Repeating actions are cloned
 

I have a series of daily tasks, each set to repeat weekly. IOW each day of the week has a set of tasks that will recur on the same day every week. They are all in a single-action list called "daily checklist", and all are flagged. They have start and due dates at different times on the same day.

Sometimes I do not check off an item until after its due time has passed.

Problem: Each day, several tasks are duplicated when they recur. E.g. the task "Write for 15 minutes" is checked off, and a week later when the start date arrives, there are two tasks called "Write for 15 minutes" with identical start and due times.

This is not true of every task. At first I thought I must have set up the tasks incorrectly, so I stopped repeats on of the twin actions, then checked both off. But even after verifying there were no duplicates pending, I'm finding that they keep occurring. I can't see a pattern in the actions' Added or Changed timestamps.

Before reporting a bug, I want to see if I'm doing something wrong. I've checked the manual and searched the forums, but found no insight into the problem.

Could OmniSync be duplicating some repeating actions?

What you likely want is a repeating task that only reappears at a certain time (one day, one week ...) after completion of the outstanding task rather than just appears consistently after a certain time even if the new duplicates a still outstanding task. Unless I misunderstand, I suspect others will confirm, this is not possible in the current version of OF (though is possible in Things).

Hi Alarob,

By design, each time a repeating action is completed in OmniFocus it
spawns a new action. So what I think that happens in your case (what I do very often accidentally as well) is that you check a repeating task, and uncheck it at some point. Therefore Omnifocus will automatically create a duplicate of you repeating task.

I hope that in the future, Omnifocus will automatically delete the
spawned action when un-marking a task that has been already marked
complete. That would fix this problem.

There are other odd consequences of the "replicate on completion scheme".

If you have two clients and you complete a repeating task on both, then sync, you'll end up with three: one completed, and two replicated ones. I fall into this trap fairly regularly.

It's weird but at least nothing is lost.

If the task were cloned then deleted on completion then there's the possibility that during a sync changes made on one client (e.g. to the note) could be irretrievably lost.

The transactional nature of the Omnifocus sync scheme has lots of up sides, but this isn't one of them :-)

[QUOTE=DrJJWMac;96942]What you likely want is a repeating task that only reappears at a certain time (one day, one week ...) after completion of the outstanding task ....[/QUOTE]

No, in this case I prefer that tasks start (become available) at the assigned time.

[QUOTE=]spawns a new action. So what I think that happens in your case (what I do very often accidentally as well) is that you check a repeating task, and uncheck it at some point. Therefore Omnifocus will automatically create a duplicate of you repeating task.[/QUOTE]

I don't think I am inadvertently unchecking items after checking them. However I am inconsistent about whether I check them off with the iPhone or desktop app.

So I wonder whether Omni Sync is the real culprit here. It's more convenient than syncing with Bonjour, but I may return to Bonjour tonsee whether these problems persist.

[QUOTE=Alarob;96973]So I wonder whether Omni Sync is the real culprit here. It's more convenient than syncing with Bonjour, but I may return to Bonjour tonsee whether these problems persist.[/QUOTE]

FWIW, I've reported a similar bug. Mine goes something like:

* Have repeating project ("weekly chores" or similar);
* Complete project, then edit project in one place after completing it
* Sync other places
* Repeating project appears more than once, except only one copy has the new data I added.

[QUOTE=intranation;97052]FWIW, I've reported a similar bug. Mine goes something like:

* Have repeating project ("weekly chores" or similar);
* Complete project, then edit project in one place after completing it
* Sync other places
* Repeating project appears more than once, except only one copy has the new data I added.[/QUOTE]

Are you using Omni Sync or some other sync method?

I haven't fully explored the wrinkles yet, but I've discovered a useful feature of repeating groups:

If a group repeats at 00:00 every day, and starts today, and one of it's subtasks starts at a specific time today, when the group repeats the subtask start time is bumped a day too. This allows project structures like:

- Chores: start today at 00:00, repeat after one day, parallel, auto complete
-- Morning: auto complete
--- lots of tasks here -> MorningContext
-- Evening: start today at 18:00, auto complete
--- lots of tasks here -> EveningContext

When the root task becomes complete and it's all replicated for tomorrow, the evening group gets a start time of tomorrow at 18:00, which is of course exactly what I want.

