Sync Erratic Behavior

[Tom Banks]

I gave up on iCloud syncing because Brendan said a fix for exactly the glitches I described was coming. OK, so I switched to Nearby. Just now Nearby synced the oldest file (on my iPhone) to overwrite the newest (on my Mac). The newest had been being updated all day long, while the iPhone TF hadn’t been open for 24 hours. I had made no edit at all in the iPhone form after I opened it. This is a big problem because I lost a lot of work. (I will address the problems with the backup performance in a different post.)

A different syncing problem is that the iMac forms will not sync with their copies on my iPad. The Mac sees the iPad files, gives them the green light, but no matter what I do edit, close, reopen, etc., nothing syncs between those devices.

But while not syncing is bad, to have an old file overwrite a much newer one calls into question the usefulness of the whole app.

[Brendan]

Hi Tom,

Do you have the Allow Incoming Connections option turned on in the Mac’s Firewall settings for Tap Forms? If not, then that can prevent devices from connecting to it to perform a sync. Check that option by launching System Preferences, then Security & Privacy, then Firewall, then Firewall Options. You should see Tap Forms listed there. Make sure it says “Allow incoming connections”.

I’m not sure what would have caused the iPhone’s data to overwrite the Mac’s data though. That’s an odd one. The sync protocol used for Nearby syncing was written by the Couchbase Lite developers. Tap Forms just manages starting and stopping the sync when devices come online and go offline.

[Brendan]

Oh, and another thing you can try is to remove the devices from the Nearby sync screen, then re-add them and see if that gets them syncing.

Make sure the “db-” value is identical on each device for the same document. Without that, sync won’t happen at all.

[Tom Banks]

Thanks for working on this, Brian. To answer your questions,…

#1. Yes, the Mac’s Allow Incoming Connections was turned on (green). The Mac synced with my iPhone but not with my iPad. Unfortunately, the iPhone sync went in reverse, as I mentioned, with the old data overwriting the new.

#2. the “db-” value is identical on the iPad that wouldn’t sync. In addition, I deleted that form from the iPad and sent a new copy from my Mac. Still no sync. The fact that I could send the form from Mac to iPad indicates (I have to suppose) a good connection. Also the iPad appeared on the Mac’s Sync window with a green light.

[Jose Monteiro]

By the way it is Brendan, not Brian :)

[Tom Banks]

Thanks for the correction. My apologies to Brendan.

[Brendan]

Hi Tom,

Heheh… no worries. I get called all kinds of things. And I’ve accidentally called Jose, Jason before :)

You could try removing the devices from the Nearby Sync list and then re-add them.

Is it a timeout error you’re seeing when you make a change on one device?

[Tom Banks]

Hi, Brendan. It was a coincidence to get your reply, because I was just starting a post to say that all the sync is working well——in all directions between Mac, iPhone, and iPad. I went back and redid everything from scratch, which succeeded. I’m not sure what the difference was, but it probably had something to do with my having misconstrued what the manual meant at some point. I still have no clue of what led to that weird sync when the older file overwrote the newer. Thanks a lot for your continued follow-up.

[Brendan]

Hi Tom,

That’s great to hear!

Thanks!

Brendan

[Author]

Posts