

I would love to see professional releases which are upward compatible and have complete release notes where developers can demonstrate a pride in their work, across all companies.

I do it for all my clock faces which have complete documentation and release information for each version. It's not difficult..