Recover deleted activity

[sbridgey]

Hi,

Can I raise a ticket to get my excersice un deleted or just get the tcx/fit file data?

Pretty sure it should be stored in a database somewhere so this should be possible.

Thanks

Simon

[LZeeW]

Hello @sbridgey anda warm welcome.  When you choose to delete an exercise, you get an, "are you sure?" option.  Once it is deleted, it can't be undone.

[sbridgey]

I can assure you that there is no "Are you sure?" prompt on the fitbit app.

I believe that activities will just be marked as deleted and the data will still exist in the system.

I would like to raise a ticket to simply remove the deleted flag from my activity, failing this i will be forced to raise a GDPR SAR request with fitbit.

[LZeeW]

@sbridgey   I am an iPhone user and this is the "are you sure" dialog box to which I am referring:

Are you sure ...?

As I do not live in an EU country, I am not sure if a GDPR SAR will get you the information you want.  I can say that this is not the site to make that kind of request.  This is a peer-to-peer, but moderated help community.  Any request other than a peer-to-peer type question needs to made directly with Fitbit.

Deep inside, I believe your digital trashcan is empty.

[sbridgey]

Hi,

try swiping left on an activity from the list, it’ll just go and there’s no warning!

I have no idea how to contact Fitbit directly, everything I’ve found points to here and expected I’d be able to through the Fitbit moderators to get somewhere.

If the Fitbit developers implemented an actual hard delete I’d be shocked! 

[LZeeW]

@sbridgey   At the bottom of every page, there is a "Help" link.  This link will give you the Help options for you location.  I am not in an EU country.

I will try the left swipe on an an exercise where it's no loss to me if it is deleted.  If it deletes without warning, I promise I will bring it to Fitbit's attention through channels I have as member of the Community Council.

Update 10/4:  I tried the left swipe, and to be honest, I don't recall ever trying this move before.  A light swipe got me this:

Light swipe

I swiped right to go back to the Activity List.  A harder left swipe made it disappear.  Gone.

As promised, I will report this.  I do not believe that Fitbit ever planned a hard delete.

[Katrien9]

Hello LZeeW,

I encountered the same issue with a left swipe when checking an activity today on my iPhone. I’d really want to recover this activity. Did you get any news on this hard delete? As S. Bridget mentioned, the deleted activity  certainly is kept one of Fitbit’s servers. I guess that Its members activity information is too valuable for Fitbit to simply delete it from their servers.

Regards,

Katrien

[LZeeW]

@Katrien9   The way we report these kinds of things doesn't give me a personal response.  The only acknowledgment will come from a moderator who posts on the thread, if it happens.

The weird thing is, I have tried to "accidentally" delete a few activities like an unimportant auto recognized walk, but I can't reproduce it.  I'm sorry to read that this happened to you today.  I certainly believe it happened to you, even if I can't reproduce it.

I don't have anything else to suggest.  So sorry.

[Katrien9]

Hi Laurie,

I believe you when you write that you didn't succees in reproducing the 'hard' delete but I don't understand that you answered Simon Bridgey (in your 'update of 10/4) that you did succeed in reproducing the delete effect.

For your info: I have a Versa Lite Fitbit

Do I understand you correctly that a moderator will reply to my question?

Thanks

[LZeeW]

@Katrien9   The original post from Simon was very vague and I responded using the the only delete method that I knew of at the time.  As I noted, I didn't know that the swipe method existed until he pointed it out.  I was able to reproduce it once and haven't been able to reproduce it since.

The type of Fitbit you use shouldn't make a difference.  This is an issue about app behavior, not device behavior.

I do not know if a moderator will chime in.  I am doing my best to help.  Community Council Members are volunteers who know a lot about Fitbit products.  We are not employees.

[Katrien9]

Thank you for your  reaction Laurie. Hope a moderator will pick up this conversation as I gather that you as a volunteer will not forward my request to a Fitbit employee.

I had really hoped to find a solution to retrace my accidentally deleted activity.

[LZeeW]

@Katrien9  I notified Fitbit again about this issue.  I hope you get an answer.

[JuanFitbit]

Hi @LZeeW , nice to see you  back! Thank you for your comments, help , pictures and reporting this thread!

@sbridgey @Katrien9 , a warm welcome to the Community! Thank you for bringing this situation to our attention. It is unusual that you didn't receive the request to confirm the deletion of an activity! Could you please confirm what mobile device are you using and its operating system version?

@Katrien9, Support informed me that you already contacted them! They are looking into your case, and you'll receive a reply very soon.

@sbridgey , I could contact Support in your behalf if you want me to. Please let me know if I should 

Both of you please note: normally all the deleted data cannot be restored. I cannot promise that Support is going to be able to do so! I'll suggest to wait until @Katrien9 receives a reply to se what Support tells her!

In the meantime, please verify that the Fitbit app and your mobile device are up to date. 

[sbridgey]

@JuanFitbit Yes please.

My device is a iPhone 7 running ios12 at the time.

[JuanFitbit]

Hi @sbridgey , thank you for your reply! I've informed Support and they'll be contacting you via Email! 

Please let me know how it goes!

[Katrien9]

Hello Juan,

Thank you for your reaction. It is correct I took contact with support
after receiving LZeeW's reaction. As I feared, the answer is that
retrieval is impossible 'as of now' (I asked the team what they mean by
that) and that an activity can be added manually (which I was aware of but
which doesn't give the exact detailed results from the lost activity).

My mobile device is an iPhone 7plus, operating system is 12.4.1

Any help is welcome.

Thank you and regards,
Katrien

[sbridgey]

I received a similar response from fitbit, but i was actually just told to add it manually and not that is was not possible to recover the activity. I am very disapointed with the support team as they don't seem to have understood my request and are just hoping I accept their request to "just add it manually" and they don't then have to investigate the real issue here.

I believe it will be possible to restore the acitivity and i want fitbit to change their app so deleting an acitivity is not as easy as swiping and it's gone.

I am going to keep persuing this issue with the support team and i'll update this thread to let you know how i am getting on.

[JuanFitbit]

Hey @sbridgey @Katrien9 , thank you for your answers and keeping us updated! 

I reported the situation with the unconfirmed deletion, and our team is aware and working on it! Regarding the restoration of the activity, as I mentioned before, the deleted data cannot be restored! If Support mentioned that they don't have access to it, then it was deleted for good! I apologize for the inconvenience! As they already told you, if you have an approximative idea how long the activity was done, or the distance of it , you could add it manually! 

Please keep me posted if you continue working with Support. 

[User193]

I have also accidentally deleted logged exercises. You can easily lose exercise by swiping left on an exercise. In lack of recovering function, a query “Are you sure” would nice to lessen chance of accidental deletion. 

[LZeeW]

@JuanFitbit   Two other users are reporting the same problem.  They added it on to an older thread.  Those users a @mikeydag  and @User193 .  This seems to be an ongoing problem.