wireless syncing over Bonjour not working

[mwarner]

I just downloaded the latest version of OF, and purchases the iPhone app a few minutes ago. My iPhone and mac are on the same wireless network, firewall is turned off, and I've followed the directions for starting the process, yet the iPhone does not see my computer. The send settings via e-mail option did not work either and I've tried resetting the iPhone.

Any ideas?

[mwarner]

OK, I tried a different wireless network and managed to sync. I also had to turn firewall off to pull this off, so it would be good to know how to keep it on in 10.4.11.

I noticed that syncing is only one way, e.g. place a new action in the inbox on my iPhone, hit sync on the phone and nothing shows up on the Mac. If I hit sync on the mac, the iPhone entry moves over. Is this correct behavior?

[whpalmer4]

Probably you have to do a sync on the desktop as well to see that item -- my guess is that they've just bundled a small network server into the application to allow the Bonjour clients to communicate, and it stores the data on the disk. The desktop client then syncs with that repository. The desktop gets a mini-MobileMe implementation, if you will :)

[mmurray]

Probably you have to do a sync on the desktop as well to see that item -- my guess is that they've just bundled a small network server into the application to allow the Bonjour clients to communicate, and it stores the data on the disk. The desktop client then syncs with that repository. The desktop gets a mini-MobileMe implementation, if you will :)

Can we confirm that is the case ? I noticed that as well and it would help to understand the process.

On a related note: during a single day I work in typically three places -- coffee shop, office and home. All have wireless networks. Is there a way of avoiding having to send the sync instructions from the mac to the iPhone each time I change locations ? I could use mobileme as all locations have internet but the Bonjour sync is so fast :-)

Michael

[ciprol]

I had to reboot my MacBook to set the settings and proceed with a successful sync.

[mwarner]

After using this for a bit longer today, it seems that syncing on the phone now shows up on the Mac as well. Not sure why it took some time to start, but glad it did. I've e-mailed the tech support to ask how to pull this off without turning off my firewall in 10.4.11. I'll be upgrading to 10.5.5 soon so I suppose this will be a moot point in a few more weeks for me so long as I can tweak firewall settings the way I need to.

[whpalmer4]

When it "started" working, were you perhaps changing things in OF on the desktop? Remember, it automatically does a sync 1 minute after you make a change.

[Brian]

OmniFocus on the Mac and on the iPhone will sync one minute after you make changes, or an hour after the last sync if no changes have been entered.

Depending on the specific configuration of the wireless network your devices, there may be something about the setup that's preventing OmniFocus on the Mac from talking to OmniFocus on the iPhone.

To work around situations like that, you can you open up the "creating a computer-to-computer network" page of Mac Help. Using the steps in that help page, you can connect the two versions of OmniFocus directly by setting up a network on your mac, then having OmniFocus on your phone connect to that instead of your "normal" wireless network.

If you do that, you should be able to sync. If you can't sync with an ad-hoc network, use "Send Feedback" under the help menu and the support ninjas will be happy to assist.

[mwarner]

Thanks Brian, a few more quick questions, once (if) I set up this network connection, will I have to continually go into the OF preferences to share settings? Also, how does Bonjour syncing work as you describe (the syncing one minute after you make changes...) if my iPhone is not on with OF running open and running on the iPhone at that time?

I'm definitely going to have to go the computer to computer network route because I can't get any wireless sycing to work today that was was working yesterday. Same network, same settings, nada.

wishing it wasn't this hard...

[rh26]

OmniFocus on the Mac and on the iPhone will sync one minute after you make changes, or an hour after the last sync if no changes have been entered.

Question: Does OmniFocus iPhone have to be running for sync to occur? In other words, I start OmniFocus iPhone, make some change, immediately switch over to Mail, compose a message, then turn off the iPhone. Does OF iPhone really sync 1 minute later, or will it only sync the next time I run OF iPhone?

