Weird Sync Issues with MFP to FitBit (exercise calories)?
Heartlight441
Posts: 278 Member
Anyone else having weird syncing with their fitbit data to MFP for exercise? This has been happening for me on/off for around a week now. I'll sync my fitbit (to its own app) then open up MFP and sync (all on my iphone 6+). My exercise calories will be at say 300 at one point during the day, I'll do more activity and go to sync and you'd think it would increase but sometimes it decreases my exercise calories. A bit later it may increase them, and then later decrease. Up/down!
Yesterday, I got in over 18K steps which was daytime little walks, my C25K workout and 1.5 hour walk with a friend in the evening. It had me earning 900+ calories at one point which I was so happy to see but then one sync brought it back down to 500. I'm not eating those anyway but I really feel proud to see them. What is going on?? Is there a bug or is this right? I'm set to sedentary as my day job is such.
And this is over two devices as I bought a brand new fitbit on Sunday (was Charge HR, now Blaze). I even unpaired and repaired with MFP to see if that fixed it but nope.
Yesterday, I got in over 18K steps which was daytime little walks, my C25K workout and 1.5 hour walk with a friend in the evening. It had me earning 900+ calories at one point which I was so happy to see but then one sync brought it back down to 500. I'm not eating those anyway but I really feel proud to see them. What is going on?? Is there a bug or is this right? I'm set to sedentary as my day job is such.
And this is over two devices as I bought a brand new fitbit on Sunday (was Charge HR, now Blaze). I even unpaired and repaired with MFP to see if that fixed it but nope.
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Did you check the math that MFP is using to calculate your adjustment? They've had a bug where it gets weird. On the website, it manifests as two adjustments - one that can neither be examined or deleted and one that has a bad value for MyFitnessPal Calories Burned (the number includes some "exercise calories" that haven't been logged). When I have the problem and look at it on my phone (Android), the second adjustment isn't seen, but the bad math is the same.
I've reported it to MFP and I know they're working on it, but I think they need to hear about the problem from anyone who encounters it. I'd kind of hoped it had been fixed since it hasn't happened to me in the last few days. What I've been doing when it happens is falling back on using Fitbit for my calorie goal (I just make sure that hasn't been messed up with multiple meal summaries coming over from MFP, which also happens occasionally).1 -
I'm having this issue as well and I've also reached out to them. They've stated that they're aware of the issue and working on it but it's going on day three of this issue (consecutively but I've been having the issue off and on for the past two months). I've also tried unpairing the two apps and repairing them and it's not working. This is the longest it has ever been an issue. This morning synced up to about 1k of my steps and then just stopped counting them. It's awesome.0
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Yes. Last night I watched mine change by the second from +600 from fitbit, to -3 from fitbit, to 0, to 600, etc... sucks that I can't trust it at a glance and have to calculate in my head - having it calculated for me is the whole freakin' point of paying for mfp (since otherwise, I can do the math myself!)0
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I was so proud of all my 'earned activity' only to watch it fall only to 500 calori s on mfp. My family is also using mfp and I know I did way more yesterday than some but it doesnt give me creditdue to this stupid issue.0
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Your not alone. It happens to me it seems once every week or so. Yesterday I should have an adjustment for like 817 calories, but because of the weird glitch I'm only getting 83 from one adjustment (bad math...says I have 700 logged exercise on MFP) and 434 from a second adjustment (old adjustment from earlier in the day that the system didn't remove and can't be deleted).0
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I'm having exactly the same issue - two lines of calorie adjustments, one that cannot be deleted, and one based on a MFP value which includes 'calories burned' from somewhere. It's very frustrating, as it seems to be fine logging steps, adjusting calories until I get to mid-afternoon and then all the values seemed made-up and pulled from thin air.0
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Heartlight441 wrote: »I was so proud of all my 'earned activity' only to watch it fall only to 500 calori s on mfp. My family is also using mfp and I know I did way more yesterday than some but it doesnt give me creditdue to this stupid issue.
so far your descriptions don't really help decide if you are actually having an issue - or the fact you may be misunderstanding what is happening even when it works right.
If you have your MFP Activity level set higher than sedentary, then it's already expecting you to be decently active.
If the calorie burn Fitbit reports to MFP matches that expectation - no adjustment up.
If certain times of the day it looks better - big adjustment, if other parts of day it's less - lower adjustment.
Hence the requirement to follow advice above about actually posting the numbers the math is done with.
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I am set to sedentary. I dont understand the math I need to do.
Yesterday I was at about 400 earned calories after my workout. Steps were at let's say 9K. I walked 1.5 hours and earned over 18K total in steps. At one point, mfp had sync'd showing me at higher earned calories but then a bit later, it synced back to just about 500. How can walking almost another 5K barely show? Something just isnt right especially when other family members are way higher earning than me. They have similar activity settings and weight too.0 -
Ya, need to deal with math to confirm if actually an issue you should be reporting along with everyone else.
