Error sending to Cloudant server.: A server with the specified hostname could no

[Craig Cameron]

Error sending to Cloudant server.: A server with the specified hostname could not be found.

The hostname is made up of my username.cloudant.com

https://craigcameron.cloudant.com

My login via browser works just fine.

Any ideas?

Craig

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[James Cocker]

I had this exact problem and eventually solved it with the following:

1. Sign out of Cloudant in Tap Forms
2. Close Tap Forms
3. Open Keychain Access
4. Search for all items relating to “cloudant” and Delete them
5. Try setting up the sync again in Tap Forms

[Craig Cameron]

I tried all that, it still doesn’t work though.

Who is this shared by user if I haven’t been able to share anything yet?

Wouldn’t it be easier to sync via Box or Dropbox?

I’m really happy with TF5 but the synching is a bit of a nightmare… ;)

Craig

[Brendan]

Hi Craig,

Just don’t put anything into the ‘Shared by user’ field at all.

That field is only pertaining to the ability to sync with different Cloudant users. See the ‘Multi-User Sync” video on my Vimeo page:

https://vimeo.com/channels/tapformsmac5

[Craig Cameron]

Hi Brendan,
Yes, I’ve tried that, no luck.

If I enter the following url in my browser I get this results, does this mean anything?

craigcameron.cloudant.com

{“couchdb”:”Welcome”,”version”:”ad97a06″,”vendor”:{“name”:”IBM Cloudant”,”version”:”5462″,”variant”:”paas”},”features”:[“geo”]}

[Brendan]

One other thing I’ve heard that can cause this problem is having special characters in your password. Try changing the password in Cloudant and then in Tap Forms too. It’s something I need to look into further.

[Craig Cameron]

ok, done that and the error has gone away….

But, when I sync, there is no indication it is doing anything and when I look at my cloudant account I have no databases other than the default ones.

Nor do I have any Shared Databases.

??

[cd13]

As much as I like Tap Forms not just because it’s a Canadian product but when it works it’s great. But I am becoming “synched out”!

I successfully synched to Cloudant one of six DBs a day or so after the app became available then spent the weekend unsuccessfully trying to sync the rest of the DBs.

Yesterday I decided to try the Near Sync and got the six DBs synched on my home wi-fi, whew!. But this morning in my office I couldn’t sync anything on the office wi-fi.

Out of shear frustration tried the Cloudant sync and on my first try I uploaded/ synched one DB, holy **** it worked! Tried a second DB and that one also got uploaded! We’re on a roll!!

Spoke too soon, I’ve been trying to upload/sync the last three for the last three hours.

What I did differently from one DB to another I don’t know. I tried all of the following: logged out of Cloudant then logged back in, logged out of Tap Forms then logged back in, turned off the Auto-Sync, turned it back on, removed the Shared by user, added the shared by user, turned off the devices, turned them back on, waited for the sun to disappear, … nothing worked.

BTW, I have a very long password with upper and lower case characters, numbers and special characters; therefore complex passwords is not a reason for it not working.

Will try again tonight and tomorrow, and …..

[Brendan]

@cd13 Actually the long password could be the problem. I’ve heard from some other users that they have troubles syncing when the password is more than 17 characters long. And if you have some symbols in them it may also cause a problem. I think dashes, letters (mixed case), numbers, underscores, should be ok. I’m not sure why this is the case yet since I haven’t had a chance to dig into it.

[Brendan]

Also, don’t put anything into the “Shared by user” field unless you’re really sharing the database with *another* user, not with yourself (unless you have 2 Cloudant accounts). It’s only there to support multi-user syncing.

[cd13]

Brendan, thanks for the reply but regarding

Passwords: Over the weekend I attempted/tested syncs with a variety of password configurations (short, long, with/without special characters, etc.) and the three DBs I successfully uploaded have the longest and most complex (i.e. every type of character) password; it would be nice to get Cloudant’s input on some of the issues users have been having.

Shared by user: Will do as you suggested but one of three uploaded DBs have a user-id so I think it works both ways.

BTW, in another posting I read that filename length might cause problems. The first DB I uploaded last week is called “Vineyard Management” but another one named “Wine” just won’t upload/sync; go figure!

One question: is synching the only way to get the first copy of a DB into Cloudant? The messge I’ve gone through Cloudant’s support site and it’s very weak on simple user tasks.

The Cloudant messages I get are:
Synchronization has failed – Error sending to Cloudant server: A server with the specified hostname could not be found.
Synchronization has failed – Error sending to cloudant server.: (null)
Synchronization has failed – Error sending to cloudant server.: Database does not exist.

Thanks again.

[cd13]

Just uploaded/synched my Wine database to Cloudant. Don’t ask how, I decided to try again and it worked; two more to go! Maybe I shouldn’t have split up the one V3 DB into six.

[Austin Goudge]

I’m getting this issue whenever I launch TF5, but the synching seems to work fine anyway.

Note that to get it working at all, I had to change my Cloudant password from the original one I set up.

Also note that although I empty the ‘shared by user’ field, and click ‘Done’ on the preferences window, the ‘shared by user’ field gets automatically repopulated with my username the next time I open the preferences window.

[cd13]

Austin, thanks for your input and that you get the same message. I’ve been changing my password so often in order to get all my six DBs up to Cloudant that I make it as short and simple as possible to avoid entry errors and confusion. Interesting that when I empty the ‘shared by user’ field it doesn’t get repopulated.

[Austin Goudge]

I may have confused myself here.

After more experimentation, I don’t think synchronisation is working via Cloudant at all – I think syncing was working via the ‘Nearby’ mechanism, as I had both enabled. I’ve therefore switched Nearby off by removing the devices that were local syncing, and leaving Cloudant enabled. Syncing seems to now be broken for me.

Playing with this a bit more, and trying to fix it, it seems that it’s not just my ‘shared by user’ field that cannot be cleared – I cannot clear any of the Cloudant configuration. If I do, it just comes back, repopulating all fields every time I reopen the Preferences panel.

I think the core problem is that my ‘Shared by user’ field is populated and there doesn’t seem to be any way of clearing it, as Brendan has said that this field should be empty.

Is there any way of clearing my Sync preferences from outside the app?

[James Cocker]

Austin, please see the 2nd post in this thread for instructions on clearing the Cloudant settings from outside the app.

[Brendan]

I’ve fixed that clearing of the “Shared by user” bug in an upcoming update. I’ve also fixed the issue with having symbols and the password length issue. I contacted Cloudant and they told me there were no limitations set on their end. It was purely an encoding issue in Tap Forms. Fixed now. Available soon hopefully.

And yes, follow these instructions to clear the Cloudant values from the Keychain:

Error sending to Cloudant server.: A server with the specified hostname could no

[Austin Goudge]

Perfect, that fixed it, thanks Brendan.

[cd13]

Brendan, thank you very much.

[Antony Willman]

Hmmm, I cannot even open my database now. Done all that has been suggested and when I open the database list of database documents, I get this: Error sending to Cloudant server.: server error.

I’ve shortened and changed the password, logged out & logged back in. No joy. I’ve updated the software.

Any suggestions?

[Brendan]

After you get the server error, are you able to see any of your forms? Might need to restore from a recent Time Machine backup file. Cloudant should bring the backup up-to-date once you get it going again.

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