Activity GPS issues after watchOS 7 and iOS 14 updates

I am also experiencing the same issues ever since I upgraded to iOS 14 and WatchOS 7 about 2 days back. While the watch is calculating the correct data, but upon syncing my watch to the iPhone XS, i am noticing the following issues:

• walking+running distance shown in the Health App (Health -> Activity) is off by a couple of miles for each activity (e.g. outdoor or indoor walk)
• Total steps calculated is also less for each activity. My watch shows around 18000 steps as of now, but after syncing it, the iPhone shows about 12700 steps
• The active energy, resting energy, exercise minutes are all showing the incorrect values in the phone after syncing
• VO2 max is either no longer calculated or it is being calculated wrongly ever since I upgraded to iOS 14 and WatchOS 7
• During a walk or any activity, not all heart rates are being retreived. The watch does not show the heart rate for each minute like it used to earlier, and that data is also missing in the phone upon syncing. Same goes for the usual heart rate monitoring when i am inside the house and not doing any exercise. None of that data pertaining to the heart rate is being stored by the watch.
• My activity related data from all the previous months is also missing in the phone in the Health app.

I tried unparing the watch and pairing it again, but no luck. Seems like others are also facing similar issues. I hope Apple fixes them in the next update. This should be fixed as soon as possible.

I had no problems with iPhone 11 and Apple Watch series 4 until upgrading to iOS14 & watchOS7.

After upgrading my symptoms were:

• Health app taking high cpu cycles causing phone to get hot and rapid battery drain
• phone Activity app not showing the same stats as the watch
• No GPS data on new runs/walks
• No GPS data showing on any pre upgrade walk/runs

I tried:

• unpairing/pairing the watch - no difference
• iPhone backup / DFU reset / restore, watch reset - no difference
• iPhone DFU reset & watch reset, no restore (just re-sync with iCloud) - seems to be sorted.

My iPhone and Apple Watch are now so far behaving well, no battery drain or inconsistent data, last night's walk and this lunch time's run (no iPhone, using Apple Watch activity app) have recorded GPS data correctly, although no VO2Max stats yet.

This is not ideal and it's taken me quite a while to get my phone configured as it was before; reregistering banking apps and access tokens.

Sadly I'm now left with missing GPS data on all runs back to June 2019. My guess is this was deleted by the Health App.

I've did get in touch with Apple, they initially said it was a hardware fault (with no explanation), they then suggested I uninstall and reinstall the Health app (how?) I now have an appointment next week at the Apple Store. I sincerely hope that they can get my missing data back.

I actually have two issues... since WatchOS 7, my new activities are no longer being tracked by GPS (only the starting point is there on the map)

AND

my WatchOS 6 GPS tracks have disappeared (the map is not displaying at all for all my old workouts)

• iPhone 11 Pro and Apple Watch Series 3

• unpaired and re-paired my watch (with a restore) => same result
• I upgraded to the public beta of WatchOS 7.1 and iOS 7.2 to see if that helped => same result
• Battery life (which is also a disaster on 7.0) is greatly improved with the beta versions though 

Resolution: I too had this problem. The resolution was not ideal but it worked for me. With Apple Support assistance:

1. Unpaired the Watch from iPhone
2. Erased iPhone (make sure all your data, including Health data is backed up first)
3. Restored from Backup (iPhone)
4. Restored from Backup (Watch)

As a result, I was able to get my GPS data reporting correctly in Fitness app

I followed these steps :

1. Unpaired the Watch from iPhone
2. Erased iPhone (make sure all your data, including Health data is backed up first)
3. Restored from Backup (iPhone)
4. Restored from Backup (Watch)

After restoring the iphone and watch all my previous activities from the past year had vanished but after trying the walking exercise it is now tracking the GPS correctly again.

The previous suggest to:

• unpair watch (backs up watch to phone and resets/erases watch)
• backup phone to mac
• erase/reset phone
• restore phone
• repair watch from backup

Did NOT work. All routes are still lost (including all routes etc. prior to upgrade to ios14/watch os 7.

Basically, the restore put me back exactly where I was. Everything that was broken is still broken. I don't think I lost anything except a lot of time. Maybe your "mileage" will vary, but I can say that it did absolutely nothing to fix the problem for me.

Was having similar issue with iOS14, WatchOS7, S3.

1. Did an un-pair and paired watch back as new, (not from backup).
2. I changed the name of the watch to make sure there weren't any conflicts from old data/Data-Sources hanging around.
   1. A. Watch app -> general -> about -> name
3. I Reset Fitness Calibration Data.
4. Then noticed on iphone settings --> Privacy --> Health --> Strava did not have full access to all categories. This may bring back GPS data to Strava.

Now workout GPS data seems to be recording normally again. It's only been two days but both workouts seem to have recorded fine.

Hope Apple straightens all this out sooner than later...

Greetings all,

I have discovered a quick fix for WOS7 & iOS14 syncing issue. (It’s a band-Aid until Apple issues a fix?)

1. After I finish my workout using my watch I take a screen shot(hold watch crown & side button simultaneously) of the workout as a backup image.
2. Do not open the “Fitness App” to view if the workout was synced !
3. Hard rest the iPhone (I have iPhone 11ProM). To hard rest press the Volume + then press volume -; then press and hold the side button (power button) until it iphone resets.
4. Hard rest the Apple Watch (I have W5CL) by pressing the crown & side button simultaneously until the watch resets.
5. Now open the “Fitness App” on the iPhone and you’ll see the synced workout.
6. It does NOT sync Map route! It just shows start point..

