TB 5 for Mac Database Disappeared — Poof!

[John Fineberg]

Hi Brendan,

My database of 3,637 contacts disappeared from my desktop Mac a couple of days ago. I’ve attached several screen shots of what I’m seeing in my attempts to get them back.

One thing I’ve done is copied a backup from my laptop Mac. Perhaps I’m not doing it correctly. I can access that file through File -> Open (or File -> Open Recent). But I can’t get that to simply open automatically and routinely when launching TF.

Another thing I’ve tried is syncing the desktop with my laptop. I know we’ve worked together on this before, but it never seems intuitive to me how to do that. Even though I can see that the two computers — as well as my iPhone — can see each other. (It would be nice if there were an icon to click after entering new info into one device to push it to the other devices.)

I’ve tried going back through Time Machine. But it results in an error message that “TapForms_db.squlite 2″ is damaged and can’t be opened.”

The only good news is that my database is working pretty well on my laptop, so at least I’m not too scared that it’s lost forever.

I’m hoping that you’ll see the error in my attempts and give me step-by-step instructions to fix the problem.

(Just so I don’t forget, once this gets solved, I need your help in syncing. I have 3,636 contacts on my phone — one fewer than on my computer, indicating that the syncing isn’t totally working. And I can see that some recent notes made on my computers have not made it to my phone. But let’s leave that for another day.)

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[Brendan]

Hi John,

I’m sorry for this trouble. If you had a power failure that can cause this problem unfortunately. macOS X seems to write garbage into the opened SQLite file when this happens, thus corrupting the file.

That TapForms_db.sqlite file is from Tap Forms 3.5, not from Tap Forms 5, so that has nothing to do with it.

If you want to restore from Time Machine, use the Show in Finder function on the main Database Documents window to find the .tapforms document file. Then use Time Machine to restore the file.

If it’s working fine on your Mac laptop, you can just send the file from there back to the Mac where it’s not working. Use the Send Document function on the main Database Documents window. It’s the little share button at the bottom of that window. Make sure the document you’re trying to send is not currently opened. Also delete the bad document first before you send it over.

Thanks,

Brendan

[John Fineberg]

Thanks for your quick response, Brandon. Here’s what I’ve tried so far from your suggestions. First, I didn’t have Time Machine hooked up for a few weeks (perhaps more), so whatever I have is not very current. However, thinking that I could just sync it after getting back to a non-corrupted file, I thought I’d try it anyway. But I don’t know where you’re referring to in “Show in Finder.” I’ve attached a screen shot of what I think is the Database Documents window and I see nothing like that there.

As for your second idea, about using Send Document. I trashed what I think was the corrupted document from my desktop. With that done, I can’t reach the “Preferences” (it’s grayed out) to check on the WiFi connection. The only way I can do so is to create another document. But then I have an open document again on the receiving computer. Checking on the laptop side, I can see that there’s no signal currently between the two computers.

I have to leave in a few minutes, so please give me as much detail as you can, so I can try again when I get back.

Thanks,

John

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[Brendan]

The “Show in Finder” button is at the bottom of that screenshot you just posted. Hover over all the buttons at the bottom and you’ll see tooltips for each button. It’s the one with the black circle with the white arrow pointing right.

The share button at the bottom (square button with arrow pointing up) is what you would use on your OTHER computer to send the document back to this Mac. You don’t open the document or create a new one as you’ve done and try to sync. Documents can only sync if they’re exact copies of the same document on each device. You can tell if they’re the same by clicking that (i) button and looking at the “Document ID” parameter. If that value is the same on all of your devices, then you know you’ve got the same document on each. And that’s achieved by sending a document from one device to another.

