FAQ: Not all parts of multisport activites showing in Garmin Connect
Posted: Mon Nov 18, 2024 4:42 pm
There are two known possibilities why you might have problems importing GOTOES multisport files into Garmin Connect. The most common situation is possibility 1. The second most common is possibility 2. I will explain the cause and give solutions for both.
Possibility 1:
Garmin devices allow you to record activities such as duathlons and triathlons. These activities allow you to generate one single FIT File that is called a multisport activity, and it has multiple activities embedded. For example, you can record the following:
Swim -> Transition -> Bike -> Transition -> Run
Garmin will display your activity like this:
I recently had a user who needed assistance repairing a corrupted Triathlon FIT file. GOTOES was adapted to repair the file and succeeded... however no matter what we did, the file displayed improperly in Garmin Connect. We could only see the Swim... or sometimes we could only see the Swim and the transition:
After pulling my hair out for hours, I finally discovered that there is a bug in Garmin Connect. When more than one multisport file is uploaded to Garmin Connect during the same period of time, Garmin Connect does NOT DISPLAY THE MULTISPORT ACTIVITY CORRECTLY.
This situation could easily arise with GOTOES. Let's say your original file got uploaded to Garmin Connect, but then you needed to repair it and you uploaded a second, repaired-by-GOTOES file to Garmin Connect. It may APPEAR that GOTOES did not produce the file correctly (though this file would work fine in Strava or Training Peaks)... but the reality is that you need to DELETE THE ORIGINAL FILE(s) UPLOADED TO GARMIN CONNECT. After you delete stuff that happened during the same time frame from Garmin Connect, the GOTOES repaired file will appear correctly.
Of course, before you delete anything from Garmin Connect, you should export the original and back it up... just in case you want to revert to the original.
Possibility 2:
Another possible cause for issues uploading GOTOES multisport files to Garmin Connect is having bad session data. When you do a triathlon, there should be a total of 5 sessions: Swim, Transition, Bike, Transition, Run. A user sent me a corrupted file, and even after running it through GOTOES with the default settings, I had to manually repair the session. First, I clicked on "added" (see screenshot below):
Next, I identified a couple of problematic rows:
Notice the problematic rows. The start time in the 3rd row is "631065600" but we need to set that so it matches the total_elapsed_time and the total_timer_time. Also, there is a 6th row that we need to delete by clicking on the trash can icon.
Also, if I scroll to the right, I see that the sport code is wrong; Sport "2" was listed twice, so I needed to move it up before I did the deletion. Note that sport "5" is "Swimming", "3" is "Transition", "2" is "Biking", and "1" is "Running"
After editing these fields and deleting the extra 6th session, I was able to upload to Garmin Connect and get a perfectly repaired triathlon file!
Hope this helps!!
Possibility 1:
Garmin devices allow you to record activities such as duathlons and triathlons. These activities allow you to generate one single FIT File that is called a multisport activity, and it has multiple activities embedded. For example, you can record the following:
Swim -> Transition -> Bike -> Transition -> Run
Garmin will display your activity like this:
- Viewing Multisport Activities such as Triathlons in Garmin Connect.
I recently had a user who needed assistance repairing a corrupted Triathlon FIT file. GOTOES was adapted to repair the file and succeeded... however no matter what we did, the file displayed improperly in Garmin Connect. We could only see the Swim... or sometimes we could only see the Swim and the transition:
- A bug in Garmin Connect where you can only see the first part of a multi-sport activity.
After pulling my hair out for hours, I finally discovered that there is a bug in Garmin Connect. When more than one multisport file is uploaded to Garmin Connect during the same period of time, Garmin Connect does NOT DISPLAY THE MULTISPORT ACTIVITY CORRECTLY.
This situation could easily arise with GOTOES. Let's say your original file got uploaded to Garmin Connect, but then you needed to repair it and you uploaded a second, repaired-by-GOTOES file to Garmin Connect. It may APPEAR that GOTOES did not produce the file correctly (though this file would work fine in Strava or Training Peaks)... but the reality is that you need to DELETE THE ORIGINAL FILE(s) UPLOADED TO GARMIN CONNECT. After you delete stuff that happened during the same time frame from Garmin Connect, the GOTOES repaired file will appear correctly.
Of course, before you delete anything from Garmin Connect, you should export the original and back it up... just in case you want to revert to the original.
Possibility 2:
Another possible cause for issues uploading GOTOES multisport files to Garmin Connect is having bad session data. When you do a triathlon, there should be a total of 5 sessions: Swim, Transition, Bike, Transition, Run. A user sent me a corrupted file, and even after running it through GOTOES with the default settings, I had to manually repair the session. First, I clicked on "added" (see screenshot below):
- After you have checked the MultiSport checkbox, the text "added" will appear. You can click on that to see a table of the session data that has been added.
- Screenshot 2025-04-29 at 5.58.44 PM.png (30.25 KiB) Viewed 24 times
Next, I identified a couple of problematic rows:
Notice the problematic rows. The start time in the 3rd row is "631065600" but we need to set that so it matches the total_elapsed_time and the total_timer_time. Also, there is a 6th row that we need to delete by clicking on the trash can icon.
- Screenshot 2025-04-29 at 6.04.47 PM.png (16.28 KiB) Viewed 24 times
Also, if I scroll to the right, I see that the sport code is wrong; Sport "2" was listed twice, so I needed to move it up before I did the deletion. Note that sport "5" is "Swimming", "3" is "Transition", "2" is "Biking", and "1" is "Running"
After editing these fields and deleting the extra 6th session, I was able to upload to Garmin Connect and get a perfectly repaired triathlon file!
Hope this helps!!