OmniFocus horribly slow with big db

[Schimmi]

Hi!

With a recent crash fix in OmniFocus 1.1 I was finally able to sync with the iPhone. I have a quite extensive OmniFocus database I use for my daily GTD process, started in the beta days of the desktop app, but certainly nothing exceptional.

The iPhone app is not really usable though. Sometimes (after sync I think) it takes a break for minutes, "Loading...". The whole phone is blocked. This is a real show stopper and makes it impossible to use in practice. Clicking the home button takes >10 sec to go back to the iPhone home screen, so the OS is not crashed or anything.

When it's imported finally the startup time is around 4 sec. Not really good either, but at least usable somehow. But also during normal usage I see this turning progress indicator in the toolbar sometimes. Then the GUI is unresponsive very often for several seconds.

I really had high expectations for the iPhone version, but this really frustrated me. The desktop version already is not very fast at times, but this tops it. Sorry, really hope there is just a serious bug which is to be fixed. But the whole experience more feels like a scalability/architecture problem. Let's hope I am wrong.

Schimmi

[JKT]

In the OF 1.1 betas, there is a new option in the File menu to create an archive of older actions (you can pick the time from when the archive gets created). It sounds like you would benefit from using the feature as it will both speed up the desktop version and reduce the synching time scale to your iPhone.

[jenniferp]

I've used this archive option to archive everything since July 08, but the app still starts to load, then crashes. Have never been able to sync. Really frustrating.

Jennifer

[djones]

Same issue here, though not with a large database. I have just started using OF and created a new Groceries project, and added about 50 items to it. Synced, and then OFi shows Loading for about 7-10 minutes. Really? What in the world is going on behind the scenes that takes almost 10 minutes to load 50 items? Archiving doesn't seem to be an appropriate solution in my case.

[BwanaZulia]

I've used this archive option to archive everything since July 08, but the app still starts to load, then crashes. Have never been able to sync. Really frustrating.

Jennifer

Agreed. I archived up to July 1st and it still takes 3-5 seconds to load. Too much for a "productivity" application.

BZ

[wok4]

Happend today. I made some (10+) actions to check of on the go, but standing in the first location it took me 5? MINUTES before OFi was usable...

wok4

[wolfneuralnet]

Same issue here, though not with a large database. I have just started using OF and created a new Groceries project, and added about 50 items to it. Synced, and then OFi shows Loading for about 7-10 minutes. Really? What in the world is going on behind the scenes that takes almost 10 minutes to load 50 items? Archiving doesn't seem to be an appropriate solution in my case.

I have also pruned everything prior to July, and the "loading" takes a VERY long time (10 secs sometimes) when I click on the app. This is not great if you want to check something quickly, and since apps cannot be run in the background.

Syncing time, even on wireless, is also an issue. I presume these are being worked on, but it would be nice to hear it...

[Lizard]

1) Syncing takes a lot longer (more than twice as long) when changes need to go both ways at the same time. To get better performance, if you make changes on your desktop, make sure they sync over to your phone before making changes there (and vice versa).

You may also want to check out this thread (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=8681) to make sure your database isn't unnecessarily large.

[dvinnola]

Same issue with me, but it seems worse. My database is tiny, maybe 4-5 projects with 5-6 items per project, and still am having issues with the sync. When I was first using the app, the sync was a little slow, but would finish. My phone sleeps in 5 minutes, and I would guess it goes to sleep 100% of the time before the sync finishes, even over wifi.

I am using MobileMe, so maybe that is just overwhelmed still?

[ee99ee]

same issue here. Sometimes it takes 5 min to load OF on the iPhone. Serious show stopper.

[BwanaZulia]

I paired down everything I could and it is still taking 3-5 seconds to load. It is hard using OFI as a "trusted source" at this point.

BZ

[ShawnLevasseur]

I've just started using both iPhone & desktop OmniFocus.

When I only had a few items in the database, the iPhone version took quite a while for the database to load upon startup.

Last Friday, I entered in a ton of new actions and contexts on the desktop side.

Instead of syncing the iPhone I deleted the program on the phone, allowed iTunes to reinstall the app, and reset the settings, downloading the whole database fresh.

The iPhone now launches much quicker than before.

So, uninstalling and reinstalling the app could help in this situation (assuming you're working with synced data)

[ShawnLevasseur]

I paired down everything I could and it is still taking 3-5 seconds to load. It is hard using OFI as a "trusted source" at this point.

BZ

Wait... 3 to 5 seconds?

That doesn't sound so bad.

Either you meant to say minutes, not seconds, or you really need to learn patience.

[Lizard]

3 to 5 seconds can be frustrating when you're waiting to write down that genius idea you just had. We do plan to continue to improve the performance and have ideas about how to do so as soon as we get through fixing a few more urgent issues.

[BwanaZulia]

3-5 seconds is the fastest. I have also waited MINUTES.

