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Apple Suggests Restoring iPhone and Apple Watch to Fix Excess Battery Drain or Missing GPS Data
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It’s any apple warch paired with a phone running iOS 14.0 or 14.0.1. The watch OS is fine. The problem is the data syncing from the watch to the health and fitness apps.
I did a full backup & restore through iTunes on Catalina last week but to no avail.
The backup couldn't be restored? There was missing data? The problem came back? Did you use an encrypted backup?
What happened?
btw, there is no iPhone backup option in iTunes in Catalina. You have to go through Finder.
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Sorry, I meant Finder of course.
The problem just came back. Everything was restored, nothing was fixed. As simple as that sadly.
My suspicion is that by backing up Health to iCloud it can treat that data differently and fix some of the issues server side, potentially not even willingly.
I'm also assuming that the data migration that happened from iOS 13 to 14 was botched, hence we're not seeing old maps return.
This absolutely happened to my iPhone 11 Pro and Watch 5 post iOS 14 and Watch OS 7. Was charging the watch 3 times per day and iPhone was loosing 1% of its battery every2-3 minutes with the Apple Health app showing as over 50% of the battery consumption. GPS just showed starting point for outdoor workouts, not route. And fitness data wasn't going from Watch to phone properly. Phone was getting really hot too. Apple Support said they hadn't heard anything about it but strangely had exactly these steps ready to go.
Wipe and restore everything fixed the issues and iCloud restore from backup was a lot less painful than I expected. Setup Face ID again, Apple Pay again, and Siri again and otherwise just let the data download.
Still, a huge waste of time. This morning I looked at wife's phone and she is having all the same problems but didn't notice. Also, with the watch upgrade it broke her perfect streak on move that lasted over 8 months. She's pretty hacked off about that.
We're in the process of wiping her phone now. Feels like Apple hired a bunch of ex-MS people. Problem? Just reinstall the OS....bah.
Wipe and restore everything fixed the issues and iCloud restore from backup was a lot less painful than I expected. Setup Face ID again, Apple Pay again, and Siri again and otherwise just let the data download.
Still, a huge waste of time. This morning I looked at wife's phone and she is having all the same problems but didn't notice. Also, with the watch upgrade it broke her perfect streak on move that lasted over 8 months. She's pretty hacked off about that.
We're in the process of wiping her phone now. Feels like Apple hired a bunch of ex-MS people. Problem? Just reinstall the OS....bah.
Heyo everybody. I actually went through the whole erase and restore process before Apple released that document (I had a ton of phone calls with Apple Support and this was what they finally recommended) and while it was a huge PITA, it actually did fix everything for me. Of course I happened to do everything at the precise timeframe when there were iCloud outages, so it took two hours to finally get my watch re-paired.
Phone isn't overheating anymore, Health takes up less storage, GPS routes are restored on pre-iOS 14 workouts, Health app and Fitness app data match up perfectly again, resting calories are back to normal, no more dropped HR readings, etc. I didn't lose any achievements, awards, or past Fitness data. Health data logged after iOS 14 is still screwy and doesn't match up with Fitness or Watch data, but everything after the restore point is totally fine.
It's a totally ridiculous solution and I'm pissed that this is what it came down to. Thankfully I have enough iCloud storage and didn't lose anything in the switch.
Like a bunch of other users have noted, it is CRAZY that all the data sources from each "watch" aren't synced up into one. I un-paired and re-paired my watch at least 5 times before they recommended restoring my phone so my data sources are an effing mess. Not ideal for a control freak like me.
Phone isn't overheating anymore, Health takes up less storage, GPS routes are restored on pre-iOS 14 workouts, Health app and Fitness app data match up perfectly again, resting calories are back to normal, no more dropped HR readings, etc. I didn't lose any achievements, awards, or past Fitness data. Health data logged after iOS 14 is still screwy and doesn't match up with Fitness or Watch data, but everything after the restore point is totally fine.
