I'm also getting this error, daily. every morning when I re-boot my Mac and start up my iPod touch. Happens every single day. I now know to make sure the Mac is current that night so I can delete the database on the iPod but it's sure frustrating.


Yes, I've contacted the support Ninja's but no answer beyond asking a question about whether I switch networks during the day.

Are you using MobileMe disk sync, by any chance?

Oogie, I took a look at your support ticket - the error messages mentioned there are different than the one the title of this thread refers to.

Are you getting both a "cannot start sync server" message on the mac as well as the "databases are incompatible" message? The email mentions the former, but this thread is about the latter.

Just want to un-tangle any confusion if wires got crossed somewhere along the way. (Sending this as email, as well.)

Yes, I get both error messages every day now. Originally I was only getting the cannot start sync server message.

I use Mobile Me for other stuff but I use Bonjour for Omnifocus sync

Sorry for the confusion.

Cannot decipher instructions--stuck without iPhone tasks in main DB
 

Hi all...

I'm having this problem and I don't understand this part of Jameson's instructions:

[QUOTE=wellerpond;70848]
Select "All Items" from the Perspectives menu, and copy and paste any missing info into your main document on the Mac, and run a sync. Then, run a sync on your iPhone. This should put your iPhone and Mac back in sync. While we fix the bug, it's good practice to run a sync on the iPhone before you quit the app, without making any edits.

Sincerely,

Jameson Brown
Support Ninja
Omni Group[/QUOTE]

In particular, that "paste any missing info into your main document on the Mac" ...
(1) What is the 'main document' ?
(2) And how do we determine what is missing ?

I'm also confused by the ", and run a sync. Then, run a sync on your iPhone."
(3) Do you mean run a sync twice ?
(4) Or are you talking about an iPhone Sync with iTunes vs. an OmniFocus database sync and you mean for us to do both?

Finally, the last part of the last sentence, "run a sync on the iPhone before you quit the app, without making any edits."
(5) Does this mean when running the Mac version, sync it to your iPhone before quitting?
(6) But what does 'without making any edits' mean? To the iPhone version? Obviously you have to make 'edits' (add tasks, projects, review, check off items, etc.) on both versions at different times, in order to use them...
(7) It doesn't mean to sync to the Mac when finished running the iPhone version, that you have to sync before quitting the iPhone version, does it? That would be hard (I'd have to lug around my Mac everywhere my iPhone goes)! ;)

Of course, I'm now halfway through this process (having used the Sync Database option) and now I have none of the tasks I'd added to my iPhone over the past few days. (Should have listened to my intuition and not started this on a Sunday... :o !)

Anyway, Bill, or anyone (Jameson), others, any advice?

Short version: What "main document" do I copy my items to--I *can* see the 'new' items when I open the emailed database file on my Mac (which is running 1.7.5 OF--my iPhone is running 1.6), I just don't know where to paste them in, after I copy them (assuming I can find all the discrepancies, and to do that I compare it with ... ? Again, I don't know what the "main document" is or where it is, in order to compare the two versions and find missing items/discrepancies between the two DBs).

Thanks!
~ Brad

Hi Brad! Sorry I didn't get a chance to answer this earlier.

[QUOTE=likethesky;72868]
I'm having this problem and I don't understand this part of Jameson's instructions:

In particular, that "paste any missing info into your main document on the Mac" ...
(1) What is the 'main document' ?
[/quote]
Your regular database. You'll still have a window open for that (unless you closed them all) in addition to the window for the iPhone database gotten by double-clicking on the email attachment. OF will let you have more than one database open at a time, though it will only sync the "main" one which lives in ~/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus.ofocus.
[quote]
(2) And how do we determine what is missing ?
[/quote]
Ah, well, that's the tricky bit, eh? :)