Go to the details on the Fitbit calorie adjustment. Not the number of calories. But if 2 lines for adjustments there's one issue.
Hold that line on app to get details, or click on blue "i" on webpage to view them.
Screen shot or write down all the numbers/times you see there, along with description of course.
What Fitbit reported and when, what MFP estimated the day to be, what it was using as base.
500 is pretty good though adjustment though, that's more than barely show depending on what kind of steps.
Because again - the foundation - steps by themselves aren't calories - but the distance it represents and pace does.
So that's why you and someone with your exact stats with same steps could be different. Wrong distance being estimated because stride length setting is off, perhaps with both of you.0 -
I'm also having issues. Yesterday the number fluctuated wildly (I've been using MFP paired with Fitbit for over a year now and it only behaves like this unless the system is glitching out) and today MFP just isn't adding in any exercise calories from Fitbit at all. I've done the usual troubleshooting to no avail. However, MFP is still sending Fitbit my calorie info so I'm just going off the calories it gives me there.1
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I have this issue too now, it's strange
I hope it's fixed soon! 0 -
I'm also having this issue. I walked over 16,000 steps yesterday but it's not showing the difference just the steps done. Syncing is all weird!0
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I've noticed several references to "making MFP sync" in the posts above.
Where is it mentioned that an option in the MFP app to make it sync includes syncing with Fitbit?
Unless it specifically says Sync with Fitbit or maybe Sync with other accounts - that's just syncing the app to the app server and then back to the account server where your info really resides.
Just curious and surprised I'd not caught that reference before. Not trying to take away from the obvious issues that many experience, but I'm beginning to wonder if false expectations are also playing bearing in this.
Like you sync the Fitbit app and get instant data from the device - but left to it's own schedule, it would be longer. Just wondering if more is being expected from the MFP app than actually occurs anyway.0 -
I've had fitbit and mfp synced for nearly 2 years now so I've gotten pretty good at figuring out the expected range of calorie adjustment from various types of activities and step counts. Mine has been abnormally low this weekend and today. I was pretty active yesterday, with 15000 steps, 30 floors and 75 active minutes. I am and have always been set at sedentary. Yesterday's adjustment was 150 calories. I can usually get that adjustment just from going about my day, well under 10k steps. I'll just wait it out. Usually fixes itself.0
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Having the same issue - showed as 500 cal adjustment earlier, which is correct,but now showing as -79 and putting me in the red. Grrr!0
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Yup same.
I've had problems off an for about a week. I've had to uninstall and reinstall (the MFP and FB apps) a few times. As well as revoke access and reconnect, always seems to fix it for the next day but the day it messes up is a lost cause! On those days I manually input exercise calories that are equal to my daily burn (for the most part my fit bit calorie burn is about the same every day. Sometimes I go back and look at old calorie burn records if my steps happen to be higher that day and manually input that number).
Yes, seeing "red" when you know you're not is frustrating!0 -
@LauraUK2016 & @DoreenaV1975 : When this happens check the math that MFP is using to calculate your adjustment. (Go to the exercise page of the website and click on the little 'i' next to the Fitbit adjustment or go to the diary in the mobile app and touch the adjustment, then touch again.) You should see a screen like this:
If, however, you see two adjustments (website) and/or the MFP Calories Burned number has exercise calories included in it that you didn't log, then you've run into a bug that I think MFP needs to know about. The erroneous math screen looks like this (I never log exercise in MFP):
This bug has been, apparently randomly, hitting a lot of people. I seem to get it about once a week and it's driving me nuts. I have reported it to MFP and I think everyone else that gets hit with it should also report it, so they know that it is a pretty big problem. They do know about it. I believe this is the line about it on their help page (under Known Issues -> Integration Partners): "Bug: Some fitbit users are not seeing their steps syncing correctly and may also see multiple calorie adjustment lines when viewing your Diary on the website."0 -
Thanks for that info, but I know how Fit Bit works, it's not working correctly...
I never log regular exercise, cuz I don't exercise I just "Fit Bit"... The only reason I logged some exercise is I needed the calorie burn for my diary records and Fit Bit was not giving them to me.
So for example I burn approximately 400 cals everyday because of my steps (on average). My Fit Bit was not synching those steps, so I manually entered "walking" for the amount of minutes that would equal a 400 calorie burn.
But as I said, I normally wouldn't do that, I would just let my Fit bit do it...
I will look into reporting it though, TY!
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I just noticed the last week that it's trying to double enter some of my food logs, like in FitBit, I'll have two snack sections when there should only be one. I delete the one entry and then it looks OK again.0
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@DoreenaV1975 : I don't log exercise either. Not in MFP and rarely in Fitbit. That's the point. MFP has a bug where it included "exercise calories" that you haven't logged in with your MyFitnessPal Calories burned number.
@bmele0 : That's a different bug. It's been getting me fairly often lately. I have no idea whether the problem is with MFP or Fitbit, but it makes more sense to me that it is a Fitbit bug. Like you, I just delete the extras.0 -
Interesting - I made a tech post for trouble on the effect of newer Fitbit daily burn not syncing over very often.
