iPhone Fitness app and Apple Watch Activity app not syncing

Good morning. I followed the link given by apple https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211865

i did a fresh backup

I wiped my phone to factory settings.

I DID NOT UNPAIR MY WATCH I just let it do it’s thing.

some of my missing workouts came back. Some did not.

this mornings workout appeared on my activity app on my phone as I would expect. So let’s see if this continues. I have an 11 pro.

Yes, same problem for me. Have tried all the rebooting, resyncing, etc.

workouts are not showing up on the fitness app, giving nothing for a swim workout once I close out the watch workout and even says data will be found on activity app on IOS

I have a brand new Iwatch 5, bought in August and and IOS. 11 iPhone.

it is now 8 October and these are problems from Sept. Apple please get this fixed.

From top to bottom these are the issues I have been experiencing similarly;

1. Activity app Move values are significantly off. Total no longer displays height/weight based calculation (or algorithm changed)
2. Activity app Stand graph is completely wrong.
3. Workouts are not syncing from Watch to Activity app.
4. When the workouts sync, then GPS doesn’t display any map info
5. Activity app and Health app have significant sync issues especially the number of steps and exercise minutes.

Just an update on my experience with these bugs.

Firstly I find it bizarre how there hasn't been a fix yet.

I was getting impatient a week and a half ago, after updating my phone and watch to the new OS on the 20th September. I had the same problems as everyone else, too many to write down. 2 weeks later I decided to do the full reset that apple recommended, which sorted some issues, however not all. The whole wording of their official fix for these issues, suggests that no one is getting any lost data back, which is an exceptionally massive flaw on apples side, the fact that data held in the cloud, can just suddenly disappear.

Anyway, I done the full reset, there are the things I experienced :

The fixes :

• Most Walking distance, steps, active + resting calories data back in graph on health app.

• Active Calories, resting calories, steps, walking + running distance, stand hours, exercise mins registering again on health app.

• Activity graph now corresponding to actual activity levels (example, 9 hours stand = 9 hours in graph, not 4 or 3 anymore)

• Environmental sound levels measuring again.

These are the things that it didn't fix :

• Missing workout awards in both health and fitness app missing from 30th sept

• Still 99% of environmental sound level recordings missing in health app

• Still missing some active energy, walking + running distance & exercise mins from previous years in health app.

• Not able to unlock mac with watch.

However, a few days after I done the full reset (watch and phone back to factory settings and install from backup), I also noticed these things, which fixed themselves, even though there was no new update.

• GPS tracking is now working again while doing a workout

• Missing workout awards are now back again, which included my September challenge and a few move goal awards. (though for some reason it changed my October challenge from the original one)

However just tonight I have also now discovered that : 

• Missing heart rate graphs on workouts from before June 2020, yet average heart rate is still showing.

Hope people can maybe relate to these problems. 

The main point being is that the full reset for phone, full reset of Apple Watch (not just unpairing), then installing the two from scratch again from backups, have alleviated some problems, however not others. Desperately waiting for this new update which I'm hoping is going to be soon. I still find it bizarre how a company of apples size and profits lets down customers like this on such a big scale. To be fair, I have mostly on ever had positive things to say about apple in the 10/11/12 years I have been with them, most updates don't ever have major problems of this caliber, their support is usually very good, however this has been the worst experience I've had with apple in my life after this new update. I've never known a more buggy update before. What I'm hoping is that this is a blip and never ever happens again, what Im also hoping is that they get my data, which has obviously been backed up to the cloud many times before, back onto my phone. It would be bizarre to think that a bug has been so severe that it has randomly deleted parts of peoples health data from the cloud.

I have also had difficulty getting apple to call me. Last week they said they would give me a call in 10 mins about the situation. nothing. I then booked a call with them for the next day, at 6:30pm, it was confirmed. The next day it came to 8pm and still heard nothing! I then got an email saying that they were unable to get a hold of me...I wonder why? Yes, because they entered in my phone number incorrectly as a method of contact...my country code is +44, NOT +4444...!!

Anyway I hope this could help with anyone with issues, doing the full reset does help partially, unfortunately not fully. it is also time consuming, also please also make sure triple check all your data is backed up to the cloud before performing the full reset on the phone and watch.

