Synchronization has failed – Revisited

[cd13]

Hello again Brendan,

I’m still getting the error message “Synchronization has failed
Error sending to Cloudant server: A server with the specified hostname could not be found.” that I thought was issued by Cloudant but I am told by their support team that it is most likely generated by the Tap Forms app and is not by the cloudant server.

I use a very basic password for my Cloudant account (hoping to make it more secure soon) and have deleted/re-synched my six DBs recently hoping it would fix the problem (didn’t).

Your near-sync works flawlessly but I really would like to get the Cloud sync working.

Thanks,

Chris

[Brendan]

Hi Chris,

I saw someone with an error like this the other day, but they had a period in their username that was causing the issue. Do you have something like that?

Thanks,

Brendan

[cd13]

No, 7 lowercase alpha characters.

[Brendan]

Hmm… Ok, well maybe try this:

1. Click the Sign-Out button on the Cloud sync screen in Tap Forms.
2. Click the Sign-In button again.

Do you get an error at that time?

Another thing to try is to Sign-Out, then launch the Keychain Access Application and delete any of the entries that have your Database name property in them. Then launch Tap Forms and re-enter in your login username and password.

Hopefully that’ll fix it.

[cd13]

Sign-Out/Sign-In test: Yes I still get the message.

I ran another test once signed in: After turning off Auto sync I get a “Synchronization has failed Error sending to Cloudant server: (null)” message; when Auto sync is turned back on I get the “Synchronization has failed Error sending to Cloudant server: A server with the specified hostname could not be found.” again.

Keychain: I primarily use my iPhone 6 and iPad Pro when using Tap Forms and getting the errors (I use Tap Forms on my iMac primarily for “heavy duty” data entries. Would deleting the DB entries in Keychain on my iMac flow to the Cloud to possibly resolve the iPhone and iPad problem?

[Brendan]

No, unfortunately deleting the keychain entries on your Mac wouldn’t affect the keychain entries on your iOS devices. At least I don’t think they would. Although I know that iCloud can sync keychain entries. I’m not entirely sure how it handles that for Tap Forms.

Do you get the same error on your Mac? Or is this just on the iOS devices?

[cd13]

I’m going to have to get back to you this weekend regarding getting the error on my Mac since I cannot give you a definite answer.

BTW, I attached a photo of the Cloundant dashboard and was wondering if you are familiar with the number of docs/deleted docs message related to the exclamation points? I compacted my DBs prior to uploading so I am curious why so many deleted docs.

Thanks.

[cd13]

Resent the photo.

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[cd13]

I don’t get the error message on my Mac. Is there a way to have a Cloudant sync confirmation displayed because it’s not obvious that what is in Cloudant is the latest sync?

[Brendan]

I’m not sure what causes those exclamation marks. I suspect that when something is deleted on your local device, the deletion is synced to Cloudant, but it never goes away, even when you compact the database. This is because it doesn’t know if it has to sync those deletions with any other devices that may be currently offline at the moment. So it keeps them around indefinitely. It’s probably just Cloudant telling you that you have this situation. The confirmation messages will display at the bottom-right of the window on the Mac version. But there’s no final confirmation that sync is finished because it’s just a continuous sync.

[cd13]

Brendan,

Going back to your Sept. 29 entry you asked me if I get the same error on my Mac. For the last few weeks I’ve been getting some but being too trigger happy I closed the error message before taking a screenshot until today. Attached is the screenshot.

Regards,

Chris

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[Brendan]

Ok, what I would suggest you do to fix this is to search for BFA9 using the general search. Then download the image that is found in that record. You can enable the “Show filename” option on your Photo field so you can see which image is causing the problem if you have more than one image.

After you’ve downloaded the image by clicking on the down arrow button that appears when you hover over the image, delete the image and then drag the image back into the Photo field.

If you get another error like that, then just do the same thing. Eventually it will all work itself out and sync will proceed again.

[cd13]

Good suggestion but the record with the photo was added to my database just recently and the sync errors have been occuring prior to the addition. I’ll try to get additional screenshots in the next little while. BTW only the Mac displays the specifics in the message, whereas the sync errors on my iPhone and iPad don’t.

I am wondering if the file name might have something to do with the failure so I shortened it without any special characters to see what happens.

[Brendan]

The error message you posted the screenshot for uses a standard naming convention for photos selected from the Photos library on iOS. It’s possible this can happen. If you do the above steps I mentioned then it should clear up.

[Author]

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