To be clear, of the 30-40 applications I have on the iPhone it is the slowest by far.

Maybe Cro Mag rally loads a little slower but it is a 58 MB game.

And yes, 3-5 seconds is WAY TO LONG for a to do application. Ubiquitous capture that isn't.


BZ

[dude]

3 -5 seconds isn't that bad for me...

However, don't assume because your have very few actions, less than 30 or 50 that your DB is small in size. Check the size and see. My DB has less than 30 actions right now and is growing by the minute it seems. It is at 360 KB. When it should be a lot less.

[BwanaZulia]

Where can I check the size?

BZ

[ichibod]

I was excited to try out OF 1.1 and the OF for iPhone. I just completely optimized everything last night and now have a start up time of a few seconds, but more importantly syncing takes a <15 seconds now.

I used the new "Move old data to Archive" option to move all of the older stuff to an archive in the File menu. But since I had already synced previously with my 700K db, it was always syncing against that. I think it needs to be purged to work effectively, despite the data being moved to the archive.

So on my MobileMe account I deleted my filename.ofocus document on the iDisk. The new file on the server was 24K. (!) I deleted the database from my iPhone, and then resynced. Success! It synced within seconds, and is infinitely more responsive with the 24K ofocus document in my MobileMe account as opposed to the 700K+ file that was there previously.

Hope this helps

Jones
ichibod.com

[chinarut]

3 to 5 seconds can be frustrating when you're waiting to write down that genius idea you just had. We do plan to continue to improve the performance and have ideas about how to do so as soon as we get through fixing a few more urgent issues.

thanks Lizard for acknowledging this. I stopped using OF on my iPhone due to performance reasons - for the record, my db is 2.4MB and I've already pruned it.

how is performance tuning coming along? It's been a bit over a month since you made this post and notice 1.1 is still in alpha (which is still rather surprising to be honest)

While I'm not too much in favor of having another app on my iPhone - it would be great if perhaps as a workaround, there was a "OmniFocus Quick Entry" app. Most of the time I am on the go - I don't need to have the whole db loaded and realizing I often don't even need my db for reference. I've resorted to good ole Notes and emailing them at the end of the day but even this is at risk for being forgotten so do consider the "Quick Entry" use case please.

The only long-term solution I can think of it to go the direction I think Steve Jobs wants you guys to go in from the beginning and it's to have a clever web-based app and keep all the data in "the cloud" where it belongs! Of course there are pros and cons but I, for one, would be willing to have you invest my $20 to go in this direction!

[Christopher]

I was excited to try out OF 1.1 and the OF for iPhone. I just completely optimized everything last night and now have a start up time of a few seconds, but more importantly syncing takes a <15 seconds now.

I used the new "Move old data to Archive" option to move all of the older stuff to an archive in the File menu. But since I had already synced previously with my 700K db, it was always syncing against that. I think it needs to be purged to work effectively, despite the data being moved to the archive.

So on my MobileMe account I deleted my filename.ofocus document on the iDisk. The new file on the server was 24K. (!) I deleted the database from my iPhone, and then resynced. Success! It synced within seconds, and is infinitely more responsive with the 24K ofocus document in my MobileMe account as opposed to the 700K+ file that was there previously.

Hope this helps

Jones
ichibod.com

That's good info, but the problem is going to keep coming back. Hopefully Omni will find a way to make it faster without having our having to keep on manually deleting our databases.

[Jon C]

Apologies in advance for the partial cross-post.. I just wanted to mention a suggestion I think is relevant to this discussion, which I just made in another thread:

[Since i think the area we need speed the most is quick data capture..] It would be great if omnifocus could take over the double-click feature of the home button, so that instead of bringing up ipod controls it brings up a quick-entry capture to inbox feature - the iphone equivalent of the quick capture KC/window on the mac version. As it stands, even if Omnifocus's loading time becomes instant, the act of capturing something will still be slowed down by having to slide the iphone unlock thingy, enter your passcode, wait for the flashy graphics, then hit the omnifocus button - and some of us would rather have quick idea capturing than quick access to our music..for those that want both, perhaps a triple click for OF?

Thanks for listening,

Jon

[Cameron]

Double clicking the Home button to pull up Omnifocus' quick capture Inbox is an awesome idea! I wonder if it is possible?

[HiramvdG]

Here's a possible solution for the ever-expanding database problem:

Give users the option to have checked off items delete themselves automatically after, say, a fortnight or a month. That way, users can still go back to recently finished tasks (sometimes that's necessary), but their databases will not grow beyond a certain, manageable size.

I never browsed my completed items when I was still using the desktop version of OmniFocus (I no longer do; that's one more reason I need a database-trimming solution that doesn't depend on the desktop app).

[mseibert]

I've used this archive option to archive everything since July 08, but the app still starts to load, then crashes. Have never been able to sync. Really frustrating.

Jennifer

I seem to have shifted in that state also. Very anoying. See here:
http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=9951