[John Fineberg]

I’ve tried what I think you’re saying several times now:

On my laptop (which appears to be working fine), I went to the Database Documents window and clicked on the Show in Finder icon. That brought me to a Documents folder. Then, in the Documents folder window, I clicked on the Share button, which gave me a number of options (Mail, AirDrop, Messages, Notes and More). I clicked on AirDrop. Clicking on AirDrop brings up a smaller window, where I see my desktop and iPhone listed. Clicking on the icons for my desktop and my phone, after a short time, they both say Sent. I can see on my phone that “John Fineberg is sharing ‘JSF Tap Forms.tapforms.'” (It’s been saying that for quite some time now, though, so I don’t know if it’s really working or stalled out. Time will tell, but I’m pretty sure it’s stalled out.) But when I look at my desktop, and I see no change.

Going back to the Database Documents window on my laptop, I tried clicking on that Send documents to another device icon (as I don’t think you specified which one you meant), and that brings up a window that says, “Select a nearby device to send the selected database document to.” But then it offers up no devices at all. Neither my desktop nor my phone show up in that window.

As for the desktop computer (the one where the database disappeared), I’ve tried two different things: 1) I deleted the database in the Database Documents window. In the first case, nothing at all happened on the desktop when I sent the database from the laptop through AirDrop (no new database was created). 2) I added a new database to the desktop and named it the same as the original database (which was used before for both computers and my iPhone). The database I created just stayed there, and remained empty. My guess is that I need to create an identical database, not just create a new database with the identical name. Unfortunately, I don’t know how to do that.

I need more precise steps from you, Brandon. Please tell me exactly what I need to do, on the desktop and the laptop, and in exactly the order required.

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[Brendan]

Hi John,

Lets put it this way, how would you send a file from your laptop to your Mac? Forget about Tap Forms. What if it was Word or Excel or Keynote? You could just do the same thing to send a .tapforms document from your laptop to your other Mac. It’s nothing different.

But to get the Send Document function to work (from within Tap Forms), you have to make sure that Tap Forms is running on your other devices and those devices are on the same WiFi network.

There’s also a video here that shows how to send a document from one device to another:

There are also step-by-step instructions for sending a document from device to device here in the online user manual:

https://www.tapforms.com/help-mac/5/en/topic/sharing-with-another-device

So hopefully with that information you’ll be able to copy your good .tapforms document over to your other Mac.

Sync won’t work just by creating a new document with the same name as a document on another device. It doesn’t use the filename to sync. It uses the internal Document ID, which you can actually see on the Document Info panel (by clicking the (i) button) on the main Database Documents window.

Thanks,

Brendan

[John Fineberg]

I typically wouldn’t send a document from one computer to another. I’d do as I’ve already tried. I’d copy the file from one computer onto a flash drive, then copy that file onto the other computer. In fact, that was the first thing I tried. From there, I tried several things. I tried double-clicking on the file to open it. (I think I tried that both with Tap Forms open and closed. I tried going to Tap Forms -> File -> Import. I don’t remember which of those techniques sort of worked. Sort of worked, in that the database exists, though it does’t appear in the Database Documents window. I can access the database through Tap Forms -> File -> Open Recent. But I can’t get that database to become my default database, as it was before. Perhaps it’s because I don’t know where to place the document in the Mac hierarchy. Will that technique work? If so, in exactly which folder in my computer should it go? And should it be zipped or unzipped?

[John Fineberg]

Here’s a screen shot of what I’m supposed to see (from the directions you sent) on my sending laptop, but my Select a nearby device window is simply empty, even though I was able to establish a WiFi connection between the two computers.

And here’s also a screen shot of an open Finder window on my (receiving) desktop, with the top zipped file on my Desktop. The next (unzipped) file is in my Downloads folder, and the next (unzipped) file is in my Documents folder.

As in previous online discussions with you, the answer is probably staring me right in the face. But I simply can’t see it. So I need your help.

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[Brendan]

Hi John,

Ah ok. If you already have the file over onto your other Mac, then just drag the .tapforms document file into the main Database Documents window where you see the other files there. When the blue bar appears, let go and the file will be moved to that location.

Alternatively you can use the Show in Finder button in Tap Forms and the Finder window where all those files are stored will display. You can then just drag the .tapforms document into that location and the Tap Forms Database Documents window will refresh itself a moment or two later to include that document.