Response said my timezones were mismatched. Huh, never changed them.
I looked - both set to Central time - but one says GMT-5, other says GMT-6. MFP is incorrect during daylight savings time.
But Fitbit device and daily log show the correct time of activity.
MFP manually created workout synced over to the correct time.
So still not sure if that was totally true, or indeed true and almost forced synces work alright, but the auto-ones are effected by it.
Not sure what to change to correct their view of the log files on my account saying mismatched time zones.
Strange.1 -
That is strange. I just checked my time zones. Both set to Mountain Time but MFP says GMT-7 and Fitbit says GMT-6. Arrgh! Should I change the time zone to force MFP to GMT-6?0
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Wonder what happens for folks in AZ where they don't do DST?
I might be the guinea pig tonight and test changing MFP around.
I'll check back here in case you do it first.
I don't think they are correct though on assessment it was wrong. Because even the adjustment details time stamp is correctly matching what Fitbit was at that time.
I see none of the normal issues you'd get with mis-matched TZ's.
Shoot, only recent one was forgot who had their last 10 min calorie burn kinda of high - but it actually matched if MFP was doing 70 min left to day instead.0 -
Just looking at yesterday, it looks right. MFP says they synced at 11:59 PM and the Fitbit calories burned agrees with Fitbit. I'm guessing that MFP is doing it right but has an incorrect label on the time zone setting screen. Most people (me included most of the time) don't pay attention to the "GMT-6" part, and just pick based on the name of the time zone and any location peculiarities (such as AZ). Plus, once it's set, they leave it and don't think about it.
I'm not planning on experimenting today, though. So, feel free to be the guinea pig.0 -
Interesting - I made a tech post for trouble on the effect of newer Fitbit daily burn not syncing over very often.
Response said my timezones were mismatched. Huh, never changed them.
I looked - both set to Central time - but one says GMT-5, other says GMT-6. MFP is incorrect during daylight savings time.
But Fitbit device and daily log show the correct time of activity.
MFP manually created workout synced over to the correct time.
So still not sure if that was totally true, or indeed true and almost forced synces work alright, but the auto-ones are effected by it.
Not sure what to change to correct their view of the log files on my account saying mismatched time zones.
Strange.
Heybales this is interesting because as we were discussing in another thread, MFP doesn't seem to be doing an end of day true up for me, and you suspected it was off by an hour, even though I didn't change any settings.
Did you change your time zone (GMT-5 vs GMT-6) or just note the inconsistency? I just looked and mine is the same, one shows 5 and one shows 6.
I have been hit by the random double adjustment bug... earlier today it was giving me too many calories, now it is giving me too few...0 -
Wonder what happens for folks in AZ where they don't do DST?
I might be the guinea pig tonight and test changing MFP around.
I'll check back here in case you do it first.
I don't think they are correct though on assessment it was wrong. Because even the adjustment details time stamp is correctly matching what Fitbit was at that time.
I see none of the normal issues you'd get with mis-matched TZ's.
Shoot, only recent one was forgot who had their last 10 min calorie burn kinda of high - but it actually matched if MFP was doing 70 min left to day instead.
I think you are talking about me - I'm the one who has been having the issues with an estimate of calories burned toward end of day that overestimates the total calories burned, and I think my exercise adjustments are wrong as well.
I even had a couple of examples this week where my end of day adjustment was after midnight, but the numbers still were too high.
I think it must be related to the time zone issue, and I'm guessing you are right, it is something to do with daylight savings time. I don't know if we should change our MFP time zone to match FitBit (GMT-5) and then try to remember to readjust in October?0 -
This got me thinking about the phone aspect too, with the app. Which I don't use - but perhaps for others.
Phones get their time/date/timezone setting from the towers - unless you select manual override.
This started with the feature phones that had not so complete schedule changing ability.
So some operators at the DST change instead of just changing the time to be correct, would accomplish the same thing by changing the timezone, leaving the time alone.
Some smartphones hide the current settings, merely see the visual end result of the time. Have to uncheck auto-network time to see what it was using.
Well, it visually looks right, until you start scheduling appointments through an app with others in different timezone. Now the app is usually doing some math with timezones, and yours is wrong - so appointments show up wrong.
Or correctly set appointments alarm at wrong time based on current location.
Most carriers are good at running audits on their towers to confirm the change happened, and correctly. Then manually correct towers that are wrong.
Well - you hope they do it right. Because moving into that wrong tower and doing a sync .....
It would be interesting to catch if the apps on device are syncing at certain times when connected to towers giving the wrong info.
There is some very flaky interactions going on when that happens.
Like if you live near border of TZ and pickup towers and their settings on other side - which is usually attempted to be minimized, but still could happen in theory.
But apps trying to use phone setting info, their own hard set setting, talking to other accounts with their own method and settings.
I think I'd need another cup of coffee to work out which direction this would need to be with possible interactions.0
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