No signal. Trying to connect (Live Track)

I have been chatting with support and let them know about my findings. I wonder if it will make it to the developers. When chatting with the support I went through different scenarios to show him when and why it stops sending data to livetrack. He actually tried the same (on exactly the same phone that I had) and sad that for him it worked fine. So I wonder if it is just me or if he had a newer version (I hope he had a newer internal version giving me hope).

If the app is kept open when starting and the screen never turns off (garmin livetrack screen always the one visible) then it continues working correctly! But as soon as one switches to another app or the screen turns off, livetrack stops working.

My devices:
- Phone: Google Pixel 2, Android 9.0, Garmin Connect 4.13.5
- Watch: ForeAthlete 935 (Japan version of Forerunner 935)
- Internet connection on Phone is through a pocket wifi router. Phone is connected, but it is through WiFi instead of Mobile Data. Not sure if this makes a difference though.

I really hope they get this fixed soon. For now I just use Glympse which does the job as well. Even though I would like the graphs including heart rate and pace.

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Now as an Android developer, I am guessing the following could be a reason. Of course there could be other reasons as well. The one below seems the obvious one to me though because it is can easily happen when a developer does not read documentation of Android correctly when upgrading the app to run on newer devices (which is required now on google play).
But because the app does not work for me even on version 4.8, this might not apply to me. But maybe this here is still the reason for why so many others have problems with LiveTrack.

Now why this behaviour?
Why? Android starting with Android Oreo handles BACKGROUND apps and FOREGROUND apps differently. As soon as the screen turns off or the app is not visible anymore, the app goes into BACKGROUND (unless a service with a notification keeps it in the foreground). When in the Background, gps location updates do not get sent anymore (or only very rarely).
For more information on this behaviour (and how to fix it): https://developer.android.com/about/...ocation-limits and https://developer.android.com/about/...reo/background

Why did this start recently?
Google started to require apps to target/targetApi (meaning it should behave like on being on this device even if on a higher version of android) at least Android Oreo since November 1, 2018 (https://developer.android.com/distri...lop/target-sdk).
Up to version 4.8 the app had a targetApi of Android Nougat 7.1. With version 4.13.2 (first release after November 1, 2018) they started targeting Android Oreo 8.1. So even though running the app on Android Oreo before 4.13.2 would not have the same effect, because it won't have the behaviour of Android Oreo. But when switching the "targetApi" to Android Oreo 8.1, that behaviour starts to kick in. I actually checked the apk files myself to ensure this is the case, and I can confirm, that the targetApi changed from 25 (Android Nougat) to 27 (Android Oreo 8.1) between those versions.

That as well is why livetrack still works on Version 4.12.3 should be the last version working correctly. I am now running on 4.12.3 and it seems to work :).

When I tried again today, it didn't even work when I kept the screen on and stayed in the app

The servers were down today at about the time I started my run at 8:30 PM UTC. First time in several weeks that my LiveTrack did not work

The servers were down today at about the time I started my run at 8:30 PM UTC. First time in several weeks that my LiveTrack did not work

That would explain why it didn't work on any version I tried today :D. Will have to try again later I guess and update my post above. Strangely I never saw that message in the app today. I wonder when it will be working again. So I can test again if it works on an older version.

Yeah, I had a feeling that would come up today on the forum, so I grabbed the screenshot before I took off on my run. AFAIK, it came without warning, so not a typical "scheduled maintenance" outage where the SysAdmins have a chance to warn the users. Seems to be up now, so you should be able to test again. Nice job on the sleuthing. :D

I'm having the same problem - but iOS here

Yes, for me it didn't work either yesterday. Even after seilogramp said it should be up again. Guess it might still be down?

PS: https://connect.garmin.com/en-US/status seems to not say anything even though it clearly doesn't seem working for multiple users. (even yesterday it didn't say anything when i checked)

pboos I was referring to Garmin Connect, but not the LiveTrack piece of it.

seilogramp sorry, thought they might be related :) and hoped that when the one recovered the other would recover too :). Guess i was mistaken. Sadly there is no way to track this problem besides contacting support. This is something that should show up on the garmin status page (in my opinion).

Yeah, who knows? Maybe the cleaning crew needed the power receptacle where the Garmin Connect servers were plugged in, so a brief outage as they vacuumed. :D Now there might be the LiveTrack service that didn't automatically startup with the server. So we went from some people having consistent LiveTrack success (me) to nobody having success.