Problem on the Training Effect ! (resets with low battery)

Hi, it's always bad news when the battery dies during an activity. The fitness metrics seem to be the ones most impacted. I don't know of any way to directly repair the fitness metrics in an activity file whose recording was interrupted by power loss. You might try one of the FIT file repair tools to fix/trim any corrupt time stamps or records at the end of the file, as sometimes that can restore things. (Maybe post the FIT file here and someone might look at it.)

You might also try Garmin Support, though it may be a long shot.

FWIW your Aerobic TE on that activity most likely maxed out at 5.0. That's the max possible, so pretty much any multi-hour endurance activity ends up there. The Anaerobic TE is more uncertain since it depends on your anaerobic efforts of course. All we can say is it ended up somewhere between 3.1 and 5.0.

I'm curious, do you have the low-battery power-saving option enabled? When the battery gets low it can prompt you to enable power-saving. This will turn off the screen and everything keeps recording, nav still works, etc. (The screen turns on momentarily for each nav prompt.) Riding "blind" like that isn't awesome but sometimes it can be enough to prevent the device dying before the activity is finished.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I have activated power-saving at 10% but the device turned off while the screen was in standby. I tried cutting the last piece of the fit file but it didn't fix the error. At this point, I think the metrics are being calculated by the device into volatile memory (RAM) which it then writes to the file at the end of the session.

I am attaching the FIT file in case someone can fix it and explain to me how they fixed the error. I hope this problem is fixed in X40 series

11566662256.zip

Hi, I took a look at the file using Fit File Repair Tool, and the Training Effect is definitely zero in the file, so that's why they're not showing up in Garmin Connect. The Load was also nearly zero, at 0.8, which I think is just from the few seconds between restarting the device after the shutdown and saving the activity (meaning the Load also reset to zero during the shutdown).

Yes that's my understanding too, that the device is calculating Load and Training Effect in real-time during the activity, and only saving them when the activity is saved. Anything that interrupts the activity unexpectedly seems to lose those metrics.

The Edge devices do have the ability to post-process an already saved file to calculate those metrics. Garmin used it in 2021 to add the ability to get Load, Training Status, and eventually Training Effect from indoor trainer rides. Garmin Connect sends the indoor activity to the device on the first sync, the device post-processes the file to calculate those metrics, then the second sync brings them back to Garmin Connect. Unfortunately I've not heard of any user-accessible way to trigger this process manually for an interrupted activity file like this one.

You might try contacting Garmin Support to see if they can do something with it. If the device can post-process files from indoor trainers, then maybe they have a dev tool to do similar with activity files like this one.

Other thoughts... Your battery drain was about 7-8% per hour, so you could use that to estimate how long it'll last. In addition to displaying Training Effect (both Aerobic and Anaerobic) and Load/EPOC in real-time during an activity, you can also record Aerobic TE (but not Anaerobic TE or Load/EPOC) by using a ConectIQ app like AppBuilder5+. It won't prevent this issue of zero TE in Garmin Connect from interrupted recordings, but it will at least put a data chart in Garmin Connect showing how Aerobic TE increased during the ride:

Hi Kyle! You should work for Garmin!

If I could transform this FIT file into a Zwift activity, the Garmin Connect would calculate the training effect correctly.

In fact, when I load zwift activities, I get the training effect even without using the device.

Now I understand that the 1030 error is a marketing choice...
because if G-Connect calculated the training effect for me simply having the physiological data I would no longer need a Garmin device.

Thank you very much for your time, suggestions and very useful tools. In the future I will try not to turn it off.

Haha yes I wondered about working there too...

I have wondered about manually uploading a Garmin activity file to a supported trainer app/website to sync back to Garmin Connect, but I haven't tried it. If not Zwift then maybe Trainer Road.

Also thanks for mentioning that using the device is no longer needed on trainer apps to get those fitness metrics. I just learned that Garmin made another update a few months ago, it no longer needs to sync a trainer file twice to a device to calculate fitness metrics, it now does it directly in Garmin Connect:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfS3Dm41sVc

Which brings up the question, if Garmin Connect now calculates these fitness metrics from 3rd party sites directly (as long as we own an eligible device), then why doesn't it do it if we upload our FIT file directly into Garmin Connect ourselves? That would be the perfect solution for your case.

I think it's worth asking Garmin Support about your file. Given the recent changes they made to Garmin Connect, it's more likely they have tools now to add your file to your account to get the fitness metrics.