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Garmin connect won’t finish syncing

Former Member
Former Member
My vivoactive 3 won’t finish syncing to garmin connect. It had been working for over a year. Starting last week, 2/17, it starts the sync when I start garmin connect on my phone, but it won’t complete. It gets maybe 1/4 of the way through, but never completes. I’ve restarted my phone, and deinstalled the garmin connect app and reinstalled it, but still itwont complete. I would appreciate any suggestions.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    In the thought that this might help someone else... I tried several more things - I did a factory reboot of my phone (pretty painful, should have done the next step instead and skipped this one); I connected to another device; deleted the first activity (skiing) when the syncs started to fail; I turned off/on the Garmin. Nothing seemed to fix it. But, I kept trying to sync, hoping one time it would "take". Well, it did. It finally synced - having changed nothing (except a few hours) from the prior attempt. However, I lost about 6 days of steps/sleep, etc, but it synced the activities (other than the one I had deleted). Steps were there for 2 days prior, but not the "missing" 6 days. So, not sure what fixed this.
  • I am having the same issue, Last sync was on 8 Apr and is tis now 12 Apr 21. Phone can see actual steps and other date but the accumulation has not occurring nor has any of my attempts to sync. Start but never get past the 3 o'clock status on the upload process. Powered down both phone and watch. Attempted ty sync wat to another device. Fails, The issue appears to be the watch.

  • If you are on an Android phone, check out the Device Sync Audit in GC Mobile Menu » Settings and search it for errors and warnings. Also try connecting the phone to the Internet with an alternative ISP (i.e. using mobile data instead of WiFi, or vice versa, or using a different WiFi access point, or using a VPN).

    The issue appears to be the watch.

    There are countless of possibilities, most of them listed in the Sync / Connection Troubleshooting Guide, but the watch as the culprit is really one of the most rare ones. In fact I do not remember a case reported here on the forum that would be caused by the watch.

  • However, I lost about 6 days of steps/sleep, etc, but it synced the activities

    Seeing this, the Troubleshooting guide for (some) data missing after syncing, should help. Namely the hint #4, incl. the second post in that thread. Could be also a broken FIT file in the folder //GARMIN/Monitoring, or perhaps an overfilled storage, but I'd start with the #4 first, in your case.

  • Saw the same thing on my Forerunner 645 Music, basic data like steps and data would update, but syncing activities to android phone would failed continually after a short time, small part of the sync circle lights up, then stops.

    Was able to sync the watch activity data to Connect using the Garmin Express application, but even after the external sync, the watch still would not sync directly to the phone.

    Browsing around with the phone when connected to the computer, I noticed an Activity file of 0 bytes, so removed the activity.  Once the 0 byte file was removed the phone was able to sync successfully.

    Short Answer:

    • Connect <Device> with USB to computer
    • Browse to <Device> -> Primary -> GARMIN -> Activity
    • Search through Activities looking for any files that are 0 bytes in size
    • Delete any 0 byte length files
    • Disconnect from Computer
    • Sync with phone

    Devs, seems like Garmin Express can handle 0 length files, allow the mobile app to handle those files as well

  • I was having this same issue recently and these steps fixed it. Thanks very much for the help

  • Switching from WiFi to mobile data solved my issue with Forerunner55 on Android. Thanks for your help!