Likewise, I assume if I make changes on OF Mac (which get sync'ed locally if that's where the database lives) and after a while sleep the Mac, *THEN* I turn on the iPhone and fire up OF, it can't sync to grab those changes, right?

I guess I'm asking is this bottom line question: OF iPhone can't sync in the background so a) OF iPhone has to be running, AND b) the Mac with the OF Bonjour sync database must be up AT THE SAME time for items to get on and off the iPhone, correct?

[Ken Case]

I guess I'm asking is this bottom line question: OF iPhone can't sync in the background so a) OF iPhone has to be running, AND b) the Mac with the OF Bonjour sync database must be up AT THE SAME time for items to get on and off the iPhone, correct?

Yes, that's exactly correct. (That is why we started out implementing the server-based sync solution rather than Bonjour syncing, because we thought most people would rather independently sync each client against a server that was always available. But it's nice to have options!)

[rh26]

Thanks Ken. One question (in my entirely too long post) that you didn't address: If I make some edit in OF iPhone and then *immediately* press the Home button and go to another app, will OF attempt to sync while quitting, or (since less than 1 minute has passed) will that sync be deferred until next time OF is run?

[Ken Case]

If I make some edit in OF iPhone and then *immediately* press the Home button and go to another app, will OF attempt to sync while quitting, or (since less than 1 minute has passed) will that sync be deferred until next time OF is run?

There's no opportunity for OmniFocus to sync on quit: when you press the Home button, iPhone apps aren't allowed to do anything that takes more than a fraction of a second or they'll be force-quit by the system. (The Home button needs to be very responsive on a telephone!)

So if you want to sync before you quit, you can press the sync button in the toolbar and wait for it to finish. (If you're not planning to do something else with your phone, you can also turn off the screen with the top switch and leave OmniFocus running in the background.)

[mmurray]

On a related note: during a single day I work in typically three places -- coffee shop, office and home. All have wireless networks. Is there a way of avoiding having to send the sync instructions from the mac to the iPhone each time I change locations ? I could use mobileme as all locations have internet but the Bonjour sync is so fast :-)

Michael

To answer my own question: some of the time it seems to remember the connection but it will throw up and error the first time I try and then if I hit Retry it will sync.

Setting up an ad-hoc network on my macbook and connecting to that from the iPhone also works well.

Michael

[Ken Case]

To answer my own question: some of the time it seems to remember the connection but it will throw up and error the first time I try and then if I hit Retry it will sync.

Oh, sorry I missed that bit! Once you've set up Bonjour syncing, you shouldn't have to ever change those settings again even if your network setup changes (as long as both systems are still connected on some local network).

The next time it throws up an error, could you take a screenshot (hold the Home button, and press the Sleep/Wake button) and email that to our support ninjas at omnifocus-iphone@omnigroup.com? I'm not sure whether we'll be able to do something about the error or not (maybe we could retry automatically?), but it's worth looking into!

[mmurray]

Done - picture on its way - thanks Ken.

Michael

[y011]

OK

I used to use a local WebDAV server to sync but switched to Bonjour with new release. Blew away DB on phone intending to start fresh from computer. Am able to see settings from computer on phone when I select Share Settings on computer and am able to select that.

No sync ever happens. I just get "Unable to synchronize database with server. can't find host" and a cancel/retry.

Mine doesn't work after failing one time like mmurray's. Mine just Fails :-)

Looking at tcpdump I *can* see my iphone attempting to talk to mac and getting a reset for its trouble.

Ho I gots it to work. Turned off wireless on phone, turned back on. Went into sync prefs on Mac, switched to 'connect to an existing' and then back to sync on this mac. set different password, shared settings to bonjour.

went back to phone, got settings again. this time I didn't go into host and turn off auto-sync. selected home, sync and got prompted for password and syncd.

So yeah one of those 80 different variable things above. :-). I suspect it was turning off autosync before first sync. Paranoid me.