Oh I just remembered too, if anyone wants a temporary workaround workouts not syncing to the phone after finishing them, I can confirm that if you keep your phone on your during the workout, then after it, unlock the phone, go into the fitness app, and click on workouts, keep that there, THEN end the workout on the watch, the workout syncs with no issues. This, hopefully temporary, workaround has saved me from missing 3 or 4 workouts I have done in the past 2 weeks. So it's not all bad news thankfully!

Let's all say a prayer that within the next month we are all happy apple customers again!

Guys there is workaround for the workout sync issues. Once you finish the workout, go to your phone, unlock it and open the activity app. Then click on workouts, and only then on your watch press END on the workout and then done. It has worked for me every time. The problem is you need your phone on you to do this, however at least it gets the workouts on the phone, hopefully the bug is fixed so we don’t have to do this every time we finish a workout. God knows when that will be though since there are STILL bugs with 7.0.2.

So I updated the new watchOS 7.0.2 last night. I hadn’t done the fix of resetting the phone as per the workaround. Rather I waited for the update. It seems to be working fine. I just finished a tennis session and the watch recorded the event as precise as previous to the new version. It has also synced with activity on my phone and transferred.

All seems ok based on the new update.

I also caved in and paid money for iCloud despite having a computer I could use to do the same thing. I had tried the un-pair watch > back up phone, > restore phone > pair watch > restore watch routine using a backup to my computer a few times and did not have success. I tried it with an iCloud backup, and it worked. I'm ****** off about it because it reeks of shenanigans by Apple. I prefer to own stuff that "just works" since I usually get paid for fixing broken crap, and for awhile that was Apple, but now I realize that era is over. I was ranting about this crap every day and gave myself some time to give it a rest, but I realize I'm permanently ****** off at Apple.

.... And the upair, reset, re-pair solution only fixed it temporarily, about a day or tow. Now I am back to square one with data not syncing. I am finding that the trick of opening up the fitness app before ended the workout but quite the pain. I am truly hoping Apple sees these comments and fixes it. The update yesterday to the watch did not address it as I had hoped.

ReadTania and ChristopherWard - have you followed the instructions https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211865 with the restore of the phone from iCloud? It is inconvenient to do it all, but it has resolved issues for me. A word of caution, however, some people, including myself, are now missing workout maps for workouts prior to the upgrade to iOS 14. You can find more detail in this discussion: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251806066.

Thanks for your message @Tim_Doe much appreciated. I hadn't tried that though I also really don't want to lose my workout maps - that's a part I am really missing. I just don't understand why this wasn't tested properly :(

I've also realised this morning that my 'stand' hours seem to still be tracked as a number though there are no graph bars as previous so clearly something else has now happened over night : (

I daren't touch it - which also seems ridiculous as then there's little point in having the watch. What a blip!

https://www.payetteforward.com/apple-watch-stuck-apple-logo-heres-fix/ this link solved this very problem that I have also had. It took a few times of making sound to the watch on find my device/watch but then it reset and the activity app updated. It had not recorded on my watch app since last Thursday -- now all the data is there. Follow the directions on the link I attach above. It worked for me. Good luck

Crazy to me that there isn't a fix to all this yet. Apple making it really clear that they don't know what's going on for one, and for two, they don't seem to care. Used Garmin products for a year and had zero issues with it. I really do love the idea of the fitness and the rings and competing with friends, but with no location data and my workout now not even syncing to my phone, sure makes me think about going back to that Garmin watch.

I have done the fix around. My maps etc do now work but for some reason all workouts in the past are lost. My fitness rings show I have completed workouts because my calories burnt are high but when I look on that day there is no workouts. I have done no workouts this year according to the app. My average heart data is record but for August and September is lost. Very disappointing in Apple

Similarly to others here, Activity is not tracking anything on my iPhone. Watch data is not being captured. I also have no Motion & Fitness security setting to turn on. Essentially Activity & Health apps are both not working as a result. No steps, stand or exercise data whatsoever.

I'm currently trying these steps. I'm at the point where my phone is restoring from backup. I'm hoping I simply tried to pair my watch too soon because the most recent backup is from like a month ago. Did it take awhile for the supposedly automatic backup to appear on the phone?