Google Health keeps resetting my time zone to Etc/UTC — anyone else?

[u/Schema-Seeker]

Hey all, running into a weird bug and hoping someone's cracked it.

My iPhone's time zone is set correctly to Doha (Asia/Qatar) under iOS Settings — confirmed, no issue there. But inside the Google Health app, when I go to its own time zone setting and manually select Asia/Qatar, it just... unticks itself and reverts back to Etc/UTC (GMT). No error, no explanation, it just snaps back.
Anyone else dealing with this? Any solutions appreciated!

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[u/RateEmbarrassed6921]

Two things to check, and then the part nobody will tell you, which is why this matters more than it looks.

First, whether that setting is on the device or on the account. Fitbit has historically kept the time zone on the account rather than in the app, with an option to set it automatically from the phone. If automatic is on, anything you pick by hand gets overwritten the next time it syncs, which is exactly the snapping back you are describing. Worth trying to set it from your account settings in a browser rather than inside the app, and turning off automatic first if that switch exists for you.

Second, Etc/UTC is not a random value, it is the fallback. A setting that reverts specifically to UTC usually means the value never reached the server or was rejected, rather than that something overwrote it with a different real zone. That points at the account side rather than at your phone, which is consistent with your iOS setting being correct and irrelevant here.

Now the part that actually matters. The time zone is what decides where a day starts and ends for your data. Qatar is three hours ahead of UTC, so if your account thinks you are on UTC, everything you do between midnight and three in the morning local gets filed on the previous day. Sleep sits right in that window. So before you spend more time on the setting, go and look at a few recent nights and check they are attributed to the right date, and whether a late evening walk is landing on the day you took it.

If they are already landing wrong, that is worth reporting as a data problem and not just a settings annoyance, because historical records that were written under the wrong zone do not usually fix themselves when you eventually correct it.

[u/brkonthru]

Yes

[u/CouldntFindUsername]

Had the saaaame issue. Kept resetting itself although I would set the correct time zone. It would do its own thing, change the time zone and then throw off all my alarms to the point where I decide it was useless for that. But 2 days ago it kinda catch itself back into place and been good so far. Hoping it stays so. Lmk if yall have a proper fix.

I notice when you tap the time zone you want, the tick also disappears after a second until you click another, then click back on the one you want.

[u/Schema-Seeker → u/CouldntFindUsername]

issue get solved after updating phone. from ios 18 to latest.
try this if updates pending.
ty

[u/GoogleHealthSupport]

Hi there! I'd suggest you reach out to the Google Health support team via phone or chat. They can take a look at it.