Sync Mac to iPad and iPhone

[Stan TAYLOR]

This was working very satisfactorily via iCloud.
Minor or major changes happened as expected with excellent response times.

Then I noticed that changes, on the Mac, were obviously not being truly reflected in the Devices.
The Mac was declaring 530 Records while the iPad declared 566 and the iPhone 583.

I made changes to a Record on the Mac and this was reflected almost immediately in both Devices but the Number of Records in each item of Hardware did not change.

My Searches revealed information about iCloud Tap Forms Sync, suggesting that there were problems.
Seemingly the MO to regain control over the Database would be to use an alternative Sync Method.
I say ‘seemingly’ because much of the information in the Searches may have been updated but while focused on finding a solution it is easy to overlook Publication Dates, and of course this should not be necessary.Nearby was determined to be the ‘best bet’ from my investigations.

Nearby was set up, with all the appropriate Green Dots in the correct places.
The Mac had the Changes ‘trick’ applied and the Devices duly responded promptly.
However the mismatched Databases remained as previously.

How can I safely deliver the Content of the Mac TF Data to the Devices?

[Brendan]

Hi Stan,

One thing you could do is add a Calculation field to your form that returns any value.

That will cause every record to be updated with the value of the calculation field.

That should trigger that device to upload all of its records again to iCloud. Then the other devices should pull down that data. Do this on the device that has the most records.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Stan TAYLOR]

Hi Brendan

I admit to never having created anything on the iPhone, although I did capture a lot of Photos and added them to my DB back in iPhone 4 Days.

Adding a New Field on the iPhone [now XS] does not appear possible, to me at least.
This iPhone holds more Records than with the Mac or iPad.

It is a similar situation with the iPad and New Fields.

I added a Calculation to the Mac and almost immediately both Devices displayed the information.
Of course it did not alter the Record counts.

At this point I realised, not having done anything else, that the addition of the Calculation Field/and or Changing Formulae appears to have caused problems with Records being deleted or displaced from the usual ID sequence.
Adding Correcting these changes rectified the matter until the Calculation Field was used again.

Using Search also gives cause for concern. Identifying Drawers in Groups by Cabinet they are numbered from the top downward. To indicate the Top Drawer is #1 it is supported by Top. In some cases it had been entered a #1 Top and in others as Top #1. Wishing to change all these entries to Top #1, #1 Top was entered into the Search Box, the result was that both versions were displayed along with other Records that did not contain any of the Search Characters.

Is it possible that my Mac is at the end of life?
It does not have problems with most Apps except Mail tends to quit unexpectedly almost on a daily basis.

[Stan TAYLOR]

Forget the request to make Tap Forms changes within iPad, I have just discovered the route to achieve what is needed.
Hopefully it will be somewhat similar for the iPhone, just a tad more tricky without the use of a Hardware Keyboard.

Cheers, Stan

[Sam Moffatt]

You can still setup a Bluetooth keyboard for use with your iPhone if that’s the path you’ve gone down. It’ll look a little awkward but it’s certainly possible to make happen.

[Stan TAYLOR]

Hi Sam
I use my Apple BT Keyboard on the Mac Pro and it is not a quick and east switchover.

Fortunately, to my surprise and delight, I have found the iPhone easier to make the needed changes than the almost identical changes on the iPad.

Hi Brendan
Things began to get even weirder and I was not totally surprised when TF Crashed.
A C&P of the Report will be eMailed ASAP.

Best regards to both, Stan

[Brendan]

Hi Stan,

Could you tell me what you were doing just before Tap Forms crashed? It seems to be related to inserting something into an array. It seems to have crashed when an alert was displayed.

[Stan TAYLOR]

Hi Brendan

An Alert [Yellow Triangle] had been visible on the iPad.
It was partially obscured by the Sync Settings Field Title/Sync in progress info, but this had disappeared before the time of the Crash.
I did not see any Alert on the Mac.

