Strava - Automatically imported GPS data is incomplete

[Indrehus]

Hi!

I have experienced the following three times now. It seems the data automatically imported to Strava from my Fitbit Sense 2 is incomplete. Below are screenshots of the same activity from the Fitbit app and the Strava app. As can be seen, the GPS data seem to be cut-off after a short while in Strava. Last time I experienced this I could fix it by manually exporting the GPS data from Fitbit and manually importing it into Strava. It seems the three times this has happened was when I started a new activity shortly after ending another one. Not sure if this is related. Has anyone experienced something similar? Is there a way to fix it? It is quite impractical to have to manually verify and fix such cases. Thanks!

[jonseymour]

Yesterday, I had one fail (first) and one success (second). For a total of 4 failures and 2 successes since the issue arose.

I am starting to wonder if the issue has a timing factor involved - in the 2nd case that worked, I didn't sync the FitBit app until a while after the activity ended, although I am not exactly sure how long that was whereas the first one I had synced almost immediately.

I am starting to title the glitches:

"FitBit/Strava Integration Fail"

so that I can find the failures more easily.

[chriseng99]

Still happening for me. A few nights ago, a run synced to Strava correctly.  Then tonight, I had another one with missing GPS data.

So not only is the problem not fixed, it's sporadic, which makes it even harder to troubleshoot.

And still zero responses from anyone at Fitbit. 😕

[jonseymour]

> And still zero responses from anyone at Fitbit.

Based on the lack of responses from their Twitter handle which has been very responsive in the past, I would not be surprised if their community support function have been restructured or otherwise rendered inoperable.

I have another data point which suggests that if you lag the sync between FitBit and Strava, then the GPS track doesn't get truncated. However, that is only a couple of data points so far and the last activity  I undertook was a relatively short one in any case.

[Indrehus]

Thanks for all the useful insights! I have removed Sense 2 from the title now, since it clearly is not limited to a specific model. I keep experiencing this issue on longer walks and runs. The latest was on 27 July. It is an interesting observation with the timing of the sync. I have been running with my phone on me, so the syncs will have been quite immediate after the runs / walks.

[jonseymour]

I just did a long-ish walk of about 9k and waited for it to sync and this one worked.

I'll use the next walk to check whether a forced sync is truncating it or not. 

[dz1234]

If you are still having problems as of July 27, then I gather it isn't fixed despite successes on June 26 and 27 for me. It seems like the obvious workaround might be to record the run in strava directly through their app. I haven't tried it yet, but plan to next time. My on-board GPS for my charge 5 is absolute crap and I have been using the phone GPS to track runs anyway. 

[tt1234567]

Me too (Charge 5) since Sunday 28th July. Frustrating as I've just started using the integration with Strava since Fitbit removed the web dashboard. For me it just seems to be the map that's a problem (it just stops after a couple of km) as the graphs of pace look ok.

[jonseymour]

I haven't reproduced the issue since Sunday July 28 when it failed at 18:00 and then worked a few hours later at 22:00 (UTC+10:00).

Since then I have tried to vary the time after ending the activity prior to syncing to see if that was a factor, but the problem has not reoccurred for me - it has now worked on 4 separate occasions since it last failed.

[scdublin]

I'm also having the exact same issue for the last few weeks. It seems to be every couple of gps tracked activities as opposed to every one.

[jonseymour]

Interesting - I was experiencing the issue last week, but it hasn't happened since Sunday night for me. Software is still at same level,, so either the problem is not in the deployed apps or it is sporadic. I was thinking it had to do with delays before syncing but I wasn't able to confirm that pattern.

[dz1234]

Did they quietly fix it? Mine has now worked on three consecutive runs. I haven't tried a long run yet, but this is encouraging. 

[chriseng99]

Me too -- three consecutive activities have worked correctly. However I was following the advice from this thread not to sync the Fitbit app immediately, so I wasn't sure if that had anything to do with it.  I'll do a forced sync next time as soon as the walk is over and see if it still works.

July 28 was the last time I had a broken one.  Correctly imported activites on July 29, July 30, and Aug 1.

[EdoMax]

I've been following a similar thread on Strava forums..  

Strava support have apparently identified the problem as being from Fitbit's side of things and have reached out to their Fitbit support contacts to have it fixed.

Link to thread: 

https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/devices-and-connections/known-issue-fitbit-to-strava-sync-looses-...

[dz1234]

amazing to see how much more responsive the Strava support team is compared to FitBit.

The fitbit/google response is abysmal.

[Indrehus]

Seems it has worked correctly for me for all activities the last week, so hopefully it has been fixed now.

[ColoDave]

Well I though everything was fixed and then today it only recorded about 2 blocks of a 20 miles ride. Ugh I even continued to check that it was conected to the GPS on my phone and it showed it connected the entire ride.

Supposedly there is a new firmware out for my Charge 6 (210 and I am on 202) but nothing I do causes the update to show up. Unpair and Reconnect and reboot etc ... Somewhat frustrating. At least it is recording the mileage correctly I guess.

 

[dz1234]

yep--I spoke too soon. It failed me again on 8/10. Only the first few blocks of my 6 mile run showed up on strava. Very frustrating---and still no response from fitbit.

[dz1234]

worked today--I meant to record my run in strava, but forgot and was pleasantly surprised. Given my recent experience, I doubt it is really fixed.  

as mentioned above by someone else, there does seem to be a shift in the moderator responses to the board. In the past, there would have been a cursory response (most often useless, but still a response) within hours. Now nothing.

Without going into detail, I now know that they still monitor for other things and take action

[jonseymour]

It has mostly been working for me since July 28. I had one borked run on August 4, but otherwise since July 28 it has been working for me - that's about a 5% failure rate since July 28. It was much more frequent prior to that date.

[chriseng99]

Tonight a walk didn't import at all! 

Tried to disconnect and reconnect Fitbit to Strava and now get a 500 Internal Server Error.

Hopefully it's intermittent but even so this is a sign that Fitbit is really not paying very close attention to their infrastructure. 

(UPDATE 8/15/2024: Reconnecting works again)