Sync Issue

[Brian Cleary]

Have installed TapForms 5 and had a really tough time getting sync to work. Brendan helped me through it – I had too many and too large attachments for it to sync. I got rid of every attachment, photo, etc. and it has been working perfectly until sometime yesterday (I discovered today that a fair amount of information I had entered on my mac did not sync to my phone or iPad). I have gone through all the steps – signed out and back in to clouding, deleted and then reinstalled, etc. with no luck. Cannot get these to sync.
1. When I try to send the record my mac will recognize my iPad but not my iPhone (both are on my desk next to the mac).
2. I recently installed the update on my iPad to 10.3.1 – not sure if that could be a source of the problem. All my software is up to date on all three devices.

Any insight would be appreciated.

[Brendan]

Hi Brian,

Try this for an experiment… Try making a small change to one of your forms on your Mac. A good test would be to change the form’s icon. See if that change makes it over to your other device.

If that worked,

Try adding a new dummy field to your form on your Mac. Then use the Advanced Find & Replace function to put a value in it for each record. That’ll cause the modification date of every record in that form to be updated. Now see if that syncs to your other devices.

Also verify that you have the same document on each device by checking the Cloud sync settings screen to make sure the “db-….” value is identical on each device.

[Brian Cleary]

Brendan:

Hate to keep pestering the forum but continue to run into sync problems and it’s getting to the point where this won’t be usable for me – I am going to explore some other options though I don’t know that any exist. Trying to sync three devices, Mac, iPad and iPhone. Have reinstalled and reset sync a number of times. Each time I have gotten it to work and each time, after days or so of use, I have discovered missing info that I had entered into a device – only to have it not be present on the other two. When I travel and use my iPad and get home to my Mac and realize that info is missing, there is no way I can know what info did and what info did not sync – it’s no longer a usable system. I am set up on automatic sync. Is there a way to “force sink” to see if that will get all three devices updated? I have spent more time trying to get the new version to work since I installed it than I have actually working.

[daffy]

I’m having this problem also. I have had a number of failed syncs (where some info is missing from one or other of the devices) but they have been solved by making small tweaks like adding a test record, but I’ve now got stuck because my Mac won’t upload sync at all.

After reading the info above, I think it might be to do with me adding a few PDFs to the database, so I’m going to try and remove them to see if it helps.
So, if this is the case, what is the max. file size the sync can handle? I really like having my PDFs available for the extra info they contain. Is there a way to link to the location of a file rather than add the whole file? I’m not sure how this would work on my iPad and iPhone though.

As for the little syncing issues, will it always be like this? It’s quite a regular issue at the minute. Is there anything I can do to help prevent it? For example, is there a standard practice for how often you should sync and which way to do it first? Do I ‘sync now’ on the device I’ve made changes on and then sync on the other devices, or should I wait to let it happen automatically?

I know this is lots of question, but I’d really like to get this to work better for me.

Cheers :)

EDITED TO ADD:

Just deleted most of the PDFs and it didn’t work. So I removed them all and it synced straight away. Just need a way to try and stop the little missing bits of info now. It’s getting so that I have to manually compare my database with Mac, Phone and tablet side by side to check the numbers in each form. :(

[Brendan]

Which sync service are you using?

If it’s iCloud, then you don’t need to do anything. If it’s Cloudant, then there’s an auto-sync option there you can enable or disable which would mean you would have to initiate a sync at some point yourself.

But in general, Tap Forms uploads its data shortly after you make a change on the device. After it uploads, it checks to see if there’s anything to download. If so, then it downloads

If you want to do a brute force restart of the entire sync process, then I would recommend disabling iCloud sync on each device. Then delete that document on all but one device. Then use the Send Document function to send it back over to your other devices.

Hopefully that’ll solve the problem for you.

As for the PDF files, if they’re big, it could take a while to upload and download them.

On the Mac side there is a + button with an arrow next to it beneath the File Attachment field which lets you attach an alias to a file rather than the original. But they obviously don’t get synced across to iOS because it’s just an alias and the original file would love only on your Mac.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Tom Bradley]

I’ve pretty much having this same issue as well, I started a topic on it but maybe they should be merged.

[daffy]

Hi Brendon,
I’m using iCloud so I have now stopped forcing the sync and just letting it do its thing. I can’t get a reliable sync though. I have added some records on my phone, but I can’t get my Mac or iPad to sync with the new records.
I have tried making small changes but it hasn’t worked. If I make a small change on my iPhone to one of the new records, it seems to sync onto the Mac and iPad, but only that one record. I am waiting for several more (about 20) I don’t want to have to make a small change on every single record because that’s not really a sync.
I will try turning off syncing and then switching it on again, but it’s very frustrating that this happens so often. Even if the sync works (which is rare) I am still having to double check all my devices together in case it hasn’t worked. That is a lot of extra work to do each time I make an edit.
Do you think this is a user end problem or is it something you are looking at improving?
Thanks,
Nicky

EDITED AFTER DISABLING AND REENABLING ICLOUD SYNC

I thought it had worked. My database on my Mac had 45 records in it and the one on my phone has 61. I turned off sync on the Mac, ensured the phone had uploaded it’s data by adding a test record. Then I turned the iCloud sync back on on the Mac and it took several minute of syncing where it said it was receiving over 2000 bits of info. Once it had finished syncing I thought the form would have 61 records in it but it still has 45. What was it syncing? What info did it think it was receiving? It certainly looked like something was happening, but the records are not there.
I have also tried shutting down the apps but it doesn’t make any difference.

Please could you offer some assistance as I’m spending way too much time just trying to get this to work. :(

[Brendan]

I’m always working on improving things. I’ve been making some changes to iCloud sync over the past couple of days actually. There’s a lot going on there.

One thing you can try is to just copy the document that has all of the data over to the devices that don’t have all of the data and then start from there.

You could also delete from iCloud and then restore the same document on each device, then re-enable iCloud.

sorry for the troubles.

[daffy]

Thanks Brendan :)

I kept the data on my phone because it was the one with the most data on it. I deleted the forms from my iPad Pro, MacBook and iPad Air. I then sent the form from my iPhone to the other three devices. At first it looked successful because each device had the correct number of records in each form, but when I opened one of the records on my MacBook I discovered some data was missing in one of the fields. It’s odd though because the data was visible in the list of records (see big green arrow on left, but it does not show in the main panel of that record (see big green arrow on right).
How is that even possible?

Attachments:

You must be logged in to view attached files.

[Brendan]

That is weird.

Would you be able to email me your document (don’t post to the forum) and I’ll take a look at it?

[daffy]

I have started amending them manually but there are still a few that haven’t been updated (I think) so I will email it to you as it is currently.

One thing I have realised that might have a bearing on the problem is that the field having the issue (pattern name) was a field I changed from ‘text’ to ‘number’ in the field type when I was adding the entries on my phone earlier today. I’m guessing that is part of the problem, but there is data missing from records that were made both before and after I change the field type. Just thought I would mention it in case it has a bearing on the situation.

I’ll see if I can remember how to email you…

[Author]

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