Apps WorkOutDoors: New workout features

[NME42]

Today I had a strange behavior on my run. As a prefix: it was raining.

Was doing an interval schedule (same as yesterday to check pace alert setting, 10.2km total) and took a look at around 6,8km on the watch. Map was displayed on fullscreen. As my run was with the interval screen, this was strange. Was not able to scroll back to the original data screen and tapping did not help minimize the screen. So I pressed the crown and tried to go back to WOD via the small icon in the middle on top (where notifications are typically are being displayed). As it was wet, I was not able to do so. So I started WOD from the app launcher and was surprised to be back at the start screen where I was starting a new run obviously.

Coming back home and doing a sync, I had the following result:

Only one run in WOD history with 3,2km.
Three activities in Apple Health:
1) One run with 5,8km (?), no GPS data
2) One cycling activity with 100m (?!?!?), no GPS data
3) One run with 3,2km with GPS data

Very strange. One km is missing.

What did I do wrong?

 

[cfc]

Today I had a strange behavior on my run. As a prefix: it was raining.

Was doing an interval schedule (same as yesterday to check pace alert setting, 10.2km total) and took a look at around 6,8km on the watch. Map was displayed on fullscreen. As my run was with the interval screen, this was strange. Was not able to scroll back to the original data screen and tapping did not help minimize the screen. So I pressed the crown and tried to go back to WOD via the small icon in the middle on top (where notifications are typically are being displayed). As it was wet, I was not able to do so. So I started WOD from the app launcher and was surprised to be back at the start screen where I was starting a new run obviously.

Coming back home and doing a sync, I had the following result:

Only one run in WOD history with 3,2km.
Three activities in Apple Health:
1) One run with 5,8km (?), no GPS data
2) One cycling activity with 100m (?!?!?), no GPS data
3) One run with 3,2km with GPS data

Very strange. One km is missing.

What did I do wrong?

It sounds like the app somehow seized up at about 5.8km, and finally crashed when you used it at 6.8km. You then started another workout, which worked correctly. I have no idea where the 100m cycling activity came from though. Is is immediately after the 5.8km activity or immediately before the 3.2km activity?

Sorry about that. Crashes are very rare but they can happen. I get crash reports from Apple and none are currently in the WorkOutDoors code. When they do happen then they are always in watchOS system code.

 

[NME42]

Sorry, deleted the activities afterwards as I replaced them with yesterday’s run.

 

[aiatfe]

Today I had a strange behavior on my run. As a prefix: it was raining.

Was doing an interval schedule (same as yesterday to check pace alert setting, 10.2km total) and took a look at around 6,8km on the watch. Map was displayed on fullscreen. As my run was with the interval screen, this was strange. Was not able to scroll back to the original data screen and tapping did not help minimize the screen. So I pressed the crown and tried to go back to WOD via the small icon in the middle on top (where notifications are typically are being displayed). As it was wet, I was not able to do so. So I started WOD from the app launcher and was surprised to be back at the start screen where I was starting a new run obviously.

Coming back home and doing a sync, I had the following result:

Only one run in WOD history with 3,2km.
Three activities in Apple Health:
1) One run with 5,8km (?), no GPS data
2) One cycling activity with 100m (?!?!?), no GPS data
3) One run with 3,2km with GPS data

Very strange. One km is missing.

What did I do wrong?

Did you update to WatchOS 6.1.1? I had a very similar issue today, I went on a ~10K run (with no phone) and WorkOutDoors just ended up back on the start screen after 2.35, 2.10, 2.27 and 2.11K. I had to tap running again and it would start back up from 0. Afterwards, all the activities appeared in Apple Health but not in the history of WOD.
I've been using the app for a couple of months with zero issues so I'm presuming it is a WatchOS 6.1.1 issue.

 

[NME42]

Did you update to WatchOS 6.1.1? I had a very similar issue today, I went on a ~10K run (with no phone) and WorkOutDoors just ended up back on the start screen after 2.35, 2.10, 2.27 and 2.11K. I had to tap running again and it would start back up from 0. Afterwards, all the activities appeared in Apple Health but not in the history of WOD.
I've been using the app for a couple of months with zero issues so I'm presuming it is a WatchOS 6.1.1 issue.

Yes, updated yesterday evening to 6.1.1. As I do not believe in coincidences, this seems a good path to follow for bug hunting.

 

[cfc]

Yes, updated yesterday evening to 6.1.1. As I do not believe in coincidences, this seems a good path to follow for bug hunting.

That doesn't sound good. And I thought that Apple couldn't make watchOS 6 any less reliable! Please keep an eye on it to see if it continues to happen.