Sorry for the confusion.

Brendan

[John Fineberg]

Through experimentation, even before I received your advice from April 8, I’d already stumbled across the dragging the .tapforms document file into the Database Documents window. Anyway, thank you for that suggestion, Brendan. I was so surprised that my experiment worked, but I was just trying to think outside the box.

So, to the best of my knowledge, I now have the same document on both of my Macs, as well as my iPhone. That’s excellent.

Now if I could just keep them all synced properly using your Nearby function. Is there any way that it can be set — just once — and then all three devices will just automatically keep in sync? What I’m suggesting is that I wouldn’t ever need to go to Preferences again, that I wouldn’t have to close a document on any device, that I wouldn’t need to go to the Database Documents window, etc. Can’t they just automatically sync when they’re near each other on the same WiFi network?

John

By the way, I understand that you have an IBM Cloudant option. But, with 3,637 contacts and a 65.2 MB document, I’m pretty sure that there’d be a monthly fee for using that system. Is that correct?

[Leo]

John,

I have a + 4000 records and counting database, over 400 MB, and no monthly fee.

I would recommend the clouding sync.

Leo

[Brendan]

Hi John,

I wouldn’t worry about such little amount of data. You wouldn’t have to pay for syncing with Cloudant.

When Tap Forms syncs, it only syncs the changes made after the first full sync. So there’s very little data that gets synced once you’ve done the first full sync.

But with Nearby, sync happens when you have the documents opened at the same time. It won’t sync if you have Tap Forms opened on one device, close it, then open Tap Forms on another device, close that one, then open it on another device, etc. All devices that you want to sync need to be opened with the same document at the same time. Then make a change on one device and moments later it should sync to the other device.

Also, every device should have all the other devices added to it on the Nearby sync screen. Or at the very least, one device should be the master and the other devices have it added to them. And the master device should have all the other devices added to it. But you don’t have to worry about that with Cloudant syncing. Just each device logs into the same Cloudant account. And as long as each document you want to sync has the same “db-….” value on each device, then it should sync automatically.

[John Fineberg]

Thanks for the encouragement, Leo. I’ve just set up a Cloudant account.

Then I went back to Tap Forms on both of my Macs and my iPhone and set it up there, too. And I could see the syncing taking place on the bottom of document window of both Macs. (I didn’t notice anything happening on my iPhone, but I wasn’t watching, either.)

But I must have missed a step somewhere, as they’re not really synced. I’m typing in the notes section of one of my records and it’s not changing on the other devices. I thought maybe I just needed to be patient, and that perhaps it takes a while to sync. But at least 15 minutes have gone by, and no syncing has happened on my other two devices.

I’ve confirmed that I have the same database name on all three devices. Is there anything else I need to do, either in Tap Forms or in my Cloudant account?

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[John Fineberg]

I just restarted Tap Forms on all three devices, and now they’re in sync. Yea!!!

[Brendan]

Hi John,

Excellent!

You should also see that “db-” database in your Cloudant dashboard in your browser. The screenshot you posted above didn’t show anything but the standard databases that Cloudant uses for managing users and replication. There should be one “db-” entry per document that you’re syncing. So if you’re syncing the same document on each device, then you should see just the one database there.

[John Fineberg]

Thanks, Brendan. What action do I need to take to get that database to show up in Cloudant?

[Leo]

Hi John,

just use your browser to go to

https://YOURLOGINNAME.cloudant.com/dashboard.html#login

[John Fineberg]

Thank you, Leo. But the question is, what do I do once I get there? (Brendan noticed that something is missing.)

[Brendan]

Just click on Databases like in the screenshot. Maybe it just took a bit to appear. It should be there.

[John Fineberg]

Yup, that’s all it took … just a bit of patience!

This is going to make Tap Forms 5 so much more practical to use. Thanks for guiding me through the process, Brendan.

~ John

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