Garmin website down

bee · July 30, 2020, 5:23am

Yeah, it looks like the Garmin Connect stuff is back in my own dashboard, but there’s definitely still something weird with the API. I don’t have any guesses as to why API service would restore separately from Connect service (I was under the impression that we were getting our data from the same place Connect sends it), but I may have to follow up with them, and I imagine they’re super swamped…

So, my Connect dashboard is back and has data in the blackout period, but when I make a request to their rest API from in that same period it’s just returning blank stares. Possibly there could be an authentication issue? Has anyone tried re-authenticating Beeminder to their Garmin data? They’re not giving an ‘unauthorized’ error, but that’s probably worth a try.

We don’t automatically sync the previous week of data with Garmin, so once the api is actually serving us data again, I’ll have to queue up a special job to fetch everyone’s data back to the 22nd.

dreev · July 30, 2020, 5:35am

Thanks for the update, @bee! (see especially Bee’s edit to her answer for those seeing these via email) To clarify, our new somewhat aspirational standard for autodata is that it always automatically keeps the last 7 days in sync with the autodata source. That’s not the case yet for Garmin but we’re committing to re-syncing your data back to when Garmin’s outage started. As soon as Garmin’s API is fully operational, that is.

grayson · July 30, 2020, 9:21am

Are you getting data for days after that period? I’m not getting anything added to BM since the problem started on July 22.

I just tried, but… Beeminder ignored it? I de-authorized Beeminder at my Garmin Connect account, but when I refreshed my BM goal it didn’t give a peep. I had expected BM to complain that it no longer had access and to prompt me to re-enter. So looks like now my BM goal is not even connected to Garmin, but it still tells me everything’s business as usual.

So the one thing is obviously that I need to get BM reconnected to my Garmin account, but the other thing is that maybe this is some kind of clue to why all the blank stares from the Garmin API…

EDIT: BM just prompted me now. I re-authorized, and still not getting any post-July 22 data from Garmin.

bee · July 30, 2020, 10:14pm

Thanks for being the intrepid tester with that, Grayson! I’ve checked in on the Garmin Developer portal and the info they’ve got up seems a bit contradictory – their latest blog post (from July 27) says “backfil data isn’t available yet, but activity summaries are going out as normal”, which sounds like we should be getting pushes with new data at this point, which does not seem to be the case. But then, in another spot I found a detailed listing of API status that looks like most things are still down:

Anyhow, it’s frustrating that they’re not being more transparent about the state of things over there! Seems they have plenty of employees to put someone on just like, updating the blog regularly to tell us all what they’re working on. I posted on their developer forum asking for an update, and now I think we just wait

bee · July 30, 2020, 10:16pm

Oh, actually, that would be a thing to look at, among the folks who’ve commented in this thread already, what different things are we using Garmin for? Is anyone tracking activities, e.g. run mileage or something like that? And is the status of those goals any different from the “dailies” (i.e. steps) goals? or sleep?

strickvl · July 31, 2020, 12:40pm

I’m tracking activity minutes, and that is syncing to their main server through the app, but doesn’t appear to be piped back down to the beeminder universe via their API. My garmin goal hasn’t had an update since they went down…

bee · August 2, 2020, 12:35am

Ok, I looked a little further and we are indeed getting data sent over for people tracking activities – that includes total mileage, and duration of activities, but doesn’t include the “active time” metric. The active time metric gets info from the same place as we get step counts, so that is still down.

claudine · August 2, 2020, 7:04am

I’m tracking steps from my Vivoactive 3, direct from Garmin, not going through Strava.

My activities have synced to Garmin Connect and Strava now, but my Beeminder goal hasn’t been updated since the 23rd. Should I ping support?

grayson · August 2, 2020, 7:50am

They’re already aware of the issue, so I think you only need to contact them if your Garmin goal derails as a result of the outage. Once Garmin is fully back in order, @bee will take care of getting everyone’s past data back filled, as I understand it.

bee · August 3, 2020, 6:57pm

No new info from Garmin so far this Monday. Just a generic reply saying “thanks for being patient with us!”. Sleep & dailies apis are still down.

And yes, I confirm Grayson’s summary above. Once Garmin’s fully back I’ll make sure that all the back data is filled in. In the meantime there’s naught to do but wait. If you do derail in the interim, please reply to the legit check so we can cancel the charges!

Thanks

bee · August 4, 2020, 9:36pm

update for 08/04: no news :sadface:

Yes, we are still recovering from outage and some services are still down. We apologize for the inconvenience. Our team working 24/7 on brinning all services back.

Thanks,

Garmin Health API Support

narthur · August 4, 2020, 11:00pm

I heard on a podcast that Garmin got hit with a ransomware attack.

adamwolf · August 4, 2020, 11:28pm

They did, and they “acquired” the decryption key!

narthur · August 4, 2020, 11:36pm

Oof, that’s too bad they had to do that.

rosemary7391 · August 5, 2020, 8:06am

Looks like steps are syncing now, at least new entries. I’ve got data for yesterday and today

grayson · August 5, 2020, 8:53am

Woot! Seeing data again here, too (but only starting today, Aug 5).

strickvl · August 5, 2020, 9:53am

Still no activity minutes, though.

bee · August 5, 2020, 4:23pm

The daily summaries and sleep summaries are available now, so now to look into filling in the gap for everyone… Activity minutes are gotten from the same summary as steps so I expect for those to work now as well. I’ll take a look at @strickvl 's goal and see if they’re still MIA. Garmin claimed they would push backfilled data to us once it’s available, so I am not going to immediately jump into scripting that backfill process. I guess I should first go double check if I can tell if they have already backfilled the data and it’s our fault that it’s still missing (I’m not sure how their backfill process works, so I’ll have to research that to find out if it would be handled the same as ordinary data pushes from them).

bee · August 6, 2020, 12:09am

Additional update for 8/5: I double checked and it looks like the backfill data is coming in piecemeal – for example @strickvl this morning when I checked we had gotten two data pushes from Garmin for you, one for the 22nd, and one for the 27th. So far, I’m sitting tight under the assumption that things will continue to trickle in.

grayson · August 6, 2020, 7:38am

Woke up this morning to backfilled data up through the 27th, plus the 29th. Still waiting on the 28th and July 30 through Aug 4. Exciting! I foresee a day of many breathless “what about now?” checks.