near sync mac to iOS not working and confusing

[bob]

I got mac to mac to show up. But I’ve tried mac to iOS. And i tried iOS migrate to version 5. Still can’t get iOS to “find the mac, and also can’t get iOS v5 to use a backup iOS file i made.

I’m not a hater in any way. Just can’t figure out mac to iOS, or iOS at all on new version to get info from mac or backup file?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Bob

[Mike Konia]

Unfortunately, I have to confirm that Nearby sync does not work. I’m also very disappointed that Dropbox syncing is not available anymore.

[Chris Ward]

I too could not get my mac to see my iPad. I quit Tap Forms on my mac, restarted it, and my iPad appeared. (Tap Forms needs to be running on your iPad.) Eventually I was able to start sharing it, except when the process finished it wasn’t there on my iPad! I tried again, Accepted on my iPad, then nothing happened. Shut Tap Forms down on both devices, tried again. Finally I got it to work.

[Brendan]

Make sure you have the same document open on each device. Then make sure you have the green dots showing on the Nearby Sync screen indicating that the opened document is also opened on the other devices. Then sync will just happen. Occasionally I’ve noticed that after a device goes to sleep, you may need to close and open the document again to get sync going again.

[bob]

I’m not clear on “same document”?
Meaning backup? Database? Or just one form? I migrated mac w/ all old info ok.

Ive tried on iOS v4 to migrate to v5. No luck. I tried iOS v4 backup to dropbox. Then tried to load on iOS v5. No luck.

Mac open and migrate went super easy. But iOS is making me crazy.

Any way to show a step by step for near sync from mac to iOS??

And side note on paying for an upgrade…

ARE YOU PEOPLE FOR REAL??? WOW!! (unless you bought a few days ago)

He went years without a charge for the upgrades.

PLEASE!!!

Give the guy a break!!!

[bob]

GOT IT! I see the light.

I WAS DOING IT WRONG! I was trying to go into say “sample forms”, to find the tools icon to get to the sync settings. And hit the plus and saw nothing. But like brendan said. On iOS version do not open any docs. Stay in the main screen that shows “sample files” and “my life”. Select the database on mac version, hit share button. And there it is.

Sorry brendan, i wasn’t wrapping my head around staying on the first screen on iOS. That was my downfall..

Thanks again. Awesome app. I can’t wait to get moving now.

[Kubaton]

I’m sorry to say that sync is an utter mess. I had no problems with iCloud syncing on Tap Forms 4. I have everything setup properly on Tap Forms 5. I shared the document with my iPhone and setup syncing the document in Preference. I added a new record to a database on the Mac and that record was never synced to the iPhone.

I have no doubt that things will get sorted out but this is very frustrating.

Edit: This is with nearby syncing and I’ve tried more than one document and changes are not synced.

[Tom S]

Hello, I’m not able to sync.
– got the same database on my iMac and iPhone
– green light is on
– but nothing happening

May I ask you for a workaround.

[Brendan]

There’s one tip I can also suggest to get Nearby syncing working that popped up in beta testing.

If your device name is too long, Tap Forms will not be able to sync to it with Nearby Sync.

This is because when Tap Forms registers on the network, each document is registered independently using its unique document ID. That’s the same value that starts with “db-” that you see on the Cloud sync screen where it says “Database Name”.

That randomly generated ID is 35 characters long. For the network to recognize a device, its name must be less than 63 characters. So if your device name is longer than 27 or so characters, you may have a problem. For example, if my devices were called “Brendan Duddridge’s iPhone 6 Plus” That’s 33 characters which combined with an @ symbol separating the document ID and the device name, is a total of 69 characters. It may not work because of that. So I shortened it.

I use a neat app called Bonjour Browser to diagnose the devices on the network and this is what my device name looks like for one of the documents I have opened now:

db-c650e3f6a3a74f4381da867475b9ad87@iPhone 6 Plus

This works because it’s less than 63 characters.

You can download Bonjour Browser here: http://www.tildesoft.com/files/BonjourBrowser.dmg

Also when setting up Nearby Sync, make sure you add the devices in both directions. That is the Mac has the iOS device added to it and the iOS device has the Mac added to it.

[Pukfan]

Yeah so I am able to send doc from Mac to Ipad and iphone, but not the other way around. My main file had been on my ipad so was trying to send document to Mac or phone. No luck. When I try from ipad or phone I see the other devices in “Devices Nearby”, tap on the other device, shows “connecting”. Other device asks me to reject or accept. I pad shows “connecting” with rotating circle for a few seconds, then disappears. But nothing ever shows up on the receiving device.

I then took the document I had received from the Mac and tried sending back from Ipad to Mac. Goes through the same motions as sending any file from Ipad.

With both Mac and Ipad open to same document, make a change in Mac file. No change to ipad. Never have seen the green lights anywhere. Tried sending updated Mac file to Ipad and now going on 6 minutes and file is showing just less than 40% transferred (30MB file). Totally frustrated. Seems like this whole process works well for some, so I assume I am doing something wrong. Running Mac mini, Iphone 6, and Ipad Air all with latest iOS. Appreciate any help.

[Brendan]

Are you using iOS 10 or OS X Sierra?

The transfer doesn’t work on those beta operating systems right now. It’s something I’m investigating. It worked in iOS 10 beta 3, but not beta 4.

[pipeman]

I’m using Tapforms 5 on an iPhone, iPad mini and Mac running 10.11.6. Nearby sync does not work on any of the three devices. Clouding auto sync works between the iPhone and iPad but auto sync does work with Mac.

Can you help?

[Eric Poelzl]

I’m also having difficulty with the Near Sync functionality of Tap Forms 5 between my Mac running OS v10.11.6, and my iPad running iOS v9.3.4.

Though my iPad icon showed up via the share function on the Mac software (and Mac to iPad file transfer completed successfully), the iPad showed up as a blank line in the “select a device list” when attempting to add it in the Preferences Sync setup. Not until I restarted Tap Forms on the Mac did the iPad show up correctly as a line item in the Sync Preference window. Simple changes to the iPad database synced to the Mac fine, but subsequent, and more extensive, changes to the Mac database (i.e., adding a map location and text field) results with a “The request timed out” error message on the Mac.

My database file name is not over 63 characters, neither device was allowed to go to sleep. Restarting the program on both devices did not resolve the “time out” error.

[Paul Kelly]

I am also finding that this method of synchronisation is not working for me. I am trying to synchronise a laptop (10.11.6) with an iPad and iPhone (both 9.9.3).

The initial transfer of the database from the laptop to the iOS devices went fine, and I have added both to the synchronisation panel of preferences. The red/green indicators come on and off as I launch and exit Tapforms on the iOS devices.

Changes made on the iOS devices are replicated in the laptop version of the database, though for some changes this took multiple launching and exiting of the program on both devices.

Changes made on the laptop are not sent to the iOS devices, and changes made on one iOS device reach the laptop, but never get to the other iOS device.

I hope you are able to identify and fix this problem, as your new cloud synchronisation choice it not acceptable to me.

[pipeman]

Nearby sync is now working between my iPhone and iPad. I have no idea why it now works. Still have a problem getting my MAC to use nearby sync. IBM Cloudant works between my iPhone and iPad but still cannot get my MAC to sync using IBM Cloudant.

[Author]

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