Troubleshooting Guide for the Apple Watch

Keeping both the Runna app (phone and watch apps) and your Apple Watch on the latest software versions ensures you have access to the newest features and bug fixes. If something isn't working as expected, an outdated Runna app or watchOS version is often the first thing to check.

Make sure you have the latest version of Runna installed on both your iPhone and Apple Watch. Apple Watch installs and updates rely on Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, so sometimes the iPhone app updates first and the Watch version is still finishing.

After updating Runna on your iPhone, the latest version should sync automatically to your Apple Watch. You can check this in the Apple Watch app on your iPhone under the My Watch tab to confirm Runna is up to date on your watch too.

Running the latest version of watchOS helps ensure compatibility with the newest features and fixes. Here’s how to update your Apple Watch:

Force-closing apps on your Apple Watch can resolve issues such as freezing or unresponsiveness. Here's how to do it:

Rebooting your Apple Watch can often resolve software-related issues. Here's how to reboot your Apple Watch:

Runna audio cues are only delivered when you're recording via the Runna Apple Watch app. If you're using Apple Workouts or the Apple Fitness Watch App to record, Runna audio cues won't play.

If you're using the Runna Apple Watch app and cues still aren't playing, work through the following:

If you’re unable to access your workout or notice missing or inaccurate data on your Apple Watch despite having connected it with Runna, the most common cause is accidentally revoking Health or Location permissions. This can also prevent Runna from displaying important metrics such as pace and distance during a workout.

Make sure Runna has full access to Health and Location in your iPhone and Apple Watch settings to ensure accurate tracking.

To check Health permissions on your Apple Watch:

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To check Location permissions on your Apple Watch:

Once you’ve double-checked everything, open the Runna app and start a Free Run to make sure everything is working as expected.

If the completed workouts displaying inaccurate data when you've already enabled Health and Location Permissions in your Apple Watch, try calibrating your Apple Watch.

If Health and Location Permissions are all toggled on but you’re still seeing issues with the distance, pace, or GPS your Apple Watch is reporting, calibrating it can help improve accuracy. Calibration also helps your watch learn your fitness level and stride length, which can improve tracking when GPS is limited or unavailable.

Step 1: Reset your calibration data

Step 2: Check your settings

Step 3: Calibrate your Apple Watch

If your distance or GPS route looks distorted/wrong and you've calibrated your Apple Watch, your Apple Watch may be using your iPhone’s GPS instead of its own. To ensure your Apple Watch uses its built-in GPS, turn off Bluetooth on your iPhone before starting your run.

Wrist tattoos, a loose-fitting watch strap, or certain watch cases can also interfere with sensor readings, which may affect pacing data. To improve the accuracy of your record, in the Runna Watch app, go to:

Settings → Advanced Settings → Override Default Pace with GPS Pace.

You should also check that Running Speed is enabled in your Apple Health permissions for Runna.

If you’re seeing the same workout twice in Apple Fitness, don’t worry - this is usually caused by a common setup issue between Runna, Apple Health, Strava or other third-party applications.

Below are the most common reasons and how to fix them.

If you start a workout in more than one app or device, Apple treats them as two separate sessions. For example, recording with Runna on your phone and Apple Workouts on your Watch. Each app creates its own workout file, so Apple Fitness shows two entries.

If both Runna and Strava are connected to Apple Health, the workout may:

This results in a duplicate workout appearing in Apple Fitness. To stop Strava from writing workouts into Apple Health:

This ensure that Runna is the one sending your workout to Apple Fitness and avoids duplicates in Apple Fitness.

If the duplicates are only visible in Apple Fitness, you can manually delete one of them in the Fitness app.

Sometimes Runna receives multiple versions of the same workout (for example, from Apple and Strava). Inside Runna, we merge these into one clean activity. However, Apple Fitness cannot merge duplicate files, so you may still see two separate entries there.

If you're seeing the same workout appear twice in Strava, this usually happens when Apple Watch, Runna, and Strava are all involved. Duplicate activities in Strava happen when two separate connections are both sending the same run to Strava:

The fix is to disable your Apple Watch connection to Strava so only Runna is sending to Strava. To do that, check:

Once only Runna's Strava connection is active, duplicates in Strava will stop.

If you just completed the workout from your Apple Watch and it’s not showing immediately in Runna, this is usually caused by a delay in Apple's sync pipeline. Apple Health can take anywhere from a few minutes to 2+ hours to pass activity data through to connected apps.

If you’re in that 2-hour window:

If your workout appears after any of these steps, then your issue is solved!

Important: If the Apple Watch workout hasn’t appeared after 2 hours even after refreshing and all permissions are correct, please check How to Fix a Run Recorded on Apple Watch not Showing/Syncing in Runna for detailed troubleshooting steps.

If your Apple Watch shuts down mid-run, what you can recover depends on how much saved before the battery died.

Once you've charged and restarted your Apple Watch, open the Runna app on your watch and wait a few minutes — the workout sometimes syncs automatically once the watch reconnects to your iPhone. Check your Activities tab in Runna phone app to see if it appears.

If it doesn’t appear in Runna automatically, you should follow with Step 2.

If it hasn't appeared in Runna, check whether the workout is visible in Apple Fitness or Apple Health

If the workout couldn't be recovered at all, you can log the full run manually and link it to your plan:

This will mark the session as completed in your plan.

If your watch died mid-run but saved up to that point, you have two options:

To add a manual activity for the missing portion and link it to a planned run:

This happens when automatic step progression is disabled, allowing you to control exactly when each lap ends. This is great when running to the track or when your GPS is unreliable. To turn automatic lap progression back on:

Your workout should now progress automatically between steps.

This is usually caused by Apple Watch data-sharing permissions. To fix it, check the following on your Apple Watch:

This is usually caused by Apple devices experiences some permission-related issues. To fix it, try uninstalling Runna app and reinstall it from the App Store. Then, double check that all Health and Location Permissions are enabled on both Iphone and Apple Watch.

iPhone Permissions

Location:

Health :

Apple Watch Permissions
Health:

Location:

If your workout from the Apple Watch didn’t link to a planned session, you can link it manually:

Apple Watch Activity Rings (Move, Exercise, and Stand) are controlled entirely by Apple — third-party apps like Runna can't directly update or modify them. If your rings aren't updating or there is a discrepancy between your Runna workout tracked with the Runna Apple Watch App, here is how you can fix it:

When you log a run using Apple’s native Workouts app, Apple awards achievements like 'fastest 5K' or 'longest run' with medals. However, when you start a run via the Runna Apple Watch App, Apple doesn’t assign medals because it’s not tracked through their native system.

Unfortunately, this is a limitation on Apple’s side; third-party apps like Runna currently don’t have access to their achievement system. It’s definitely something we’d love to see opened up in the future, and we’re hopeful that Apple will make this possible down the line.

If you’re still having issues, please reach out via our in-app support channel and we’ll investigate further!