Bug report v15.19: discard activity retains a "ghost Exercise Load" on device

The same for me. Edge 840 and Epix gen 2.No answer yet? 

I've also noticed that discarding an activity will not prevent a watch from using that activity to calculate training status metrics like recovery time, exercise load, etc. I think it's been this way since at least Forerunner 935 (released 6 years ago). I suppose the rationale is that you still did the exercise even if you don't save the activity. (This discounts outlier scenarios like lending your watch to a friend and asking them to discard any activities bc you don't them to mess up your stats, or other situations where you know the data will be bad.)

While that behavior may be by design (even if we may not agree with it), it seems that it leads to an indisputable bug when another device records a real activity at the same time.

I usually record my rides with my two devices simultaneously (Epix Gen2 and Edge 840) precisely to avoid messing up the data if I lose the activity, but the mess happens anyway because of this bug.

Yesterday my watch incorrectly detected an "accident" when I stopped to meet some friends, and this caused the watch to end the activity hastily and send an alert to my emergency contacts. When I saw the error, I canceled sending the message, but the activity had already been stoped and saved after just 5 minutes. I deleted the activity and continued recording only with Edge.

 When I finished everything and saved, everything was normal on the Edge and the Training load was correct, but when synchronizing with Garmin Connect this Load was replaced by  the 5 minute activity, so I trained for 4 HOURS and had a computed load of just 5 minutes generating me  300 points less!

The mess is even more incomprehensible because I still have my old device that I keep as a spare, an Edge 530. I turned it on to synchronize, and in it the activity that was taken into account was the correct one and there the load and training status are correct, but not on the 840 and not on the Epix. I've tried everything to try and fix it, including removing the devices from the account and adding them back to re-sync, without success. If it's not possible to fix what's been done, I would at least like to know how to prevent this from happening again in the future!

Garmin can't handle well the use of simultaneous devices. Like riding a bike using watch + edge. Also the extended device function on the edges still need a lot of improvements and customization options to be more useful.

For now the only way I found to have peace of mind about this is using another brand for simultaneous use. 

Also thought of using a different Garmin account in another phone to sync, but this is not convenient.

I finally managed to do a "hack" to close the gap in my training load. It's far from perfect, but better than nothing. I looked for a Zwift ride with a similar training effect of that incorrectly replaced ride. I downloaded the .fit file and used an online tool that allows you to modify some parameters in the file: www.fitfiletools.com/

 There I changed the file date to the date of the missed ride to a later time before starting a new actual activity on my devices. I uploaded the modified file to Garmin Connect and resynced the devices. 

 At first nothing happened, just the new activity appearing on the GC, but not on the devices. I had already given up and started my ride that day. When I finished, I noticed that the training load was including the value of the Zwift ride! I looked at the history on Edge, and there was the ride! However, the training effect appeared on Sunday instead of Saturday, which was the correct one in the file. I think this is because of the time zone that on Zwift corresponds to a fictitious location in the Pacific or something like that. The fitfiletools.com web site can not modify time zones, just the date/time, so I preferred to leave it  as it was. 

 At least the entire weekly load was taken into account, even if it was shifted one day. Some observations: this only works with Zwift files or similar, as the calculations are made on Garmin Connect and not on the device itself as a real activity. Only after the Effect and training load have been calculated is the file, with everything calculated, sent to the devices. Hope this can help someone.

Did you configure the primary wearing and primary training device stuff?

Yes, to the Epix  because of other types of activities I do with it