On the iPad before the Crash I was adding an X onto the end of Content in a Field named NUMBER:, this being the main ID for each record.
The X was to ‘encourage’ Records that were missing on the Mac to become available on both Devices.
This worked as expected and then on the Mac these newly arrived Records were Edited to remove the Xs.
I had made 5 or so Edits before noticing that in the List on the left the Numbers still displayed the Edited Out Xs.
One record was repeatedly Reedited but the List display remained with the appended X.
Then the Crash occurred.

Following the Crash and after much Sync activity the previous disparity between the Record quantities reduced from almost 100 to only 7. The iPad had contained the greater quantity of records and still had 7 more than the Mac.

I found 2 Records that were Duplicates and these existed on both Devices, seemed obvious simply Delete on one Device and expect to see it removed on the other after a Sync session.
I cannot remember which Device had the Deletion applied, but the other device had those Records removed as expected.
However the Mac now had a Record quantity of 7 more than that on the iPad.

I do not know what is happening and have recorded the above in case it may have some relevance.

Best wishes,

Stan

[Stan TAYLOR]

Sorry I meant that the Wording attached to the Yellow Triangle was not properly visible.

[Brendan]

The crash happened on the Mac version though, so it wasn’t due to an alert displayed on the iPad.

[Stan TAYLOR]

I believe you to be correct.

I have started looking for the discrepancies again, firstly Disabling Sync on the Mac and iPad

When found a Place Holder File has been inserted so that the ID Numbers are all in place on both Devices.

Within the first 120 Records on the Mac it was level Quantity wise with the iPad.
Within the first 100 Records in the iPad it was 5 ahead of the Mac.

A lost battle?
Would it be viable to create CSV Files of each, review to ascertain the best version, clean up TF and insert the CSV Data into a New TF File?
Is there any point in attempting to recover from Backups, I have found one group od ZIPs going back to 2017?
Or will TF.app be corrupt and need to be replaced first?

Thanks for your time, bst wishes, Stan

[john cesta]

I started using Tapforms again on my Mac, iPhone and iPad.

When I add pictures too the iPhone they are present. Then when I sync the Mac has the pics but the iPhone they are missing and on the iPad all the pics I ever added and then deleted are on the iPad or missing.

It’s just not working.

I’ve added a now() calculation field

All other records seem to sync ok as far as text records.

I’ve spent loads of time systematically trying to figure this out but there is no rhyme nor reason.

One of the images is my Mac (the one with all 4 images)
The other image with placeholders is my iPhone
the one with many placeholders and some images is my iPad.

Should I not use photos with Tapforms?

Thanks

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[john cesta]

Here is another image

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[john cesta]

and the last image

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[Stan TAYLOR]

Hi John
I experienced similar situations, to your first Attachment above, with a lot of my Images.
My MO was to Delete the Offending Image and replace it with a new version.
Often that did not work, i.e., Nil Image displayed.
Double Tapping on the Image Area, or Image if the wrong one exists, usually revealed below the expected Image a Thumbnail invariably named [something like] -1.jpg.
Within the Menu Bar above the Main Image Area I chose the Option to Delete This Photo.
On several occasions there were other incorrect Images present as Thumbnails, these were treated in the same manner as the ‘mystery’ Image.
Ultimately I visited the Image in every Record to ensure there was nothing lurking, this seems to have resolved many Image problems for me.

[john cesta]

I always get a message that says image not found on device you want to remove it.

There are many things to try but as far as starting to use Tapforms for an image repository in my opinion is not reliable.

[Brendan]

Hey guys,

I’m really sorry for this issue. I am working on a longer-term project which will completely change the way Tap Forms manages images internally to avoid this problem.

For now I would suggest removing the document from the device that’s missing the images, then use the Send Document function to send a new copy of the document over to the other device.

This may also be an iCloud sync issue.

Thanks,

Brendan

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