William Gallagher
A number of users on watchOS 7 are reporting that their Apple Watches are failing to record GPS data from their walk workouts, including when using the Strava fitness app.
Apple's support forums currently lists over 1,300 people claiming to have found that the Apple Watch Outdoor Walk activity is failing to record GPS data when people do not also have their iPhone with them. In most cases, the Health app reportedly records the starting point of a walk, but nothing for the rest of the route.
In some cases the data is not being sent to the Strava fitness app. However, other people say that route data is not being recorded in Apple's Health app either.
The Apple support thread includes people saying they've had this problem with watchOS 7 from Apple Watch Series 3 to Apple Watch Series 6. Apple has yet to comment publicly on the issue, but a users in the thread claim to have been told different answers from Apple Support.
Some say that Apple has promised a solution in an update to watchOS 7. Others have said that support staff have said that the solution depends on Strava.
In the thread first spotted by MacRumors, some users say backing up, unpairing and re-pairing the Watch fixes it.
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Wesley Hilliard
AppleInsider Staff
Andrew Orr
Amber Neely
12 Comments
I've encountered this issue too (Watch 3 watchOS 7) and it helped me to "hard restart" the Workout app.
I have the opposite - no GPS data for outdoor walks prior to upgrading to WatchOS 7, but complete GPS data since then.
To be honest, I've never looked at the GPS data until recently (I've always relied on Runkeeper for this functionality).
I assumed that all Apple Watches with GPS recorded this data.
I’ve had a problem where workouts are not showing up at all. None of my workouts so far this week are showing up in the fitness app. The last one I see is from Sunday. I am getting the proper exercise time and move data but the workouts themselves aren’t showing up. I just power cycled both my phone and my watch. The old workouts haven’t shown up but we’ll see if one does later today when I work out. I’m using a Series 5 watch on watchOS 7 and an iPhone 11 Pro Max on iOS 14.
Edit: I also noticed my workouts were missing GPS data and some were missing heart rate data. I just did a full restore on my watch and did a short workout and that workout did show up on my phone. It looks like the issue was with the watch then. We’ll see what happens tonight with my real workout. The two missing days of workouts are still no there though. I’ll have to manually add them.
I actually have both issues... since WatchOS 7, my new activities are no longer being tracked by GPS (only the starting point is there on the map)
AND
my WatchOS 6 GPS tracks have disappeared (the map is not displaying at all for all my old workouts)iPhone 11 Pro and Apple Watch Series 3I upgraded to the public beta of WatchOS 7.1 to see if that helped => same result
battery life (which is also a disaster on 7.0) is greatly improved with the beta version though
I'm glad to here others are experiencing problems. I thought is was just me.
Until yesterday, the last recording of my walks from my Series 4 AW was last Friday. My walks on Saturday through Monday weren't preserved in other apps on the iPhone that I rely on.
For some reason, the iPhone now has the information from Tuesday.
I also noticed for the first time (maybe it was always there), there are entries in the Health app for V02. Hopefully they are not accurate, since from the number it's giving me, I should be nearing death. When I get the Series 6 early October, I'll likely get a more accurate value -- I hope they're better.