Deleting Documents & Data to help with iCloud Sync

[Brendan]

Many customers have found it helpful to reset Tap Forms back to an initial state with regards to iCloud Sync that goes further than just clicking on the Reset iCloud Sync button. To do this, you must go to the iCloud system preferences and find Tap Forms in the Manage Storage area and click on the Delete Documents & Data button.

Here are the steps to find that:

1. Disable iCloud Sync in Tap Forms on each of your devices first before you do this. So go into Tap Forms and tap on the Enable iCloud Sync button to turn it off. Then choose the “Keep a Local Copy” option.
2. Quit Tap Forms on all devices.
3. Then go to the Manage area on your Mac and delete the entry for Tap Forms. It will show up as Tap Forms Lite in that list. I’ve contacted Apple about trying to change this, but they are still investigating the issue for me.
4. Then re-launch Tap Forms and re-enable iCloud Sync on each device. Give it some time to finish doing what it’s doing and then some more time for the sync operation to finish behind the scenes. You should see all of your devices listed on each device.

See attached photo for the button you need to click on.

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[Josef Tingbratt]

Great tip!

Seems to solve all my problems!

[stephen dunn]

I dont have a screen that looks anything like the one in your picture

[Brendan]

Hi Stephen,

1. Launch System Preferences on your Mac
2. Click on iCloud
3. Click on the Manage button at the lower-right of the iCloud preferences panel.
4. Find Tap Forms in the listing.
5. Click on it.
6. Click on Delete Documents & Data

Are you able to find that screen now with these step by step instructions?

Thanks,

Brendan

[Jim Saklad]

iPhone 6+ running 8.1.3
iPad (4th generation) running 8.1.3
2013 Macbook Pro running 10.10.2

I just bought Tap Forms lite for the iPhone, then quickly made the in-app purchase for the full version (which, so far, appears to have been a mistake, in that it still says “Tap Forms LT”).

I then bought the current version for the Mac, and, a few hours later, the HD for the iPad.

I am logged in to iCloud on all 3 devices (I checked); I have enabled iCloud sync on all 3 (and reset several times); under iCloud Drive on each, I have turned Tap Forms off and back on again; I have entered the same encryption code/password on each.

Within Tap Forms, on the iCloud Sync page, the iPad and the iPhone recognize each other.

Neither sees the Mac, and the Mac doesn’t see either of them.

On the iCloud web site, all 3 devices are seen; under Settings there, the only function found under “Advanced” is “Sign out everywhere.”

My main use is to create and build a database on the Mac, and have it available for reference on the other devices, but this REQUIRES they see each other.

The suggestions at the start of this thread have also made no difference.

[Brendan]

Hi Jim,

Sorry, didn’t see your post here. Sorry for the delayed reply.

The in-app purchase will still say “Tap Forms LT”, but that’s really the only difference between the full version and the Lite version after you do the in-app purchase. Well, other than if you install it on another device, you’ll have to unlock it again by tapping on the “Restore Purchase” button. But other than that, they do the same thing.

Sometimes it can take a little while for iCloud Drive to sync. Also, the files Tap Forms generates and manages won’t show up on http://www.icloud.com.

Did you ever manage to get this going? This post was from 2 days ago, so I’m not sure if it eventually started working for you.

Try rebooting all of your devices to see if that helps.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Jim Saklad]

> Did you ever manage to get this going? This post was from 2 days ago,
> so I’m not sure if it eventually started working for you.
>
> Try rebooting all of your devices to see if that helps.
> Brendan

First I was able to to get the iPhone and iPad to see each other.
Eventually, with more work, the Mac as well.
Then fiddled around some more (or maybe just more passage of time), the file sync’d.

My present main use is as a dog breeder.
I have a database of 300+ dogs from over 40 years, with various info about them. I have been keeping them in Numbers, being somewhat afraid of Filemaker.

The problem I have with calculation is that I lack birth dates for some, I lack death dates for some, and some that I have birthdates but no death-dates for are still alive.

I would like to be able to calculate the age of the dog automatically.

Case 1: no birth date —> leave blank
Case 2: birth date and death date present —> subtract “BirthDate” from “DeathDate”
Case 3: no death date —>
if “Alive” checked —> subtract “BirthDate” from “Today”
if “Alive” UNchecked —> leave blank

Then there is the divide by 86,400 to turn seconds into days.
In Numbers, I can then convert it to “yy Years, mm Months, dd Days”

I suspect that these conditionals and year-month-day conversions cannot be *easily* done, if at all, in Tap Forms at present, and perhaps not for the foreseeable future.

[Adrian Mathie]

Brendan,

Presumably this manoeuvre deletes the data stored in iCloud and if you didn’t have a backup copy locally you would loose all your data?

Please could you explain how syncing works, where the “master copy” is stored etc.

It might help me plan how I’m going to tackle my syncing issues.

Thanks

[Brendan]

Yes, this would delete everything in iCloud if you didn’t have a backup stored somewhere else. The only thing that would stick around is your local copy of the TapForms_db.sqlite file itself. The photos and other things would be deleted if you did this. That’s why the first step says to disable iCloud Sync first and choose the “Keep a Local Copy” when prompted. That will copy all the files that are currently in iCloud to the local folder on your device.

[Adrian Mathie]

Thanks Brendan, this worked for me.

[ArsAstronautica]

Brendan,

Just thought I’d give you details on why and what happened when I did this.

In the list of registered devices, I had accumulated a long list of multiple entries for all of my devices. For example, deviceA may have appeared 3-4 times with various dates last synched. This started around the time of the recent updates to TF on iOS and then the Mac. Figuring perhaps it was time to reset TF iCloud, which I’ve been using just fine for a couple years now, I began the above procedure, (after making a local backup of the database just in case! :-))

On iOS with the latest. Going to the sync options and disabling iCloud caused an immediate crash on both my iPad Air 2 and iPhone 6+. Tried this several times, every time it crashed. I’ve elected to do a delete and re-install on my iOS devices.

On my Macs, if I use the little cloud icon on the window toolbar and turn off syncing, it crashes the Mac version too. I must use the preferences to turn it off. So I have done that.

I then purged the TF cloud files form iCloud via the manage option.

Now when I re-activate iCloud syncing, starting with just one Mac, I used the presence menu again. I noticed, however, that the sync option in the cloud icon drop down does not activate, even though I’ve activated the preferences. I am turning that on, figuring it should be selected as well. That seems to trigger syncing.

So far, so good. I am waiting for a complete re-synch on each device before I move on to the next device. I’ve re-loaded TF to the iPhone and iPad, and the Macs and all seems well now. The reset seems to have fixed the multiple entries.

[Brendan]

I’ve fixed the crash issue with enabling sync on the iOS devices and also some fixes for the syncing on the OS X version for the next updates.

[Author]

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