However, there's a simplifying assumption here which is that you were successfully syncing at one point, so it is only the most recent changes made on your iPhone that weren't synced to your desktop -- the ones since you last successfully synced. You can go to the iPhone database window, do a context mode view and group by last changed and hopefully quickly spot the most recently changed items that need to be copied. Also do last added to catch newly added stuff, and you'll want to check both completed and remaining actions.
[quote]
I'm also confused by the ", and run a sync. Then, run a sync on your iPhone."
(3) Do you mean run a sync twice ?
[/quote]
Both devices need to do a sync.
[quote]
(4) Or are you talking about an iPhone Sync with iTunes vs. an OmniFocus database sync and you mean for us to do both?
[/quote]
No, just that you have to do a sync on the desktop OmniFocus and one on the iPhone OmniFocus. Remember, the sync database just sits there in the middle, and whenever you do a sync from a device, OmniFocus retrieves new changes from the sync database and adds changes from the device's local database. So, to get the updated data (the complete database from your desktop after you've added in the "missing" stuff from the iPhone by hand) to the iPhone, you need to first sync the desktop, which puts those changes into the central sync database, and then sync the iPhone, which retrieves those changes. At that point, everyone will be on the same page.
[quote]
Finally, the last part of the last sentence, "run a sync on the iPhone before you quit the app, without making any edits."
(5) Does this mean when running the Mac version, sync it to your iPhone before quitting?
(6) But what does 'without making any edits' mean? To the iPhone version? Obviously you have to make 'edits' (add tasks, projects, review, check off items, etc.) on both versions at different times, in order to use them...
(7) It doesn't mean to sync to the Mac when finished running the iPhone version, that you have to sync before quitting the iPhone version, does it? That would be hard (I'd have to lug around my Mac everywhere my iPhone goes)! ;)
[/quote]

I think all he is saying is that you should do a sync on the iPhone and then quit, which will have the effect of always flushing out any changes you might have made so that you don't have to repeat this process. And if anything new has come into the database in the mean time (like via the email processing setup), those new changes will be up to date on the iPhone as well. Think of it as reflexively clicking the Save button before exiting the editor :)

Hope that helps!

Argh!!!
 

Thought this problem would be solved with the latest iPhone version. Nope.

Sent this email to Omni:

I used to receive this error:
"database on your iPhone is incompatible with the sync database"
with the a latter version of Omnifocus for iPhone (I'm currently using 1.6.1).

Like an idiot, I synced, and now have an old version of my Omni lists on my iPhone and desktop.

So, so frustrating. And worse, it's hard to trust your software when this happens.

So now what guys?

Omnifocus version 1.7.3
Omnifocus iPhone 1.6.1
OS 10.5.8
Sync via MobileME

Do you by any chance use MobileMe to sync your iDisk as well? If so, are you storing your OmniFocus database in the default location (Documents folder on iDisk) or have you switched to using the Backup directory?

As I recall, whenever this happens, OmniFocus writes out a copy of the database back to the server prior to blowing it away and replacing with the one on the server. You should be able to recover the data from before you agreed to replace the database if my recollection is correct. I suggest you call Omni's support ninjas in the morning at about 10AM Pacific time and they can walk you through the process as well as capture any troubleshooting data that might remain.

[QUOTE=Avrum68;73313]Thought this problem would be solved with the latest iPhone version. Nope.

Omnifocus version 1.7.3
Omnifocus iPhone 1.6.1
OS 10.5.8
Sync via MobileME[/QUOTE]

FWIW, when I got this issue (see above) I was using:
OF 1.7.5 on Mac OS 10.5.8 and
OF iPhone 1.6.1 (built 2010-02-04 at 17:10:15)
and I have never used MobileMe (though I have an account), but instead have always used Bonjour on my local net.

It *is* scary--and no, I still haven't followed Bill's great and detailed advice above (yet) to fix it--just haven't had time to sit down and be that careful yet with my data...

~ Brad

I used to sync directly to the database on my mac, but got sick of the notifications that I hadn't synced recently enough, so I switched to WebDAV. It worked fine for a few days, then I got the error above. So it's still happening with the latest OF on my mac and 1.6.5 on my iPhone. What a PITA!