Versa 4 won't connect after a factory reset

[StormFoX4051]

I want to share my frustrating story as a long-time loyal Fitbit user.

I live in Ukraine. Two years ago, I bought my first Fitbit — the Charge 5 — through a third-party shipping service, because Fitbit is not officially available in my country. I understood the risks: if anything went wrong, I’d have no support or warranty. But I was willing to take that risk. The device worked perfectly for two years, and I eventually passed it on to a close family member — everything was great.

Later, I bought a Versa 4, and used it without issues — until recently, when both my Charge 5 and Versa 4 straps broke at the same time.

I didn’t want to buy fake straps — I know how poor the quality is. So I decided to once again use a forwarding service to get original ones from the US.

But this time, it was much harder.

I spent a week trying to order straps from the Google store (where Fitbit accessories are now sold), only to discover that they don’t accept foreign cards anymore — only US-issued cards.

I almost gave up, until I found a service that purchases items for you and forwards them to your destination country — in my case, Ukraine.

(European stores had no stock at all — yes, I searched.)

After two months of waiting, I finally received my original straps, which cost me around $50 + $18 shipping. I was so happy.

I thought: “New straps — new beginning.”

So I decided to do a factory reset on my Versa 4.

What could possibly go wrong, right?

WRONG.

After the reset, I logged in to the Fitbit app on my iPhone 13 Pro Max iOS 18.6 and tried to add my Versa 4 again.

As soon as I entered the 4-digit pairing code, the app showed:

“Something went wrong. An error occurred. Please try again.”

I tried again. And again. I spent half a day on this.

I even thought it might be an iOS issue, so I installed Android on a Raspberry Pi, installed Google services — just to test it.

Same issue.

That’s when I discovered I’m not alone. Others are experiencing this too. It seems to be a widespread issue — possibly server-side.

Some even said that trying to sync their Charge 5 after a reset caused it to enter a reboot loop every 5 minutes.

Thankfully, I didn’t try syncing mine again. After deleting the Fitbit app and turning off Bluetooth, the tracker returned to normal.

But my Versa 4 is now completely unusable.

It doesn’t even function as a watch — it’s stuck on the setup screen, showing “Unable to connect.”

This is a horrible situation, especially for a loyal customer who paid more, waited longer, and accepted the risk of buying Fitbit products in an unsupported country.

The fact that a simple factory reset could soft-brick my Versa 4 — with no warning, no workaround, and no help — is unacceptable.

Fitbit, this is a disgraceful way to treat loyal customers.

 

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[MarreFitbit]

Hi there, @StormFoX4051. Welcome to the Fitbit Community Forums. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, for the troubleshooting steps you've tried, and for the image attached. I'm sorry to hear that your Versa 4 is not connecting after a factory reset. We‘re taking your comments and sentiments in regards to our products and services into consideration. I appreciate that you also took the time to share your experience about the difficulty in buying Fitbit devices and their accessories in your country, I understand where you are coming from. 

Please note that the difficulties you are having to set up your Versa 4 usually happens when you perform a factory reset without first unpairing the device. In order to solve this issue, I'd recommend trying the steps below in the order listed:

• Unpair your Fitbit device from your phone's Bluetooth and Fitbit app.
• Unpair other Bluetooth devices that you may also have paired to your phone's Bluetooth settings.
• Force quit the Fitbit app.
• Turn off other Bluetooth connections when not in use. This can help to prevent connectivity issues or Bluetooth interference.
• Shut off your phone and turn it on after 1-2 minutes.
• Turn on the Bluetooth on your phone.
• Plug it into the charging cable and open the Fitbit app.
• Set up your Fitbit device.
• If there is no connection, restart your Fitbit device.
• Once your Fitbit device is paired and syncing, please proceed to set up your other Bluetooth devices to your phone again. 

With the steps above, what I want you to do is to pair your Versa 4 first to your phone's Bluetooth settings before any other Bluetooth device is connected to your phone.

[StormFoX4051]

Thank you for taking the time to respond and for outlining the steps clearly. Unfortunately, I’ve already attempted all of them — not once, but multiple times — and I’d like to offer some clarifications based on your list:

1. My device does not appear in either Bluetooth settings or the Fitbit app, or if it does, it disappears shortly after. So unpairing isn’t possible — the system simply doesn’t recognize it.

2. No other Bluetooth devices are connected, except my Apple Watch, which uses WiFi within my home network and doesn’t rely on Bluetooth in this state. I hope you’ll agree that it’s unlikely to cause interference.

3. I’ve force-quit the Fitbit app numerous times.

4. I’ve even reset my iPhone’s network settings, restarted the device, toggled Airplane mode, and tried a clean start.

5. I described many of these attempts in my initial post, but I’m restating them here for clarity.

6. Yes — I’ve followed that step as well.

7. The Versa 4 remains on the charger at all times. Without this, the battery would have drained long ago due to the endless pairing loop.

8. I’ve attempted the setup process repeatedly, carefully following the on-screen instructions — with no success.

9. I’ve also performed a hard reset using the physical button combination during power-up.

10. Sadly, the final step you suggested are not available for me. The watch is stuck at the setup screen, and I’m unable to proceed any further.

If needed, I can provide a screen recording via Google Drive showing the exact issue. It clearly demonstrates the device is stuck in an unrecoverable state.

I truly appreciate your willingness to help. I really do.

But I also have to be honest: I wish this was just user error. That would be so much easier to fix.

Instead, I’m left with a device that became non-functional after a standard factory reset — and nothing I do seems to bring it back.

Please ask yourself:

Should any product require this much effort from a user just to function as intended?

I believe the answer is no.

This experience has cost me significant time, energy, and money — especially given that Fitbit isn’t officially supported in my country. I only hope my story helps others avoid the same situation — and encourages the team to take a closer look at what’s really happening here.

Thank you again.

[matemink]

Hey, the same error happened with my Versa 4 and Pixel 9a yesterday. I tried everything you have described here, but nothing helps. What else can I try?

[AfzalBD]

Hi, I am facing almost the same problem. The versa 4 was stopped for 3-4 days. Then when I recharged and tried to synchronize yesterday, it wasn't.

Then I unpaired and tried to pair it again with the phone (pixel 7 pro) and encounter the same problem you described. I tried several times but problem persists and I cannot connect ot with my phone.

[LoneN]

I have exactly the same problems- been ghoing on for a week now. It just says "something went wrong" and can not be connected to my phone ?

I have tried everything above

[Mccurrie]

I’m having the exact same problem and it’s really frustrating no idea how to fix it!

[matemink]

I finally fixed it. You just need to change the timezone in your App Settings to the country where Fitbit is officially selling. What a shame Google....

[LoneN]

Wow - really ? What country is that ? My problem startet actually when I went To Greenland and the time wouldn’t synkronize. Does that mean that you can note have the actual time on your watch? Then it is unusable when in a different timezone ? 

[matemink]

I am from Ukraine, and we do not have an official Google store here. And I think they stopped supporting Fitbit in Ukraine completely. But we have options like Finland, Turkey, Israel, or Greece to set their timezone because we live in the same timezone. So I changed to Finland and all problems are gone.