Mac version unworkable (not reacting/long sync)

[divinenanny]

For a long while now (I think since Yosemite, but I cannot be 100% sure) TapForms on the Mac is unworkable for me. Any time I start it, it hardly reacts. Sometimes it doesn’t even load the window before not responding. Other times, it does load the window, seems to synchronize, but the progress bar is empty. It is also then not responding.
As far as I am aware, there is nothing there to sync. I do sync, but the Mac version is my main hub, and I only change stuff in there. So there should be no changes in iCloud to re-sync.
In the past, force stopping and restarting would sometimes make it workable, but now I have been trying to start TapForms for 3 hours, and still am stuck with a non-responding app.

Mac: 10.10.1
TapForms: 3.0.1

PS, as a (temp) solutions I don’t really care about my sync data, so if deleting that would fix this, that would be great. I have re-started sync so many times that one more time won’t matter.
PS2, console log of a currently stuck instance:
08-12-14 12:50:08,729 Tap Forms[47385]: cipher provider: (null)
08-12-14 12:50:08,868 Tap Forms[47385]: [iCloud] Beginning Initialization
08-12-14 12:50:08,868 Tap Forms[47385]: [iCloud] Initialized
08-12-14 12:50:10,493 Tap Forms[47385]: [iCloud] Ubiquity Container created and ready
08-12-14 12:52:05,889 spindump[1458]: Saved hang report for Tap Forms version 3.0.1 (570) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Tap Forms_2014-12-08-125204_iMac-van-Sara.hang
08-12-14 12:53:47,553 Tap Forms[47385]: log mode: delete
08-12-14 12:53:47,584 Tap Forms[47385]: I’m up!!!!
08-12-14 12:54:01,035 Tap Forms[47385]: Unable to encapsulate subtree layout: <ABPersonView: 0x6000003ac940>
08-12-14 12:54:03,291 sandboxd[47166]: ([47385]) Tap Forms(47385) deny file-read-data /Users/sara/Library/Preferences/com.apple.AddressBook.plist
08-12-14 12:54:05,110 Tap Forms[47385]: Layout still needs update after calling -[SynchroScrollView layout]. SynchroScrollView or one of its superclasses may have overridden -layout without calling super. Or, something may have dirtied layout in the middle of updating it. Both are programming errors in Cocoa Autolayout. The former is pretty likely to arise if some pre-Cocoa Autolayout class had a method called layout, but it should be fixed.
08-12-14 12:54:11,180 Tap Forms[47385]: iCloud possible

[divinenanny]

Addition to the console log:
08-12-14 13:12:05,000 kernel[0]: process Tap Forms[47385] thread 14451741 caught burning CPU! It used more than 50% CPU (Actual recent usage: 50%) over 180 seconds. thread lifetime cpu usage 433.951277 seconds, (298.381074 user, 135.570203 system) ledger info: balance: 90005063667 credit: 432895863660 debit: 342890799993 limit: 90000000000 (50%) period: 180000000000 time since last refill (ns): 179539895932
08-12-14 13:12:08,114 spindump[1458]: Saved cpu_resource.diag report for Tap Forms version 3.0.1 (570) to /Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports/Tap Forms_2014-12-08-131208_iMac-van-Sara.cpu_resource.diag

After this I gave up and force quit it.

[Brendan]

Hmm… that’s very interesting.

Try a reset of the Tap Forms preferences by typing this command into the Terminal application window:

defaults delete com.tapforms.mac

Then re-launch it to see if that helps.

Thanks,

Brendan

[divinenanny]

Nope, that didn’t do the trick….

[Brendan]

Have you tried re-installing the app? Perhaps something has gone corrupt inside it on your drive. I’m not sure why it’s freezing like that. Unless you have some bad spots on your drive. I’ve seen freezes like that happen after file or disk corruption.

Perhaps try checking the integrity of your TapForms_db.sqlite file.

You can send it to me and I can check it out for you or if you are inclined, you can use an app like SQLite Manager ( http://sqlabs.com ) and click on the Verify button in the toolbar and then the Start button to verify the integrity of your TapForms_db.sqlite file.

[divinenanny]

Uninstalling and reinstalling and restarting seemed to do something. Performance was still terrible. I deleted a couple of forms (5 forms of about 4000 records) and that made it a bit better.

I’m ok for now.

[Brendan]

Any better with version 3.0.2?

And what about vacuuming?

[Brendan]

Also, how big is your database file?

[divinenanny]

I re-downsized my database (previously deleted forms had mysteriously returned…). I did every clean up action available. My DB file went from nearly 1GB to 225MB.

I did all this on 3.0.1.

End result: Reaction time is better now. Progress bars (during clean up and sync) are useless, either they’re full or empty, with no change. Sync is still a mess (it sees my iPad, my iPad sees it, but nothing syncs (iPad does not download, even though TapForms on the iPad is empty). But that is ok, I just won’t use it on the iPad.

[Brendan]

The progress bars are non-deterministic bars. That is, they won’t increase during the process. They just kind of shimmer a bit. That’s just how OS X Yosemite displays those things.

With a file size that big, it’s possible that it’s taking quite a while to upload the data from your Mac and then taking quite a while to download to your iPad. Also if you have lots of images and file attachments, those all get uploaded pretty much one by one.

Try the following command in the Terminal application to see if iCloud Drive is doing anything:

brctl log -w

You may see all kinds of files being uploaded and downloaded. The main files that Tap Forms uploads and downloads (other than photos and file attachments) are called TFSyncDoc and TFSyncDevice.

Thanks,

Brendan

[divinenanny]

The upload part in iCloud is fine, because my iPhone has been able to sync without issue.

I have no idea to interpret the logs to see if that means anything, but I assume my iPad is the issue here.

Funny thing is though, on a later try, it did sync with iClooud, but it has an older version that what has last been synced from the Mac. If it just finished an earlier sync or what I don’t know.

[Brendan]

The brctl command just gives you an idea of when things are happening. When you see something in there that says “TFSyncDevice…tfs”, that’s a sync registration file. When you see your list of registered devices, that’s just the contents of a TFSyncDevice file.

When you upload to iCloud from say your iPad and then on your Mac you see a “TFSyncDoc…tfx” file get downloaded, then you know the data has gone from your iPad to your Mac. Your Mac would react shortly after that merging the contents of that file into its own local database.

You don’t have to really understand what it all means, just that you can see files being uploaded and downloaded when you do certain things. If you register a device and you don’t see a corresponding TFSyncDevice file appear there, then either iCloud Drive isn’t functioning on that device or it’s just taking iCloud a while to upload the file or download the file.

It just gives you a good idea of the timing of when things happen or when they don’t.

Really all Tap Forms is doing is writing TFSyncDevice and TFSyncDoc files to a folder on your device. The whole upload and download part is done entirely by Apple’s iCloud Drive.

Thanks,

Brendan

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