Fitbit health metrics are disappearing after Google Health 5.12

Fitbit users are reporting that several daily health metrics have stopped appearing after updating to Google Health 5.12. HRV, blood oxygen, resting heart rate, breathing rate and skin temperature are among the missing readings.

Reports have been building over the past few days. And the problem does not appear limited to one Fitbit either, with complaints involving Charge 6, Sense 2, the newer Fitbit Edge and Fitbit Air.

Google Health 5.12 looks like the common link

The timing is fairly consistent. Complaints started appearing after version 5.12 rolled out a few days ago, while devices and accounts that had been working normally before the update suddenly stopped showing some overnight metrics.

Now this does not necessarily mean the measurements have been lost. In several cases, the Fitbit continued collecting data and syncing other information, while Google Health simply failed to display the vitals correctly. That makes this look more like an app-side syncing bug.

Google says it is aware of the problem and the issue has been escalated for investigation. There is no confirmed fix yet, and there is currently no indication that affected users need to reset their Fitbit or change any health-tracking settings.

There is at least one temporary fix

Signing out of Google Health and signing back in can force the missing readings to reappear. Reinstalling the app can have a similar effect. So it is worth trying these solutions.

The problem is that the fix does not always last. Some users have seen their vitals return, only for the same metrics to disappear again later.

That makes repeated reinstalls fairly pointless. If the readings return after signing back in, that is useful confirmation that the data itself probably still exists. It does not appear to solve the underlying 5.12 problem.

Another rough edge in Google’s Fitbit transition

The timing is not ideal. Google has spent much of this year consolidating Fitbit data and features inside Google Health, while the original Fitbit app is now being pushed aside for the remaining holdouts.

That shift has brought some genuinely useful additions, but it also means the app has become increasingly important. A device such as Fitbit Air depends heavily on the phone because there is no display on the tracker itself. When health metrics disappear from Google Health, there is nowhere else for the owner to easily view them.

The good news is that this currently looks more like a software presentation problem than lost health data. That should make it easier to fix, although there is no confirmed timetable yet for a corrected version of Google Health.