Apple send through crash reports so I will see if they shed any light on it. Or it could be that 6.1.1 does some sort of indexing after the new installation, which is using up watch resources and not leaving enough for WOD, so watchOS kills the app off. If that is the case then it may get better after a day or so, but any such indexing should be low priority and certainly not kill off an app running a workout.

 

[NME42]

Please keep an eye on it to see if it continues to happen.

Hmm, thought about this and to be honest, I will do my next runs with the internal app or iSmoothrun (to do some tests with Stryd) until the issue is identified and hopefully fixed. Do not want to lose further workouts in the current training phase.

 

[rbart]

Last year, I had an issue when running under the rain: the water and my clothes have pressed randomly on the watch screen like a finger and it has produced strange things.
Now, when it's raining, I use water lock to avoid such problems

 

[NME42]

Last year, I had an issue when running under the rain: the water and my clothes have pressed randomly on the watch screen like a finger and it has produced strange things.
Now, when it's raining, I use water lock to avoid such problems

Yes, but it should not exit and restart the app, right?

Also something I remember: when the crash happened, I wanted to look at the watch and typically raise to watch works flawlessly. Tried a few times to end up having to tap the screen. Then the map of WOD was displayed.

Ah, one another thing: 5.8km into my route (where the app crashed) is exactly the spot, where the GPS conditions are worst. No idea if there is a relation.

 

[rbart]

I don't know.
Maybe it's not due to rain, it was just a possibility.
When it occured for me, it was with apple built in app. It has stopped the workout, started a yoga session, end the yoga session, started HIIT ...
The has simulated lot of finger touches on the watch screen, but at the end half of my workout was lost.

But it doesn't look like your situation.
I will try with my next training session tonight with WOD and update the thread.

 

[cfc]

Yes, but it should not exit and restart the app, right?

Also something I remember: when the crash happened, I wanted to look at the watch and typically raise to watch works flawlessly. Tried a few times to end up having to tap the screen. Then the map of WOD was displayed.

Ah, one another thing: 5.8km into my route (where the app crashed) is exactly the spot, where the GPS conditions are worst. No idea if there is a relation.

A wet screen can cause all sorts of phantom screen presses, including those that could end a workout and restart another one. The fact that you had a 100m cycling workout in between your running workouts could well be due to that. I can't think of any other reason why that would happen and it is not something I have ever heard of before. Do you have the cycling button visible on your main menu when the app starts up?

Raise to wake is controlled by watchOS. I guess it could be that the app had seized up and so it didn't wake as a result, but I don't know why it would be woken by a tap. I have never seen the app seize up so I do not know how that would affect waking. It is strange that tap to wake worked and raise to wake didn't. Tapping would be affected by water whereas raising would not.

To be honest I am more confident about the stability today than yesterday. Crashes are very rare so when 2 people were reporting crashes on the day after watchOS 6.1.1 was released then I worried that it was related to that. However no-one else has reporting any crashing since. It sounds like your issues were likely rain related (I can't think of any other reason for a phantom cycling workout) and the repeated crashing for @aiatfe sound like a watchOS issue. Please reboot the watch and see if it happens again. Sometimes watchOS just needs to be restarted.

 

[NME42]

Good to hear that no new crashes were reported.

One question about the phantom screen presses: what would be the interaction to stop a workout without it being saved? Is this possible?

 

[cfc]

One question about the phantom screen presses: what would be the interaction to stop a workout without it being saved? Is this possible?

If the workout was less than one lap or interval then a Discard button is shown on the summary screen when you end. If the workout had more than one lap or interval then this is replaced by a Splits button for analysing HR, Pace, etc splits. In this situation you can press the screen hard and tap "Discard Workout" in the resulting menu.

 

[NME42]

If the workout was less than one lap or interval then a Discard button is shown on the summary screen when you end. If the workout had more than one lap or interval then this is replaced by a Splits button for analysing HR, Pace, etc splits. In this situation you can press the screen hard and tap "Discard Workout" in the resulting menu.

Thanks for the explanation.
The workout had several laps and intervals. Is it really possible that rain (watch was under longsleeve) can trigger a hard press?

 

[cfc]

Thanks for the explanation.
The workout had several laps and intervals. Is it really possible that rain (watch was under longsleeve) can trigger a hard press?

I haven't noticed that myself, but water can play havoc with the touch detection generally. I know that phantom hard presses (and not being able to hard press) can often happen with badly fitting watch cases.

I have also occasionally had strange issues with both gloves and sleeves, such that I now try not to cover the screen with a sleeve and always keep the glove on my watch hand undone to stop it rubbing on the crown.

 

[aiatfe]

I restarted the watch, didn't use Podcasts nor the Interval Schedule feature today. Unfortunately, I had the same experience. After 2.16K it ended up back on the start screen.
It seems very unlikely to be phantom button presses in my case.

