Instinct waypoints disappear upon sync with Explore app

Former Member
Former Member
Situation. I make a waypoint on the Instinct by holding down the GPS button and saving my location. It appears as a waypoint for navigation on the watch. Upon syncing with the Explore app, the waypoint disappears from the watch and is nowhere to be found in the app.

I recall this process worked when the watch was new and I only had the one collection included by default. As I have made more collections via the web version of Explore (since the mobile app frustratingly doesn’t permit import/export of gpx files), I have found that new watch created waypoints just vanish upon sync. Tracks will get put in the Unorganized category, but watch waypoints seem to disappear. The active collection seems to never include anything from the watch.

If it were not such such a painful process of remaking the collections with thousands of waypoints and thousand of miles of track (split amongs dozens of smaller collections so an individual one fits on the watch), I would experiment with the sync delete issue to see if it really worked with a single collection or if I was just remembering things incorrectly.

Unless I am missing where the watch waypoints end up, it seems like the erasure of the waypoints on the watch is a problematic bug. I am using the iOS version of the app if that matters. This waypoint erasure happens even if I am only syncing the active collection with the Instinct and have all other collections turned off for sync.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I just saved my current location on the watch and then synced to Explorer and the waypoint now shows in my active collection. Android version.

    I checked on the watch and the waypoint is in my Saved Locations after sync.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    It would not surprise me if it is a bug introduced with an update to the iOS app. Before I added a bunch of collections with the web site version of Explore, mine worked as you just described it. It may also be related to having a bunch of collections. If someone can try making a few test collections (maybe one with a GPX import track or waypoints) in the app that is separate from the active collection, they can see if they also have this waypoint deletion issue.

    I was playing around with swapping large collections on the watch with my phone in airplane mode with bluetooth enabled that worked well enough. I had to sync twice or toggle my Bluetooth to fully transfer the especially large collections. I was trying to simulate switching to a new set of waypoints while on a thru-hike with limited cell reception. The way that I had to deselect a collection and sync to remove the waypoints before selecting a new collection and syncing makes me think the app might be syncing the empty active collection before grabbing the waypoints on the Instinct. But it still grabs new tracks and puts them in the unorganized section, so something particular to the waypoints seems off.
  • I have also been attempting to sync waypoints from the IOS app to Fenix 5x. I have been unsuccessful with all my attempts,  however no problem syncing routes or tracks

  • I have also been attempting to sync waypoints from the IOS app to Fenix 5x. I have been unsuccessful with all my attempts,  however no problem syncing routes or tracks

  • I have also been attempting to sync waypoints from the IOS app to Fenix 5x. I have been unsuccessful with all my attempts,  however no problem syncing routes or tracks

  • I have also been attempting to sync waypoints from the IOS app to Fenix 5x. I have been unsuccessful with all my attempts,  however no problem syncing routes or tracks

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

    I have been trying unsuccessfully to sync waypoints between the IOS app and Fenix 5X

    However there is no problem with sync of routes or tracks