Omni Focus on iPhone 3G crashed

[Abo68]

Help. My Omni Focus on iPhone 3G crashed and doesn't start up any more. How can I delete and reinstall OmniFocus or ist there any workaround to solve this problem?

regards
Axel

[calvarez]

I'm having the same problem. The first few times it crashed, rebooting the phone made it run again for a short time. Now it will not start at all. I get the "loading" progress bar, and once it gets to about 1/4 the app just closes out.

[Dribbler]

I had this problem too- I went into application download overdrive, trying out a few paid apps and lots of free apps- very few of the downloaded apps would work- just show the splash screen and crash.

I removed the free apps from itunes, resync'd and it started working. Other people have had luck re-authorizing their computer

Hope this helps,

Simon


http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1598535&tstart=510

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1596878&tstart=480

[xDavex]

I've had this problem twice since I purchased the app. yesterday: when I launch the app., it freezes during the "Loading..." screen and then crashes. Each time, the only way I've been able to fix it is to delete the program from the iPhone and redownload it from the iTunes store, then resync my data base to the Mac app.

I'm not, though, experiencing crashes with my other iPhone apps., as the post above suggests.

I'm using an First Gen iPhone, not a 3G iPhone.

[calvarez]

I've had problems with apps closing right after opening before, but this is different. This runs for a short time then fails while it is trying to get my data. When I have the other problem the apps close before even being displayed. And in THAT case there's one trick that always fixes it--loading another app. If I load one more app, all the others start working again. This is fully repeatable. So even removing/re-adding an app works, or just loading an additional one.

However, this is not the same problem I'm having with Omni Focus, and that trick doesn't work. Authorize didn't help. Removing Focus and re-synchronizing did fix the problem, but I fear it will return.

[Ken Case]

If anyone is still having trouble like this, please contact our tech support ninjas as soon as possible at omnifocus-iphone@omnigroup.com. We're here to help!

[Brian]

I'm having the same problem. The first few times it crashed, rebooting the phone made it run again for a short time. Now it will not start at all. I get the "loading" progress bar, and once it gets to about 1/4 the app just closes out.

For the most part, this appears to be happening to folks that have more actions in their database than the iPhone can hold in memory at once. Once memory runs out, the phone shuts the app down.

In OmniFocus 1.1, we added a new "Archive Old Data..." item under the File menu. It will move older actions over to a separate database file that isn't synced with your phone. This way, you have access to your older actions when you need to refer to them back on your desktop, but your phone doesn't run out of memory.

In general, we'd recommend trying to keep the number of actions on your phone down below a thousand.

So, the procedure here would be:

Back up database on desktop
Archive data on desktop
Synch on desktop
Synch on phone


Does that help the crashes?

[Tetsugaku-San]

Just to let you know - me too, although I have emailed the ninjas...

I hit the icon on my iphone front page, the loading screen appears, I get maybe 20% of the way down the load bar and it crashes back to the desktop.

After effectively forcing me into a .me account with the sync issues, I am even less impressed with this latest bug.

[JustPlainDave]

As a data point, I think I may be in the "for the least part" category then. I should currently have about 300 total in my database (75 remaining, the balance completed). My experience was that the iPhone app went into a cycle of crashing out during database load after a sequence of rapid syncs (using webDAV) between the desktop app and the iPhone app. I would speculate that some form of terminal database corruption occurred.

Let me take the opportunity to congratulate you guys on a really great app. Your recent award was very well deserved. I certainly appreciate how difficult this type of synchronization is and look forward to seeing the wrinkles ironed out.

[calumma]

Omni Focus has crashed on my iPhone as well. Same symptoms as others have reported. I also noted that Safari went down at the same time - perhaps due to memory related issues with Focus? Specifically the app would launch, but it was not possible to interact with the webpage or controls. Rebooting solved the Safari crash, but not Focus. Like others have mentioned I deleted the app and reinstalled. I have also followed the advice to archive old actions. Fingers crossed.

Could the number of actions Focus can keep in memory be related to how many of the standard applications (like Safari) are in use? I had 8 pages open in Safari when the two apps failed.

Will we have to keep archiving old data, or can this process be made automatic?

[ptone]

I think app management is just plain a bit buggy in the 2.0 release. I've had a number of apps crash repeatedly (including safari, which crashes more often then it used to). I've had apps that have to be reinstalled to work. OmniFocus once even completely crashed the phone (or some resource it called, I'm not blaming Omni). As soon as I touched the icon, the screen flickered and then white apple logo and reboot.

-P

[mdavis75]

I am using OmniFocus on an iPod Touch. It is currently crashing about every 3rd time I start it. But it is not just the app that crashes, but the entire iPod.

When home I'll grab the crash log from iTunes and email it to support.

[calvarez]

In general, we'd recommend trying to keep the number of actions on your phone down below a thousand.

In my case I only had around six actions. I'm a new user and was in test mode with only the stock projects and one test project.

