iCloud sync disabled and can't/won't turn on

[derek]

Hi Brendan

hope you are well.

I think after the last update Mac Version 5.3.7 (Build 1819), my iCloud sync stopped working. It is stuck on “nearby” and will not enable iCloud sync – no matter how long I wait. on iOS I can still turn on/off.

on MacOS settings icloud, I saw that Tap Forms is still there, until I deleted it to try and kick start it -but to no avail.

any ideas why this is happening? and how to fix it?

thanks
derek

[Brendan]

Hi Derek,

It’s stuck on Nearby because you have one or more devices listed there. Remove them first, then you can enable iCloud sync.

Thanks,

Brendan

[derek]

Hi Brendan

I checked and my iphone and MBP were on iCloud sync. My main one won’t change to iCloud, which was always on iCloud sync. Just recently NOT since the last update..

Maybe relevant?: I had my main database encrypted, but the other devices were never asking for a password(is this normal?). I removed the encryption to see if it would change anything, but no change.. iCloud Sync just waits and waits..

thanks
derek

[Brendan]

Hi Derek,

Is it still stuck on Nearby?

Can you see if there’s any devices listed there on your main Mac?

I did make a change recently to always go to the Nearby Sync screen if you have even a single device listed there. So you’ll have to remove that device if you do have one there.

Documents can be encrypted differently on different devices. So if it asks you for a password on one device, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will ask you for a password on a different device. You could even have different passwords for the same document on different devices if you like.

Thanks,

Brendan

[derek]

Hi Brendan

No devices listed and not stuck on nearby. Just won’t engage iCloud.

Ok about encryption.

Thanks
Derek

[multitap]

I’m having the same problem and have been struggling with it for several days. At some point Tap Forms disabled iCloud sync, and I finally noticed. I’ve gone so far as to search for “tapforms” on my Mac to find files related to Tap Forms to see if there was anything I could delete/reset to get iCloud sync to work. I tried deleting CloudKit caches under tapforms directories. (I’ve been using Macs for 30 years.) I have restarted my Mac at least a couple of times.

After finding this thread, I finally understood that I should empty out the Nearby list of devices. But I’ve done that, and restarted Tap Forms, and I still get the iCloud sync symptoms above (spinning gray wheel, iCloud sync never engages).

My iOS devices sync perfectly to each other. I’m only having trouble convincing Mac TapForms to sync. When I click Enable iCloud Sync, it never starts. It gets stuck on the spinning icon. If I leave the Preferences dialog box, and then open it again, the Sync tab will show iCloud Sync but not enabled and not spinning; in other words, it acts as if nothing happened. Clicking Enable iCloud Sync only results in the spinning wheel again.

After several minutes of letting the spinning wheel turn, the folder
/Users/[username]/Library/Containers/com.tapzapp.tapforms-mac/Data
is less than 300KB, if that means anything.

I think it should be clearer that you have to delete all devices in the Nearby list to enable iCloud sync. I would have done that much sooner if it was stated somewhere in the Sync pane. The iCloud pane says “By enabling iCloud sync, the Nearby and Cloudant sync options will be disabled.” To me, that sounded like simply clicking Enable iCloud Sync would prevent the Nearby pane from causing any problems. It isn’t worded like the user has to take any further action, like removing devices from the Nearby list.

In any case, I’ve cleared out the Nearby list and iCloud still won’t start syncing (it was working more than week ago)…what else should I try?

[derek]

Hi Multitap

yup, exact same symptoms here.. I was always iCloud since it became possible again..

[Brendan]

Just as a test, can you try the Duplicate Document function and then open the copy and try enabling sync on that copy to see if it works?

[multitap]

OK, here are some interim results.

I duplicated the one document on my Mac. Observation: While the document list shows Nearby for the original document that won’t enable iCloud sync, the duplicate document initially lists no sync method.

Upon opening the document and enabling iCloud sync, it’s immediately more successful than before. The entire document uploads from my Mac and can be opened on my iPad with apparently all records present. So far that document’s iCloud Sync setting hasn’t disabled itself. That’e encouraging.

But I’m not declaring victory yet because…
…during the time when my Mac wouldn’t sync, I was making changes to the database on my iOS devices, so that copy is more current with new records. I wanted to get those changes on my Mac so that it would be up to date. So I tried it in the reverse direction: I duplicated the up-to-date document on my iPad and enabled iCloud sync for it. Tap Forms on my Mac detects the new document and “downloads” it, and iCloud sync is enabled for it, but on the Mac it’s only 168KB, not the roughly 20MB it should be. No amount of prodding on either device will get the Mac to download the entire 20MB. I thought maybe the document wasn’t finished uploading yet, but after waiting a while and not seeing the file size change I concluded something was still wrong. If I open the 168KB version that synced to the Mac, it’s an empty document, no records, not even the pick lists. And this is after modifying records on the iOS side.

So I’m still puzzled. But thank you for the suggestion and hopefully there will be another idea.

[derek]

Hi Brendan

I tried and it worked partially only. iCloud switched on but very little has synced. 4.3MB vs old file 80.5MB.. I retried to turn iCloud on for the old document -but still stuck on trying to turn on iCloud.

[derek]

Hi Brendan

any new ideas as to what’s happening here?

thanks
derek

[Brendan]

After you duplicated the document an opened it and re-enabled iCloud sync, I would suggest disabling iCloud sync right away. The reason for this is the database will still have old metadata in it for the records synced to the old document ID. By disabling iCloud sync right away, Tap Forms will loop through all the records, removing any iCloud metadata which was stored. It could take a little while for the metadata to be fully deleted. The spinner will appear while it’s busy deleting the metadata from the database. Once it’s done, delete from iCloud and then re-enable iCloud. Hopefully that’ll do it for you.

[multitap]

I’m testing your latest solution. So far so good, but I want to see if it holds up over time. Initial results are encouraging…

[derek]

Hi Brendan

worked like a charm!
thanks!

[Brendan]

Excellent!

[multitap]

Yeah, I think it looks good…I’m going to transition to the duplicated version.

Thank you Brendan, for your support on this problem, and also for your work on Tap Forms itself. Seems like every day I find one more good use for Tap Forms. A great workhorse of an application!

[Author]

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