Received couple of "No sleep data" or totally messed sleep recording

Hi, 

thanks so much for your reply! It’s really kind :) 

Yes I had contacted support in my country and today I got an email back saying they saw no syncing problems in my account. Ignoring the missing data from for example last Monday when it didn’t sync sleep data to connect at all. It really sounded like she was completely uninterested in hearing what I was saying and she concluded it was my phone that caused all problems and I had to send in my watch. 

Its a shame we can’t report bugs to the software engineers, or can we? I don’t think support reported my bugs.. because she concluded everything had synced in my account.. while it clearly didn’t. I have more syncing problems where it’s not syncing properly exactly at midnight, but it happens intermittently. This is happening since the first night I had the watch. And the sleep tracking problems started this week.

reading this forum, I see many bugs I am experiencing also popping up in other watches. So I really think it’s software related. That’s why I’m not sending in my watch yet. 

you explained well, I understand what you mean and it also crossed my mind, because I did a breathing exercise before bed the night before sleep didn’t sync to connect. And when it was finished i forgot to save the activity, because I fell asleep. It also didn’t sync to connect. So the next morning when the sleep wouldn’t sync, I deleted the breathing activity from the activity folder. I thought it was ficed because Tuesday it recorded sleep and also synced everything. But then Wednesday it didn’t track sleep on my watch suddenly. And last night again. 

So now I emptied the whole activity folder. But most activities stayed on my watch! So weird. So I also deleted all activities on my watch. Hopefully it works. Otherwise I’ll factory reset, .. again. 

Such a hassle for a new watch. 

oh my watch can’t pause activities. Only auto pause. But I disabled that. 

Esther said:

Its a shame we can’t report bugs to the software engineers, or can we

If you join the Beta Program, you can report bugs on the Bug Reports section of the Beta Program forum.

Esther said:

have more syncing problems where it’s not syncing properly exactly at midnight, but it happens intermittently.

I recommend verifying that your Vivoactive 5 uses the same time and date, and the same Time Zone as your phone

Esther said:

So now I emptied the whole activity folder. But most activities stayed on my watch! So weird.

Not weird at all. By deleting the activity FIT files, you do not delete the activity history. You only delete the detailed data of the activities, but the history (including some basic stats) remains preserved in a separate location.

Esther said:

oh my watch can’t pause activities.

I am not familiar with Vivoactive 5, but the user manual claims the opposite:

And that's how it works on practically all other Garmin watches too

Yes I can pause it then for 15 or 20 minutes or so. So then it auto saves. I don’t consider that pausing an activity. Auto pause also auto saves after 15 or 25 minutes (I’m not completely sure how long. But definitely not hours).  So that’s what I mean I can’t pause an activity. I thought some other watches ccan pause for hours? Maybe I am wrong. 

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/healthandwellness/f/vivoactive-5-series/356625/resume-later-functionality-missing (I mean this with pausing) 

Thank you I’ve checked this again and phone and watch both use the same timezone and date etc. They’re actually both set to ‘auto’. Only my watch got confused last night and didn’t know the correct time. I hope this was a one time occurrence on leap day ;-) 

okay I didn’t know! I’m new to Garmin. So I thought it would delete the complete activity history from my watch. It deleted like 50% of the history in the watch. So I didn’t understand what happened, why not everything got removed. For example activities from middle January and 13 February were still in my watch. And the other activities from today and yesterday etc were erased. Where can I empty the activities folder best then? Just on the watch? 

I don’t know if I dare to join beta :-D I will sleep on it! 

thank you for your reply! 

Esther said:

Where can I empty the activities folder best then?

I usually clean up all files from the folder //GARMIN/Activity/ each time I connect the watch over the USB cable to the computer. Easier than doing it on the watch.

Oh I have to look tomorrow, but I think that’s the folder I did empty. The first folder I saw after opening the Garmin folder on my laptop. But now I have to double check tomorrow. The activity folder only had .fit files.

