Home · Guides · Steps not syncing
Troubleshooting
Steppa steps not syncing? Fix it before you lose the entry.
This is the most common way people lose money on the app. Steppa does not count your steps. It reads Apple Health. If Health has the number and Steppa does not, you still have a chance. If Health is empty, the walk never existed as far as the challenge is concerned.
1. Check Apple Health first
Open Health → Browse → Activity → Steps. Look at today and at the day Steppa is missing. If the steps are there, this is a sync problem. If they are not, the phone or watch did not record them. No amount of refreshing Steppa will invent them.
2. Health permissions
Settings → Health → Data Access & Devices → Steppa → turn Steps on. If you denied the prompt at install, Steppa has been staring at a locked door the whole time.
3. Don’t force-quit the app
Swiping Steppa out of the app switcher is the habit that kills background sync. Leave it. A red battery icon is ugly; a forfeited $70 is uglier. Keep the phone above 30% if you can during a paid week.
4. Turn off Low Power Mode
Steppa’s terms require the device to be powered, charged, and online, and they name Low Power Mode as a sync risk. If the phone is in Low Power Mode during a paid day, treat that as a problem to fix before bed, not as a battery tip.
5. Open Steppa once a day
Foregrounding the app is the most reliable nudge. Do it before bed, not at 11:58. A missing day cannot be recovered after midnight in the time zone recorded when you joined.
6. Fitbit, Garmin, Oura, WHOOP
Steppa says these can count if the device writes step data to Apple Health. Third-party sync is still the least reliable path during a paid week. Treat the wearable as a backup. Keep the iPhone on you or wear an Apple Watch. If your wearable app is not writing to Health, Steppa will never see the walk.
The terms go further than “less reliable.” You waive any dispute based on alternative tracking sources, including Fitbit, Garmin, Oura, WHOOP, manual step counts, pedometer apps, and screenshots from other applications. If it did not land in Apple Health, you have no appeal.
7. Apple Watch is the most reliable setup
Watch on the wrist, Health as the store, Steppa as the reader. That is the stack that fails least often. New phone, iOS update, or signing out of iCloud mid-week are the times people discover their history did not come with them. Check Health after any of those before you assume the day is safe.
8. Treadmills, strollers, and “I was walking”
A phone on a desk next to a treadmill does not count the belt. A watch in a cupholder does not count the belt. A stroller with the phone in a bag may under-count. Treadmill-desk users are, in practice, a high-completion group, because the device is on them for hours. The edge case is the device not being on them.
9. Time zones and travel
Your challenge days run to midnight in the time zone recorded when you joined. Flying west can look like a short day. Flying east can look like you skipped one. If you are travelling during a paid week, screenshot Health each calendar day with the date visible, and do not assume the app will “figure it out.”
What to do if it’s already too late
Email support@playsteppa.com. Send Apple Health screenshots with timestamps, the device you used, and what changed (new phone, update, force-quit, wearable, Low Power Mode). Fitbit or Garmin screenshots are not an appeal. You waived those. You have seven days from the end date to dispute a result; after that they will not consider it. An audit request from them has a 24-hour clock. Miss it and you can forfeit the fee and any winnings.
Follow the steps on this page, then email support@playsteppa.com. I will not pretend I can reverse their decision. If they decline a verified technical failure, The Weekly Split’s goodwill policy may refund our host fee and cover your next entry, once per person per season, capped at 20% of that edition’s host fee. We do not cover missed days, illness, or “I forgot.”
This is a panic page. I am not going to tell you to stake $70 while Health is still blank.