I think there's a case for some central browsable repository for little recipes like this - I've been using OF for a couple of years and I'm still discovering things like this!

I have exactly the same problem. I use OmniFocus on my Mac and iPhone. I have several repeating tasks such a watering plants etc. I check off tasks in desktop app or iPhone app. It's not always the same device. I've been using the OmniFocus server for syncing, but the repeating tasts starts duplicating. So now I'm trying sync by Bonjour, but I think this won't solve the problem! I started this sync method yesterday (I still check off some task on desktop app and some in iPhone app) and I already have duplicated task. It starts being very annoying. I hope the OmniFocus will take care of this, because the apps are not cheap. I don't want to be forced to change OmniFocus for Things.

Changing sync methods is very unlikely to change the occurence of these duplicate items.

The thing that will help is to sync each device as you start and stop using it. Obviously, this is just a workaround. We're tracking the bug so that we can provide a proper fix.

Duplicated repeating actions
 

Has there been any progress on this bug? It is still happening with the latest version. I have an iPad, iPhone, and a mac desktop which is left on with omnifocus open all the time (acts as a server for other things too).

I have a few repeating daily or weekly actions that are by design supposed to repeat every day-- they are set up properly as "repeat every 1 day" or as required. They are specifically not "start again after" projects.

I am using the Omni sync server.

Throughout the day, I will bounce around to each of the clients as necessary, but I do most of my checking off from a mobile device. I almost always have an internet connection however, and I am led to believe that the sync is "near instantaneous." I can confirm it is pretty quick on the desktop, but I have seen lags with the mobiles (which I don't mind and can understand-- I don't need a battery sucking app).

However, if I am reading this thread correctly, we are advised to manually perform a full sync on our mobile devices each time we modify anything on the app before touching anything else to avoid this problem?

Perhaps a setting on the iOS apps is in order to toggle background syncing upon data change on or off (off, low, medium, high) so I can choose to drain my battery rather than deal with 30 duplicate self-cloning repeating daily tasks?

Can I make another suggestion for the mobile devices?

Could the sync icon change to a different color when there are uncommitted changes made on the device? Say green when all synced, the spinner when syncing, red when there are uncommitted changes, and the bang when there has been a failed sync? That way, I could get into the habit of seeing that the sync icon has turned red for example, telling me that I have changed something on that device since the last successful sync, thus prompting me to press it prior to exiting or backgrounding the application. This would minimize the time I spend cleaning up after cloned tasks.

Currently I am trying to force myself to wait for a full sync prior to making any changes other than a quick entry on the phone or ipad. This is annoying, as my database is large enough that it can take upwards of 1 1/2 minutes to do a full sync, show the updating progress bar, then dump me back to the UI. Also, this will not fix the likely scenario that I make a change on the phone or ipad then flip back to the mail, calendar, or other app, and then never go back to omnifocus to make sure it synced prior to hopping to another device later.

skorvek, if you make a change in OmniFocus on one device, it will automatically sync within a minute, in order to make sure that the sync server is quickly updated. It also syncs immediately if you switch away from OmniFocus. (It only has a brief period available after you switch away before iOS will shut it down, but in typical usage that should be sufficient to complete the sync.) Given this frequency, I think highlighting the sync button when there are changes would mostly serve to distract users and to make them compulsively hit the sync button despite the fact that it would sync in a moment anyway.

I think you'll find that the real issue is that your _other_ client don't know that the data on the sync server has changed, so they don't immediately grab those changes. They will sync once an hour (or at launch, if it's been at least an hour since the last sync) in order to see if there are any changes waiting for them.

Therefore, if it's been over a minute since you used the last client, hitting the sync button when you pick up with a different client should be sufficient to keep you in sync.

That and some other sync info is available on the OmniFocus support page: [url]http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnifocus/support/[/url]

Of course, you may still want the sync button to change color / highlight in some way when local changes have not been synced to the server. If so I would use the "Send Feedback" menu item in OmniFocus for Mac or in the gear popup in OmniFocus on iPhone, or the "Contact Omni" gear popup item in OmniFocus on the iPad in order to send in that feedback, along with a description of why you think it's still compelling given the existing sync frequency, to ensure it gets recorded and considered along with your use case.

That's not really the issue. But there are steps you could take to ameliorate each possibility. I will send in a ticket to address them.