Sync with Google Fit Doesn't Work Until You Edit Activity

Thank you for posting this as I have also encountered this issue. I use the calorie counting app Lose It and was stymied why some activities, walking in particular, weren't getting calorie info pulled. Because I don't want to pay for the app's premium and direct link to Strava, Google Fit is an adequate intermediary. 

I deduced that Strava's quick edit pop-up and the full edit screen do something different in the API when saving (though I have no idea what). If I save through quick edit, Fit does not notice it. If I save with full edit or resave the activity, Fit immediately sees it and sends the calorie info to Lose It. 

My advice is go straight to the full edit screen but I don't know if you will still encounter the same formatting issue. Are you seeing that within Fit or Strava? 

Good to know that its not just me. The data seems to have been reformatted in Strava, its like its re-interpreted the activity as a run. 

Can you try skipping the quick edit screen next time? And see what happens if you change the activity type to something else then back to row?

Many thanks for helping.

Yes, editing the activity, setting it to “Run”, saving it, editing again, setting to “Rowing” then saving again correctly reformats the data in Strava and triggers the sync. However because the first edit sets the type to a run, and the first edit triggers the sync with Google Fit, Google Fit then sees the activity as a run.

So i think i still need to do a first edit touching nothing to trigger the sync, as Strava must still think the activity is a row even though the presentation of the activity stats is wrong, Fit will then see the activity as a row.

So I think the process will have to be :

1. Edit activity but don’t touch anything, save (to trigger the sync with Google Fit as a row).
2. Edit activity, set to run, save
3. Edit activity set to rowing, save

Bit of a faf but end up with sync to Google Fit as rowing and Strava feed showing the correct type of acvtivity. Or alternatively Strava could fix the bug which has been around for over 2 years and get a “New Activity” to trigger a sync with Fit and not just “Save Activity”

Again, thanks for helping to find a workaround 👍

PS never used the quick edit, always used the hamburger dots and “Edit Activity” option

Yeah, sometimes these niche problems get swept away quickly but who knows, could help someone eventually.

Let me make sure I understand your hypothetical:

1. Sync activity with Strava, not synced to Fit
2. Edit and save (no changes) messes with format, but syncs to Fit (as what kind of activity?)
3. Change type and save again
4. Change back to row and save, rowing format is correct, Fit shows ‘row’

You could maybe eliminate one step by editing the first time to run, then correcting it second. Do you even have to change the type twice for it to reformat for the correct rowing statistics? Just repeat edit and save. I have two other ideas I’ve tried: 

• Does giving the activity a new name the first edit make a difference?
• Don’t change the activity type but just toggle the privacy setting. Might still affect the format.

It’s kind of a wily 2-part problem, but also makes me wonder if the failure is from Strava pushing or Google pulling.

Let me make sure I understand your hypothetical:

1. Sync activity with Strava, not synced to Fit. Correct. Activity data is correctly presented in Strava as “Rowing”, using correct data formats. 
2. Edit and save (no changes) messes with format, but syncs to Fit (as what kind of activity?). Correct. Data is presented in Strava incorrectly. Data is synced to Fit and Fit shows activity type of “Rowing” (Fit actually also supports an activity type of “Ergometer” which would be an even “more correct” activity type and Strava knows the activity was done using a rowing machine as it correctly identifies the type of rowing machine when presenting the data. But “Rowing” is close enough)
3. Change type and save again. Data format changes in Strava to whatever activity type is selected. No effect in Fit.
4. Change back to row and save, rowing format is correct, Fit shows ‘row’. Data is shown correctly in Strava. No effect in Fit.

It appears that either Strava doesn’t sync edits/changes after the first sync, or Fit doesn’t use/implement the edits after the first sync. I can’t tell which of these is the case, but given there seems to be an underlying issue with Strava syncing the initial data with Fit as a developer I would probably look at the Strava cose first.

You could maybe eliminate one step by editing the first time to run, then correcting it second. Do you even have to change the type twice for it to reformat for the correct rowing statistics? Just repeat edit and save. That would indeed result in Strava displaying the data correctly, but because Fit only seems to get/use the data from the first sync it then thinks the activity is a run, and even when the Strava activity is subsequently updated to the Rowing type it doesnt change.

I have two other ideas I’ve tried: Definitely worth a try. I will give these a go for my next 2 activities and report back (all rowing acivities have been edited/synced now so need a fresh one that hasn’t sync’ed yet)   

• Does giving the activity a new name the first edit make a difference?
• Don’t change the activity type but just toggle the privacy setting. Might still affect the format.

It’s kind of a wily 2-part problem, but also makes me wonder if the failure is from Strava pushing or Google pulling. As far as I know the data is all “push to Fit” rather than “pull from Fit”. Thats not to say that Fit might be using the data incorrectly that is sent from Strava. As a developer, given that there is a known problem with Strava syncing data to Fit, I would probably start looking at that code and see what other bugs can be found. 

Hey ​@Stremit I just happened across this but besides the issue with Google Fit getting new activities, there seems to be a known issue with rowing activities in general: 

Your right, so looks like the “editing activity corrupting display of data” part of the problem is a known issue. I have posted on that Issue the workaround you identified of changing the activity type and then changing back ro “Rowing”.

So its just the sync’ing issue with Fit. When I do some more activities next week I will investigate what editing triggers the sync.

• Does giving the activity a new name the first edit make a difference?

Activity synced to Strava and data presented ok. Not synced to Fit.

Edit activity on Strava and just change name, Save. Data presentation in Strava changed and now incorrect. Sync triggered to Fit. Fit records activity as Rowing. 

Edit activity in Strava, change to Run, Save. Fit now changed activity to Run. 

Edit activity in Strava, change to Row, Dave. Fit doesn't change activity type still Run. 

So it looks like there is something slightly different in the way Strava synced the activity with Fit using this method. It seems like the activity type didn't get pushed properly after the first edit changed just the name. The activity type got pushed when I changed the type to Run, after which it doesn't get updated again. 

Will try just changing the viewing permissions for tomorrow's activity. 

That’s very thorough testing and I confirm it works as well, how peculiar. Let’s see in the coming days what Strava says about these issues.