After removing and re-synchronizing data, the problem hasn't happened again. However I've had an extremely busy day and only ran the app three times today.

[PSKR]

I have a iPhone 2.5G (EDGE). I have downloaded about 15 apps. The last two apps I downloaded were the game 'Aurora Feint' and 'OmniFocus'. Of all the 15 apps. These are the only two apps that failed. And of the two OmniFocus crashed about 7 times within half hour. Unlike the previous posts, mine doesn't crash while loading but, it would crash sometime during assigning a task to a context or while creating a new task or project or while recording audio for a task. It used to take upto half a minute to load but, of late, it has improved considerably. Everytime, it crashes, I just reboot and continue my work (I don't know what else to do). I do not own the desktop version of OminFocus yet.

Thank you.

NOTE: As mentioned above, I have only about 6 actions and one project.

[1/2Astronaut]

I did all this plus restored my Iphones software.
Omniplan tries to start and then quits. The status bar doesn't make it past 1/4 and it switches to the apps viewer.

Not to mention it took over 4 hours to get it syncing properly between my powerbook G4. And now that it did. It doesn't work on the Iphone.

So much for productivity. back to pencil and paper. AGAIN!

[1/2Astronaut]

So yes I have blown yesterday and today goofing around with Omnifocus for the iphone. I had it working. Even managed to sync it which took forever. (Better directions please!!!!!)

Symptom: Omnifocus refuses to launch on the iphone. It starts, the status bar gets about 1/4" of the way and the iphone reverts to the home screen.

What I tried.
Deleting omnifocus from itunes apps and reinstalling (did this twice)
Restoring the factory settings on the Iphone and reinstalling all of my data.
Deleting third party apps. except omnifocus and syncing.
Resetting the iphone like 5 times.

None of this worked. Any ideas?

[1/2Astronaut]

Voila,

This seemed to have cured my ills. Hold down the omnifocus icon on the iphone til it wobbles. tap the x in the corner to delete it and re-sync your iphone. Lets see how long it lasts.

Apple support has been clogged all morning. Finally got through to this.
:)
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1702

[diesel]

For the most part, this appears to be happening to folks that have more actions in their database than the iPhone can hold in memory at once. Once memory runs out, the phone shuts the app down.

In OmniFocus 1.1, we added a new "Archive Old Data..." item under the File menu. It will move older actions over to a separate database file that isn't synced with your phone. This way, you have access to your older actions when you need to refer to them back on your desktop, but your phone doesn't run out of memory.

In general, we'd recommend trying to keep the number of actions on your phone down below a thousand.

So, the procedure here would be:

Back up database on desktop
Archive data on desktop
Synch on desktop
Synch on phone


Does that help the crashes?


I say BS to that. I just purchased the program and only have one item, ONE item, not over a thousand. And it crashes all the time.

[calvarez]

I'm amazed that Apple couldn't make their official app store work better than the jailbreak app installer. To be fair to Omni, I think I've had nearly every single add-on app crash at least one time on me. I think there's an underlying issue that seems to be worse with any apps that attempt to use locations or attempt to sync data. Focus does both.

[whpalmer4]

I say BS to that. I just purchased the program and only have one item, ONE item, not over a thousand. And it crashes all the time.

You did notice he said "for the most part" right? Don't you think it possible that there might be another bug which the people whose phones are crashing don't encounter?

I've never known Omni to regard anything that causes one of their apps to crash as inconsequential.

[calvarez]

Considering that Omni has a reputation for making high-quality apps and providing good support, I think it's wasteful and counter-productive to sling mud at this time. Also remember that Apple is making it hard to get anything loaded on the app store.

I know it's frustrating to run into this sort of thing. It's doubly so when it's your productivity app which should be saving you time, and is critical to your day.

[Brian]

Could the number of actions Focus can keep in memory be related to how many of the standard applications (like Safari) are in use? I had 8 pages open in Safari when the two apps failed.

This is definitely a factor, but I don't know how big a factor. Playing music certainly uses up memory. I don't know how long Safari holds on to memory when it's not running, or how much it uses.

[Brian]

I say BS to that. I just purchased the program and only have one item, ONE item, not over a thousand. And it crashes all the time.

Sorry this is happening - the 'thousands of actions' bit only applies to folks that are syncing their OmniFocus database with their iPhone database.

From the information you mentioned in another thread, you're not synching; you also mentioned that this is one action with two pictures and an audio recording attached. Audio and pictures both occupy a lot more space in memory than the text we use to represent an action without attachments.
I don't know enough about how the app works to know if that's the cause. If we are loading those attachments into memory before you view them, it's certainly a possibility. If you're seeing a "Loading..." progress bar, and we crash before the bar fills, that would seem more likely.

If we're just starting up and crashing straight away, it's more likely that the problem is one of the ones mentioned in this Apple tech note (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1702). Do those steps help at all?