Nearby Sync Photos Missing

[thinkingcat]

I’ve been using Nearby Sync since I upgraded to TapForms 5. It mostly works (between Mactop and iOS devices).

Occasionally, photos I put in records on my iPhone don’t sync properly to the Mac database. The placeholder is there, but no photo.

And, once that happens, TapForms won’t try to get the photo on a subsequent sync, because it doesn’t perceive a change in the record on the iOS device (there hasn’t been one) and it thinks it’s got the photo.

Thoughts on what the problem is/how to prevent it/how to recover from it?

Thanks,
Leslie.

[Brendan]

Do you have the photo on the other device?

If so, can you remove it and re-add it again to see if that triggers it to get synced?

[thinkingcat]

I do have the photo on the other device. I deleted it in the record, and re-attached it.

I can’t answer whether or not it triggers a re-sync, because I can’t get sync to work at all now. The mactop detects that there is TapForms on the iOS device and starts the fetch, but the iOS device is unresponsive: it doesn’t acknowledge that there is a sync attempt, it never sends data. The Mac eventually gives up with “connection timed out”.

It may be because I’m on a hotel network now (of note: I was not when I did the initial sync of records with the incomplete photo transfer).

I’ll try again when I’m on a better known network but it’s going to be a while before I’m actually on my own network again.

Final thought: even if this does trigger a re-sync, we agree it’s not a full solution? Because, when I sync a bunch of records, I don’t necessarily notice which records have missing photos, and it would be a PITA to have to check each one and go back and argy-bargy it into working.

Leslie.

[Brendan]

Hi Leslie,

Ya, it’s probably because the hotel network doesn’t allow you to connect to a random set of port numbers. When Tap Forms starts a listener on a device to facilitate Nearby sync, it generates a random port number. Network administrators have the ability to allow only specific port numbers to be connected to on their network. For example, when you connect to a secure website over SSL, port 403 is used. For non-secure website connections, port 80 is used. So each service has their own unique port number they communicate on. Tap Form’s port numbers are generally high up in the 10,000 range and above, but randomly generated.

So that’s why it wouldn’t work on a hotel network, because they block access to most port numbers and allow traffic only on a very limited set of port numbers.

As for why the photo didn’t sync before, that’s a good question. Perhaps there’s a bug in Tap Forms somewhere that sometimes misses syncing an object.

You could try removing the devices from the Nearby sync devices list and then re-adding them. When you do that, Tap Forms will reset the sync counters it manages so that next time a full database sync will happen instead of an incremental sync.

[thinkingcat]

Ah, I wondered what the network difference was. And, I did get a sync out of this network earlier today — perhaps the random port number was in range, for whatever range they have.

I have also tried using an ad hoc network just between my mac and my iOS device. ISTM that *should* work, but it’s also been pretty hit or miss.

Leslie.

[thinkingcat]

Back on a network that supports nearby syncing, and I can report:

Deleting the photo on the iOS device did trigger the mactop to delete it in the record on the computer.

And, re-adding the photo on the iOS device did cause the mactop to update the field on the computer.

HOWEVER, the mactop is still showing a blank spot for the photo — i.e., I assume it thinks it still has the photo (that it never sync’ed) and so it doesn’t attempt to bring it over.

Square(1).

Leslie.

[Brendan]

Hmm… there is one thing that might cause that. What iOS version and macOS version are you running?

I wonder if the photo on the iOS device is one of the new HIEVC format photos but you’re not using High Sierra on your Mac? What happens if you set the Photo size on your Photo field to Large (or some other size)? Does that solve the problem? When you set a size on the Photo field, Tap Forms will generate a scaled down JPEG image. If you have it set to Original, Tap Forms uses whatever format the operating system gives to it.

[thinkingcat]

Ahah!

I am running Sierra, not High Sierra (srsly? “High” is a thing now?! Mumble) and whatever latest iOS my device has egged me into updating to.

I set the photo size on the field, deleted the photo and re-added it, and it is now showing up properly.

Yay!

This works well for me, since I generally like to keep the photos scaled (rather than having multiple copies of huge original sized photos).

Thanks!

Leslie.

[Brendan]

Excellent. I’m glad that solved the problem for you.

[Gary Winckler]

So Brendan, based upon the advice you gave to solve this issue is it best to keep the photos “original size”? I have the same issue all the time and it is getting very frustrating that my photos don’t sync. I have them set to 1024×1024.

[Brendan]

Hi Gary,

Are you using the latest macOS and latest iOS versions?

They should sync fine with the 1024×1024 setting. It makes for a smaller file size and it saves the images as JPEG format, which is compatible between OS versions.

[Gary Winckler]

Thanks for the quick reply Brendan. I’m running the latest IOS and version 10.11.6 on my Mac.

[Brendan]

Ah I see. So there’s the discrepancy with the OS versions then.

So is it photos from the Mac don’t show up on the iOS version or the other way around?

If it’s the photos from the iOS version that don’t show up on the Mac version it could be due to Apple’s new HEIF (High Efficiency Image Format) files not displaying on the Mac version.

[Gary Winckler]

I typically use the iPad at work to take the required photos. These are then synced to the Mac where they may or may not show up. Sometimes they show and then disappear a day later. Is the best approach to upgrade the Mac OS to the latest version?

[Brendan]

Hi Gary,

Well, that might certainly help.

Have you tried choosing a photo on the Mac side to see if it always shows up on the iOS side?

[Gary Winckler]

Upgraded system on Mac. Syncing of data other than pictures works fine but will not sync pictures in either direction. Very frustrating as pictures are a big part of what we track using this software.

[Brendan]

Ya that’s very strange. In my testing of Nearby sync (just this moment), the photos sync properly in both directions. I selected a photo from the Photo Library on my iPhone and a few moments later it showed up on the Mac version. Then I selected a photo in the same field in the same record on the Mac version and a few moments that photo was also added to the iPhone version.

But that’s just my database. There may be something wrong with your’s causing this issue.

If you change a form’s icon, does that icon sync across? Icons are pretty much the same as photos.

What about anything in a File Attachment field? They work the same way as a Photo field does in terms of syncing.

[Herman Van Synghel]

Hello

Whatever I try, a lot of records don’t have the pics associated with them.On my mac I have 330 records, on my phone 332. I did try syncing with Icloud, with my mac closeby (but that doesn’t do anything at all) I deactivated en reactivated numerous times: no avail. I made different versions on Icloud, everytime with a different name: the problem persists. Could it be that on the mac the file for backup is somehow corrupted and doesn’t put them in the archive?
By the way, I noticed if I leave the app on the Iphone for taking a call for instance, synchronisation stops.

Is there a remedy for this kind of headache?

Thx

Herman

[Sam Moffatt]

For nearby sync make sure you add it on both devices, nearby sync only pulls changes from a remote device. If you have it only set up for one device, you’ll not have all records on both sides.

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