Note: 

It’s worked with Cellular & bluetooth when I’m not connected to Wifi or when I arrive home and I’m connected to Wifi and bluetooth.

I HOPE THIS HELPS FOR NOW…

Gilbert

Finally I had to do the following steps as suggested by others.

1. Unpair Watch
2. Backup iPhone
3. Reset iPhone
4. Pair Watch

Went for a short outdoor walk. It captures gps now. Just lost couple of days data. It took me three hours but it worked!

Same issue, no routes on activities (outdoor walking and outdoor cycling) with the following devices:

• iPhone 11 (iOS 14.0.1)
• Apple Watch Series 3 (WatchOS 7.0.1)

Very frustrating, it should be a key functionality of the watch.

Same issue with iPhone 11 Pro Max to S4, S3, and the new S6 I got my wife. Unpaired our watches 4 times along with resting our phones and no luck. I tried a fix posted on this feed and it appears to work when I tested it doing a walk workout, afterwards the map came up like it should.

the fix was

1. Unpair watch
2. Backup ALL data on iPhone (make sure your Health data is backed up too)
3. Erase All Content and Settings
4. Let that erase, then restore iPhone from backup
5. Then pair the phone to the watch from your latest backup

While unpairing the watch, remember to keep your cellular plan if you have one.

Be aware this takes a good while to do (Took me about an 1.5 hours).

This fix is a pain, but it worked for my S4 and 11promax. I still have to see if this works for my wife’s 11promax and S6. Honestly if it doesn’t I’ll return the new watch and keep the S3. Seeing we got the S6 so that the battery would be new and it SHOULD survive the entire Houston Marathon but if it won’t map the marathon a new watch is worthless. (Deep breath runners, we share the pain of Apple Watch battery aches for long runs...let’s not go there now) But anyways I could spend less on a Garmin, get the data we want , and not worry about battery life. Instead of spending over $500 for a watch with no gps map for a workout.

Apple, sorry but y’all dropped the ball here. I can deal if it’s 3rd party app not working. But this is your own native workout app. How can you focus in on the fitness industry and overlook this MAJOR bug? Doesn’t help that the 14.0.1 and 7.0.1 didn’t fix the issue either.

Apple dig deep in that code, because I’m sure the error is the watch passing the gps data to the health app and the new ‘Fitness’ app instead of the ‘Activity’ app.

This is definitely an iOS 14/Fitness app bug. Multiple reports of people using the Strava watch app and all GPS data successfully finding its way to Strava phone app. I was able to get this resolved by:

1. Backup up both phone and watch
2. Unpairing watch
3. Reset phone
4. Reset watch
5. Pair again

A huge PIA, but it worked and it seems many others have successfully done the same with success. Now, using the Workout app on the watch properly reports GPS data into the Fitness app. Again, a PIA but a way to resolve it if you're OCD like me and don't want to wait for an Apple fix.

The following radical solution solved it for me:

• Unpaid Watch
• Backup
• Reset and erase all iPhone content
• Restore iPhone backup
• Pair and restore Watch from backup

The whole process took around one hour, plus a few hours until all the iCloud data downloaded and synced. No major problems doing this.

The fact that this works seems to indicate that all the maps and Health app data is safe and sound in iCloud. However, while you’re experience the bug, workouts won’t save GPS data, so you won’t recover the routes of any workout after the bug appeared and until it’s fixed. You can easily notice this if you export Health app data. No workout map data is saved after the bug appeared.

if you’re confident your all you data is backed up and saved, I recommend going for this solution because who know when a fix is coming. Otherwise, it’s not possible to use the Workout app to track routes and a third party app is needed.

I had an update today from engineering

Steps to resolve below:

1. unpair watch - which will create a backup
2. backup iphone
3. Go into health app and check last time data was backed up (at the very bottom)
4. reset and erase iphone
5. restore iPhone from backup in step 2
6. repair Apple Watch to backup taken in step 1

so far so good for me 🙂

Here is an update (I've done the unpair/reset/restore/pair workaround). Situation is as follows:

• Health.app > Summary > Workouts > Show all workout routes (scroll down near the end) displays only routes recorded with iOS 14 (i.e. no routes from old workouts, before upgrading to iOS 14 - other workout information is properly shown). Before restoring only Strava recorded workouts have their routes displayed here; after restoring both Strava and Watch Workouts routes are being displayed here.
• Watch recorded workouts show their route when viewed in iOS Fitness app. Strava recorded workouts don't display the route (but they get displayed as workouts).
• Strava records and shows properly the route when recorded through the watch Strava app.
• All health information was properly restored from iCloud backup (same when I upgraded from iPhone 7 to 11 Pro). Have no idea though if routes had been recorded and backed up previously and lost during restoring.

I would suggest that those who have not yet restored their iPhones wait for a proper fix, based on my loss of route information of previous workouts. Maybe they get restored with a future upgrade, maybe not. Since I did restore my phone though I've lost the data that might have been saved locally, and not properly synced, if that was the case. Now I can only hope that iCloud health data do include the route information (but it didn't get restored for some reason) and that it might be restored in the future.

TL;DR. Reset/restore only partially corrects the problem, and only for new workouts. Better to wait for an official fix (and avoid the hassle of restoring from large capacity iPhones)