It's a totally ridiculous solution and I'm pissed that this is what it came down to. Thankfully I have enough iCloud storage and didn't lose anything in the switch.
Like a bunch of other users have noted, it is CRAZY that all the data sources from each "watch" aren't synced up into one. I un-paired and re-paired my watch at least 5 times before they recommended restoring my phone so my data sources are an effing mess. Not ideal for a control freak like me.
All of my pre-iOS 14 GPS routes are back. Everything recorded post-iOS 14/pre-restore only has the start point. Haven't done any walking/running/hiking workouts since restoring so I can't speak to that but I'll try one out later and see what's up.
I spoke with four separate people on Apple Health's support team over the course of the week and so far, this IS their official fix. Last guy I talked to admitted they don't know WTF is going on and this is the only thing they've found that helps.My personal concern is that this IS Apple's official fix.
This happened to me at first too and I freaked out, but everything came back within 12-ish hours. Took forever to get all the data downloaded.
Actually many MS issues are resolved nowadays by rebooting the system. I can't believe Apple didn't catch this in the beta releases.
I noticed my watch battery was 10% at end of day and it's usually 40%.
So I did the recommended restores.
This is not dead simple. First my iCloud backup kept warning me of 25 apps' data not included in the backup, so I had to review these. Then upon restoring my iPhone, I had to set up face ID again, enter ccv codes for Apple Pay credit cards, approve some purchase from my wife's phone. Then wait for dozens of apps to re-download. I haven't even gotten to the watch restore yet.
Not a good experience.
EDIT: I completed the watch restore, and it was also a pain. Had to re-enter birthdate, height, weight, workout goals, etc. Also had to re-enter ccv codes for Apple Pay (again). My custom complications, especially for Carrot Weather are gone.
I planned for 30 minutes to do this (while multi-tasking at work). It's been 2 hours now.
So I did the recommended restores.
This is not dead simple. First my iCloud backup kept warning me of 25 apps' data not included in the backup, so I had to review these. Then upon restoring my iPhone, I had to set up face ID again, enter ccv codes for Apple Pay credit cards, approve some purchase from my wife's phone. Then wait for dozens of apps to re-download. I haven't even gotten to the watch restore yet.
Not a good experience.
EDIT: I completed the watch restore, and it was also a pain. Had to re-enter birthdate, height, weight, workout goals, etc. Also had to re-enter ccv codes for Apple Pay (again). My custom complications, especially for Carrot Weather are gone.
I planned for 30 minutes to do this (while multi-tasking at work). It's been 2 hours now.
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At least they finally got rid of the duplicate, differently named entries for each individual watch. 🤷♂️
I did full iPhone and watch unpair, reset, and restore from the backup last night, as prescribed in the doc. It didn't fix the history - all GPS data is still missing. I'll see if it records new exercise data tonight...
Yeah, I really don't like that they 86d the middle tab/section. And it's annoying that you can't collapse workouts by month anymore, I like being able to compare stats month-to-month.
Resetting used to be no big deal, but with all the token-based app logins and 2FA apps, it's become a much bigger pain in the ass.
So I just followed the Apple 'fix' line by line and the problem is NOT solved for me. In fact, not only is all the GPS route information still missing from historical activity (going back to 2015) but some heart rate data is also missing now (it wasn't before).
I've got a feeling that it won't be coming back either. ☹️
I've got a feeling that it won't be coming back either. ☹️
"Just" as in just now? I'd give it some time, my GPS info and overall Fitness data didn't fully restore for 12 hours or so. Sounds like it's been a mixed bag whether that's the case for everyone based on other comments in here, though.
Ahh... it's been 2/3 hours. Good to know that it might take longer. Thanks so much for the tip.
did it work? I tried just my watch this morning. no luck. really not wanting to do my phone I have so much DUO / 2FA / work stuff on this phone. it is going to take a lot of time to get back.