OMNI: Best Practices to reduce Sync Conflicts

[Lizard]

We're working to resolve issues with syncing. Meanwhile, here are some ways to reduce conflicts and data loss until we can push out those fixes.

1) Make sure your .ofocus file is smooshing properly. When all your clients are synced up, you should only have a couple .zip files in your OmniFocus.ofocus file. Follow the steps here (http://forums.omnigroup.com/showthread.php?t=9145) on one Mac and sync it, choosing "Local" if you get prompted. Then resync all your other machines and choose "Server" to get the smooshed file.

2) Leave OmniFocus running on your Macs as much as possible. They create a bunch of somewhat bogus updates on launch that can cause conflicts.

3) Sync every time you start and stop using OmniFocus on a particular Mac or iPhone.

[beharkey]

Lizard - when you say "Leave OmniFocus running on your Macs as much as possible.", do you mean that I can leave it running on my Mac (and thereby syncing once per hour even if there have been no changes), AND allow use it on the iPhone AT THE SAME TIME?

[Lizard]

Yes. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but this is actually going to reduce the number of sync conflicts. The bug is that OmniFocus handles tasks changing state (the current time passes the start date or due date) differently if it notices on launch than if the app is running when the task becomes overdue.

[gcrump]

Until this bug is resolved, is there anyway I can get an extra license code so I can run it on my desktop and laptop simultaneously? Right now it finds the other running copy.

[Andrew]

As of yesterday afternoon, we believe we have this fixed. The iPhone won't get the fix until 1.0.3 is available (hopefully not long, but we're still in testing), but it should be safe again to exit and launch the desktop version as desired, assuming that you're using build 103663 or later.

[sir42]

I just ran the script and the OmniFocus.ofocus file stored locally (in Library/Application Support...) has been reduced down to 1 zip from about 20. However the database package on my idisk still has about 20 zips. Is that normal? The size of the idisk package is 57 kb while the size of the local database package is 36 KB.

There is also an OmniFocus~.ofocus file being stored locally.

[Lizard]

Running the script is step 1. Then you need to sync that file up to the server and replace what the server has with your local file. Then your server file will also be down to 1 zip file (and 1 client file).

[paulduv]

I have hundreds of zip files my iDisk Documents folder. Can you clarify:

• So that's bad?
• Something about running a script. You do want me to run a script to rectify that problem?
• If so, where's that script?
• Can you provide a unified overview on what to do about this problem? Having trouble following the various threads on this. Step 1,2,3 would be great!

Thanks in advance!

[Lizard]

Hundreds of zip files are not inherently bad, but they generally lead to severe performance issues while syncing.

Unified overview:
Sync all your desktop computers, then run the attached applescript on whichever one has the most up-to-date info.
(You can run an applescript by opening the "Script Editor" application, opening the script file, and pressing the "Run" button.)
Next, open up your iDisk (or whatever location you're storing your sync database in) and rename its copy of the OmniFocus database to "OmniFocus-Old".
Do a sync from the machine that you ran the applescript on.
Launch OmniFocus on your phone and start a sync; when asked whether to use the 'local' or 'server' copy, choose 'server'.

Your syncs should now take a reasonable amount of time again.

If you are syncing more than 2 machines (Macs, iPhones, or a mix), you may want to check for a buildup of zip files periodically (once a week?), and run through the steps again if needed.

[awolfe_ii]

can't get OF desktop started at all!

[gaba]

Delete the corrupted OmniFocus.ofocus file from ~/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus, then open OmniFocus and revert to a backup (default location for backups is ~/Documents/OmniFocus Backups). Then run the script as described here.

This did the trick for me.

[eenlow]

Amen, I will also add that i had to dump my prefs so Sync would not start up.

[uof]

I haven't been in the forum much as I thought 1.0.3 on the iPhone had sorted most issues. Then in the process of archiving old tasks I needed to restore from a backup datafile and wondered why restoring from backup took so long - a 4MB file of nearly a 1000 zips!

Instructions here got it back down to 1 zip and less than 100k.

Sounds like it's my 2 macs, one iPhone combination that's trouble.

I've had a hunt around for a thread that covers this - does anyone know if Omni have given an idea of when all the syncing/coalescing stuff will be sorted within the desktop app?

[beharkey]

To my knowledge, they haven't told us when this problem is going to be sorted out.

In fact, the communication has gotten a bit quiet from Omni, lately.

Hopefully it will be solved soon!

[uof]

Thanks for the reply beharkey.

Sneaky peak builds seem to be slowing down a bit - hopefully it's still a live issue...

[whpalmer4]

After I used the clients display in the Sync preferences pane to eliminate a stale client, OmniFocus scrunched down my database from 4 MB to 1.4 MB and the zip file count went from a few thousand to a few hundred. Backup file size went from 8.4 MB to 2.5 MB. This is with 3 clients (all desktop).

Have a look at your clients display and see if there are some that shouldn't be there any longer. After that, keep all of the clients active for a few hours so they can do a couple of syncs and you should see some improvement. It just takes one client entry that is out of date to stop the compaction process from happening, because the other clients have to assume that client still exists and hasn't been synced. The compaction only happens when everyone is up to date.