Maybe a factory reset (again) is in order for my watch. It worked like a charm the first weeks. Except for some syncing issues that happened intermittently starting at midnight exactly, when it happens. And it is suggested that problem is on Garmins side. So I don’t understand what happened, why I suddenly experience these bugs with sleep tracking, without getting a software update. Hard reset works. But the body battery acts weird afterwards every time (dropping many points or raising many points). 

Esther said:

Hard reset works. But the body battery acts weird afterwards every time (dropping many points or raising many points). 

That's normal. The hard reset resets also the Body Battery to a default value. That's why it is called "reset" - it resets diverse counters and registers, in order to allow the watch to recover from possible issues like variable overflows, memory leaks, etc.

Funny enough, it seems nothing has been resolved as the old issues re-surfaced again. I would like, if somebody from Garmin reads this forum to tell us if there are any ongoing issues with the sleeping build-in app as this is getting beyond absurd.

The problem seems to be all the same- I go to sleep, then at some point I woke up in the middle of the night and watch doesn't count that I sleep. After I went again to bed, then starts counting the sleep which is extremely frustrating and totally messes the recovery stats and metrics.

Another yet frustrating example is from last night - I went to bed at 10:30 PM, my girlfriend went to bed around 00:00 AM and told me that, she can confirm that I was sleeping. However, according to the watch, I went to sleep at 03:00 AM:

The current settings are: 11:30 PM - 08:30 AM bed times, 26.86 beta firmware.

Lyubomir said:

I would like, if somebody from Garmin reads this forum to tell us if there are any ongoing issues with the sleeping build-in app as this is getting beyond absurd.

Works fine for me. And for many others too, since we do not see that many complaints here, although among the millions of users, there will be always individuals for whom it does not work ideally, whatever the reasons are. It may be due to sleep disorders, due to the shift work, due to the HR sensor not detecting the HR and HRV properly (i.e. because of peripheral vasoconstriction, bad fit, sleeping on the arm, low temperatures, tattoos, etc. etc.), and so on. I doubt that the perfect detection can be achieved for 100% of the users.

However, if you want to speak to Garmin, your best bet is contacting them directly at https://support.garmin.com. Here, on the user forum, they comment rarely, and the developers (who are the only ones who could address this type of questions) do not visit the forums at all.

Lyubomir said:

I go to sleep, then at some point I woke up in the middle of the night and watch doesn't count that I sleep.

Yes, that is the way it was designed to work:

My Watch Exits Sleep Mode When I Get Up in the Middle of the Night | Garmin Customer Support

Sleep monitoring can stop tracking if the device detects enough movement that indicates you have entered an "awake" state for an extended period of time during the night. This may include getting up to use the restroom and then wandering through the house, causing your watch to accumulate a large enough step count or an elongated elevated heart rate to trigger you being in an awake state. Due to this, your watch may not return to sleep mode for the remainder of the night. You can edit your recorded sleep times using the steps in: Can I Edit the Sleep Time That My Watch Recorded in Garmin Connect?.

Besides that, you have to wear the watch for at least two hours before going to bed, in order to allow the watch to detect the start of the sleep properly. So for example if you use to charge the watch just before going to sleep, try changing your habits, and do it earlier in the day.

Hi trux,

The problem I think is elsewhere. Let me explain.

Last week we had a high management visit and I had to get up earlier than I usually do, because I had to travel to our office. This means I had to wake up more than 1 hour prior the normal wake up time. What was the interesting thing. Even if I woke up, take a shower, drive to work, walk around the office, get up and down stairs, the build in app still sits in a "sleeping" state.After 8:30 AM the statistics are available, again, no matter the movement I did prior 8:30.

According to my beliefs, the problem is the watch never goes in to "sleep" mode when it  is intended to go/has been configured to, and exits the sleep mode when its configured to. Before 8:30 AM it will show sleeping, no matter the reading or the time I woke up and the movement I did before this hour.