Sync Post IBM

[John Scoble]

Hi

I have successfully used IBM as my sync method until the recent problems, which others have mentioned.

My wife and I have various Tap Forms documents and all were synced through my IBM account. She synced some between her own iPhone, iPad and Apple laptop, and I did the same with mine (adding in my Mac mini). However, we also had one document which we synced with all our 2 sets of devices – a shared document that we could both access and update.

I cannot find a replacement method for this common syncing of a document between our two sets of devices. Hopefully I have misunderstood the situation, but as I see it, the issues are as follows:

Nearby Sync – that requires all devices to be open, to ensure that the syncing is correct on all devices. Also, it only works with a common wifi signal.

iCloud Sync – my wife and I both have our own iCloud accounts, which we log into permanently. Whilst I could allow my wife to share my iCloud account, my understanding is that you can only have one iCloud account active at any one time on any one device. Is there a way round this?

Apache Cloud Sync – I’m mystified by the instructions for setting this up, but even so, don’t see how this will work. The instructions seem to imply that I have to use (say) my Mac mini as a server/storage unit. That would be fine for syncing whilst we are at home, (if I could understand how to get my other devices to connect to it) but I don’t see how it would work when we update things when we are away from home.

Help!!!

What is the way we can continue to sync our own documents with our own devices, and also our shared document on all our devices?

Brendan – you mention elsewhere that you are working on a new sync method. Will that solve my problem? How soon will it be available? What do I do in the meantime? (Is there a beta version available that I could test??)

I hope that there is an answer to my problem.

John

[Brendan]

The simplest solution is to just create a new IBM Cloud account and then setup syncing the way you had it before, but with your new IBM provided service credentials. I tried to migrate my account that IBM said I should migrate, but it didn’t work. Others who have told me they also experienced this issue said they just created a new account and it worked.

[Brendan]

I don’t have a beta of the iOS version of my new Tap Forms just yet, so you wouldn’t be able to sync with all your devices anyway with it. I’m working on it, but it will be a while before I’m finished with it. Hopefully I’ll have an iOS beta version soon. Just some things I need to get working first.

[John Scoble]

Brendan

I hope all is well with you.

I’m trying again to get IBM Sync working!. I’ve looked again at the instructions, and either you have updated them (Thanks), or I can understand them (perhaps a vital step I was missing) better.

Anyway, I successfully created (I think) a new instance of Cloudant on my new IBM account. I found the Service Credentials and copied what I think is the password and username (which came in that order, mixed in with lots of other items). When I pasted them in to the TapForms Sync page, and clicked Sign In, it failed, and I was told “Please check the Server URL, Username and Password to ensure they are correct.”

Do I need to complete the “Share By User” field? At present, I’m just trying to create an initial Sign In on the first device (my MacBook).

I copied and pasted the Password and Username to Notebook (temporarily), to try and ensure I could copy and paste these correctly. The thing I can’t change is the Server Name.

Any suggestions?

Many thanks, John

 

[John Scoble]

Brendan

One thing to add – the user name dopes not end in “bluemix”. Does that mean I have the wrong username? If so, how do I find the correct one?

[Brendan]

Hi John,

Use the Apache CouchDB settings instead of the Cloudant settings. I really need to fix that. IBM changed the server URL format which Tap Forms generates when using the Cloudant setting. But if you use the Apache CouchDB setting, then you can paste in the server URL from the service credentials that IBM gave you. CouchDB and IBM Cloudant both use the same sync protocol, so it will work.

Thanks,

Brendan

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