Missing Fields on iCloud Sync from Mac to iOS

[Bert Leithold]

Similar, but perhaps different to the problem reported in https://www.tapforms.com/forums/topic/forms-not-syncing-across-devices/ I have fields in my iOS forms that are no longer syncing from TapForms5 Mac to iOS.

Running TapForms5 Mac 5.2.2 on High Sierra. Running TapForms5 5.2.1 on iOS 11.0.3 on both iPhone 7 and iPad Pro (both devices have identical issues).

My document has 4 forms. Each form has developed a similar issue. All forms show the correct, same number of records across all 3 devices. An example: On my Mac, one form has 10 fields (see screenshot). On iOS, the form only displays 5 of those fields (see 2 images attached). There is no pattern to the field types with this issue: text, number, date, photo, etc. are all involved with the problem.

I am using iCloud for sync. It has worked well until perhaps the last Tapforms5 update. IDK for sure if there is a correlation with the last update, but I didn’t have this problem a few weeks ago. I have verified all 3 devices are using the same iCloud document value.

I have tried disabling iCloud on iPad and iPhone; deleting the document, and redownloading it on both with no difference in the iOS forms having less fields. Of interest (or perhaps it’s a feature) is while iCloud is disabled on iOS, when I force quit TapForms5 on iOS, and reopen the app, the iCloud document appears in the list showing it is available for download — I simply clicked it and the download began without my needing to enable iCloud in the iOS app.

I’m stumped. Thanks for your help. Bert

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[Brendan]

If you make a small change to the fields that aren’t syncing, such as renaming them slightly, then they’ll sync over again and appear on your iOS version.

What you’re seeing is the placeholder document re-appear. That is a feature actually. When you launch Tap Forms, it looks in iCloud to see if there are any documents that aren’t yet on the device. If it finds any, it downloads the placeholder document for them. When you open it up, it’s already configured for syncing and it begins to download the data from iCloud.

[Bert Leithold]

Thanks Brendan. That worked changing field names on the Mac, then forcing a sync on each of my iOS devices. (It was odd, as only something like 22 records were sync’d, but all the data from all the missing fields — hundreds of records — showed up making that tweak to field names. Whatever. I’m working again! Thx!)

[rockies]

I am having troubles with fields missing on both my MacOs and iOS devices. Which field is missing appears to happen randomly.

On my MacOS device, the field is not visible on “Default Layout” view, but it is visible on “Form” view. When I try to add the missing field back on “Default Layout” view, the field is not an option. As time passes, the missing field reappears, but then another field is missing.

On my iOS device, a different field will be missing than on my MacOS device. I do not know how to find “Form” view on my iOS device to see if the data for the missing field is visible on another view. I also see four “dummy cell” fields on my form when using iOS.

[Brendan]

Do you see any of your missing fields on the new “Recover deleted items…” function on the Mac version?

[rockies]

There are some other items in the recently deleted items, but no missing fields as I described.

[rockies]

Not sure what is happening now with MacOs version. In addition to randomly missing fields, I am missing records on MacOS, but not on iOS. It appears TapForms is unstable for maintaining my records at this time. I am concerned about losing my data. Any suggestions about what I am doing wrong or how to prevent further information loss? Thank you for your guidance.

P.S. My missing records and fields are not in “recently deleted” under the file menu when I check.

P.P.S. I just noticed that “back-up on quit” has not been working for the past two months.

[rockies]

I am not sure why my posts are not being answered, but I have another update.

The user name field has returned to my form in “default layout” view, but the website URL has now disappeared. It seems as if I can not get all of the fields to appear in “default view” and remain stable.

I have been using TapForms 5 since it was released. These inconsistencies are not typical of my past use of TapForms on MacOS. Usually, TapForms just works without any glitches.

Thank you for everyone’s efforts with TapForms.

[Brendan]

Hi Rockies,

Sorry about missing your comment from before. It slipped through the cracks.

I would suggest perhaps if everything is ok on the iPhone version, just replace the copy of the document on the Mac version with the version of the document on your iPhone. There seems to be some difference in your documents that may be causing this.

I would like to take a look at them to see if I can figure out the root cause. Could you make a backup on the Mac and a separate backup on the iOS version and send them to me please? Send to support@tapforms.com

Are you using the latest updates now? Tap Forms 5.2.3 for Mac and 5.2.2 for iOS? I did make some changes to the collision handling code in the most recent updates that may affect this issue.

Thanks,

Brendan

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