Sync Problems and Abilities

[Doug Bank]

First question:

I have my database on my mac. I used to have 5 forms, but then I did some testing and tried merging several forms and then finally did the merge and moved the old forms to a different category before I ultimately decide to risk deleting them.

Before I did most of this work sync was working between my computer and my phone. However, now I cannot get it to (nearby) sync. It shows my 5 original forms, albeit with the two merged forms in the different category. It doesn’t show the test merge or the final merged form at all. If I look at the sync settings, they both are using the exact same database name. They aren’t always on the same network, and right now it is possible that the computer is on ethernet (though wifi is still on and is the same network as the phone). What can I do to debug the problem?

Second question:

I would like to share my database with my son who is about to go back to college. This is a giant database due to images. Currently it is over 400 megabytes. Can I sync two computers to use the same forms using iCloud, or is that asking for trouble? If not iCloud, is there another recommended way to do this? Or should he just stick to using his phone? If he does need to use his phone, does he need 400+ MB free on the phone, or does it pull images and data as it is needed?

I don’t suppose there is a way to export the records to a read only web page view?

Thanks,
Doug

[Sam Moffatt]

Nearby Sync needs both devices to be online at the same time with Tap Forms open and depending on how much data you merged, it can take it a while to reconcile the state changes for the data. Nearby Sync leverages the same protocol as CouchDB so it’ll gradually apply updates to records until the sync is completed. Usually you can see the sync status in the bottom right corner of Tap Forms on the Mac and via Tools on iOS.

So long as the devices can communicate, it shouldn’t matter if it’s wired or wireless.

On the second question, let me unpack because you’ve got a few questions:

1. You can use iCloud, I personally don’t prefer it but it is a supported sync platform. You can search the forum for references to iCloud and make your own judgement.
2. I personally recommend using CouchDB and using that to sync. There are instructions in the documentation and plenty of notes on the forum of folk using it.
3. If you’re on the same network often enough to pick up changes, you can continue to uses Nearby Sync but I’ll make the observation that you could lose data if the same record is modified on different devices. When you’re disconnected from sync the chances of this happening increases.
4. He’ll need 400MB+ free on the phone, the data and all attachments are sync’d to every device that has a copy of the TF document.
5. You in theory could craft a web page using CouchDB, I’ve dabbled with it but never built anything production ready.

[Doug Bank]

PROBLEMS!

I opened the application on both the computer and phone. Nothing happened. I messed around a bit, opening different forms on the phone. Eventually I clicked on new form on the phone and POOF, my main form – the one I couldn’t see on the phone – disappeared from the database on the computer. ARRRGH. WHY did this happen?

I am sure there is a backup from yesterday or the day before. How do I properly restore this information? Where are the backups kept? The database hasn’t changed in size, so is it possible to restore without losing information?

[Sam Moffatt]

First steps I usually do is make a backup of the document in question as is and copy it somewhere offline (USB stick or similar) to make sure you can always get back to the original document.

On the Mac, if you’ve enabled backups (backup on quit for example), then when you go to preferences you can click on “Show files” to be taken to your backup.

If you don’t have backups on quit enabled and didn’t manually make backups, you can go to the Tap Forms documents folder to see if you can restore from Time Machine. Either right click on the document name in the title bar and click on the immediate folder it’s in, generally Documents or alternatively in the “Database Documents” window (CMD+0 or Window > Database Documents) you can select the document and the right facing arrow is “Show in Finder” which will take you to it in Finder.

The last place to look is File > Recover Deleted Items. It’s not guaranteed to have everything but it might have your form in there still that you can recover back.

Brendan might also be able to help recover the data. The records are likely to be all there though he’d be the expert there.

Only explanation I can think of is that your devices got out of sync and for some reason you deleted something from your phone that was mapped to the computer. Once the sync reconciled the changes, it propagated the delete. It’s entirely possible if you had a partial sync at some point that the form looked weird and you deleted it thinking it was junk.

[Doug Bank]

I have multiple backups:

I DO have backup on quit enabled, and I quit a day or two before, so most of the stuff should be in that backup, but not all of it.

I might have forced a manual backup recently as well, but probably not more recently than the backup on quit. I have a backup from 1/26/2021 (T08-44-46) and one from 1/24/2021 (21-30-19). Since my last post was at 1/26/2021 at 7:40 AM, I suspect that the last backup is not a good one. The difference in size, though, between the two backups is less than a megabyte, so I suspect that no new records were added, so maybe the difference isn’t critical? (I made copies of these backups)

I do have Time Machine running. I suspect that this might be the best first choice since I made quite a few changes between 1/24 and 1/26. I don’t want to try this (or any other option) without Brendan’s advice, especially since I don’t know where the actual forms reside in order to restore them. I suspect it is the “Mineral Collection.tapforms” package in the parent folder to the backups. Would I restore the entire package or some part of the package??

I also have BackBlaze running continuously, backing up to the cloud. I think it also does incremental backups that I can access for several months.

Finally, I also have Carbon Copy Cloner running. It is too late to get a copy from the clone (should have thought of that earlier), but I have Safety Net enabled, so any deleted files ought to be preserved.

As for the Sync, I definitely did not create any new RECORDS on the phone. The only thing I did was accidentally create a new form, and that caused my main form to disappear. (For the record, the App version was TapForms Beta 2190. My sync problems, however, started with the newest released version. I doubt the Beta aspect caused the sync issue)

I have other things to do in the real world (including physically re-locating the iMac I am using), so I have not re-started the app in the past day. I just restarted it to see where the backups were stored, but did not make any changes and closed the app without causing a new backup.

[Sam Moffatt]

I’d restore the entire package, it contains all of the attachments and records bundled together. Since you’re using Nearby Sync, so long as no other devices are online with that document open you can open the different versions of the backups (I would copy off to a temporary folder and then open just to be safe). You can do some looking through to see the latest backup prior to the sync wiping things out.

I’d probably send a backup of the document from your phone to your computer for safe keeping and then delete it off the phone and send your known good copy to the phone again.

Good to see you’ve got sufficient backups though.

[Doug Bank]

I copied the package to another drive AND moved it locally to another folder. I then used Time Machine to find a copy from the middle of the night before the morning things got screwed up. I launched the application, and I definitely got my main form back. It’s too late for me to really investigate to see if it is all intact, but it does look like it should be OK.

I will just trash the database on the phone and start over. I would like to be able to look at it on the phone or iPad, but the real point there is to have an inventory in the far future when the world is normal and I am out shopping and want to see what I already own…. I’d also like to be able to share that with my son, but he is leaving in the morning and there is no chance to get that working at this time.

Is it possible to share the database the old fashioned way? Like I put this package on a cloud drive and then I use it and he uses it, but we both make sure the other one isn’t using it at the same time?

Thanks,
Doug

[Sam Moffatt]

If you’re happy to keep it in sync yourself, you can copy the document up to Dropbox. General advice is to not edit it on Dropbox as the sync may corrupt the database. There was a thread a while back on using Dropbox for sync.

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