I did a bit of digging and do have a JetSamEvent for the exact time the app crashed so possibly a memory leak of some sort.

 

[cfc]

I restarted the watch, didn't use Podcasts nor the Interval Schedule feature today. Unfortunately, I had the same experience. After 2.16K it ended up back on the start screen.
It seems very unlikely to be phantom button presses in my case.

I did a bit of digging and do have a JetSamEvent for the exact time the app crashed so possibly a memory leak of some sort.

That is odd. With strange errors that no-one else is getting it is best to uninstall the watch app (not the iPhone app); reboot both the iPhone and the watch; and then reinstall the iPhone app.

If a reboot doesn't fix it then hopefully a reinstall will.

 

[aiatfe]

Thanks, I've reinstalled and will try again in the morning.

 

[aiatfe]

Unfortunately, I had same result today. I didn't change any of the default settings, didn't press any buttons while running and it got to 2.99K so it lasted a little longer. But ended up with the same crash and JetSamEvent in the logs.

I'm going to try running the app at my desk both connected to my phone and not to see if that changes anything now. Then I'll try using the Stryd app tomorrow and see if I get a similar issue.

 

[cfc]

Unfortunately, I had same result today. I didn't change any of the default settings, didn't press any buttons while running and it got to 2.99K so it lasted a little longer. But ended up with the same crash and JetSamEvent in the logs.

I'm going to try running the app at my desk both connected to my phone and not to see if that changes anything now. Then I'll try using the Stryd app tomorrow and see if I get a similar issue.

That is very strange. To be honest I am glad that it is pretty consistent. Random errors are the hardest to diagnose but yours crashes every time.

I am also glad that it happens with the default settings because the app is so configurable that I can't check every combination of settings (alerts, screens, schedules, routes etc). However the default settings will have been repeatedly tested by thousands of people.

No-one else is reporting anything like this so it must be something specific to you. Are you in the same geographical area every time it crashes? If so then please email me where that is (info@workoutdoors.net) and I will see if I can reproduce it.

Apple send me about 2 crash logs a day (which is not bad for tens of thousands of users) and none are in the WorkOutDoors code. They are always in the watchOS code and rarely in the same place, which makes me suspect that, in those rare instances, the app is being killed off by watchOS for whatever reason (possibly memory usage by the app or by other apps). Do you run any other apps on the watch at the same time?

 

[aiatfe]

Yup, I'll email you later with more details and stop cluttering up this thread.

Just want to say I love the app and it was what convinced me to give up my Fenix and move to AW. There are still some features I'd love to see, I'll wait until it's back working for me first though

 

[NME42]

No-one else is reporting anything like this so it must be something specific to you.

Ahem ;-). Still not 100% convinced that I had a phantom press effect caused by rain.

As stated, I do not want to lose additional runs so I am currently running with other apps. Would be glad to help sort out the issue if it is possible to run with two parallel apps so I can be sure that at least one of them records my run entirely. Does this work?

 

[cfc]

Ahem ;-). Still not 100% convinced that I had a phantom press effect caused by rain.

As stated, I do not want to lose additional runs so I am currently running with other apps. Would be glad to help sort out the issue if it is possible to run with two parallel apps so I can be sure that at least one of them records my run entirely. Does this work?

Sorry that you aren't convinced. No-one else is reporting the repeated crashing that @aiatfe is seeing. Unfortunately anyone can have a one off crash like you experienced. I am sorry that it happened but watchOS is not particularly reliable yet, and I would never claim that the app is perfect.

I don't know for sure if your problems were caused by the rain or not. All I can say is that I have never heard of randomly created workouts before, and that a wet screen and/or fingers can result in random inputs, so it seems a reasonable possibility. If it crashes again for you as well then I agree that there would be a good chance that you are seeing the same issue as @aiatfe, but hopefully that isn't the case.

Unfortunately watchOS does not allow two apps to run workouts at the same time. I think the first workout session gets killed off when you start the second, which can result in strange effects (and also makes the first app more likely to be killed off by watchOS if it needs the resources).

 

[NME42]

Ok, too bad. I have no backup device that I can take with me.
Guess the best approach is to see if there are more crashes in the next days or not. Not sure how many users have upgraded to watchOS 6.1.1 already. Might take some time to sort this factor out.

 

[cfc]

Ok, too bad. I have no backup device that I can take with me.
Guess the best approach is to see if there are more crashes in the next days or not. Not sure how many users have upgraded to watchOS 6.1.1 already. Might take some time to sort this factor out.

I think watchOS 6.1.1 is a red herring. I was suspicious because you both had problems the day after it was released, but no-one else has reported such issues since, so I think it was just a coincidence.