"database on your iPhone is incompatible with the sync database" error message
 

Hello:
I am experiencing problems syncing between my laptop and my iphone. I sync via MobileMe. When I turn on omnifocus on my iPhone, I recive the following message:


Replace your database and start syncing?

The database on your iPhone is incompatible with the sync database. Which would you like to keep?

[keep device database]
[keep sync database]
[cancel]


I have selected [cancel] each time. I do not recive any error messages when I use OmniFocus on my desktop.

Here is the hardware & software I am using:

laptop:
Macbook with 2Ghz Intel Core Duo
1GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM
80GB harddrive, 4.57GB available
running Mac OS 10.5.8
using OmniFocus1.7.5

iPhone
16GB iPhone 3G
1.95 GB free on the hardrive
running OS 3.1.2
using OmniFocus 1.5.3

Bonjour,

J'ai exactement le même problème :-(

Macbook with 2,53Ghz I
4GB RAM
320GB HDD, 45GB disponible Mac OS 10.6.1
OmniFocus1.7.5

iPhone
16GB iPhone 3GS
5 GB free on the hardrive
running OS 3.1.2 OmniFocus 1.5.3

Merci pour votre aide

Steve

Same problem here. I thought it had something to do with me recently switching to WebDAV. I've sent a message to the support ninjas.

Exactly the same problem here.

Using Webdav with Swissdisk between MacBookPro and my iPhone.

TIA
Duncan.

[QUOTE=Hopetimist;69595]Exactly the same problem here.
[/QUOTE]
And you should take exactly the same actions -- contact the support ninjas. Help->Send Feedback, email [email]omnifocus@omnigroup.com[/email], or call 1-800-315-OMNI during US West Coast business hours.

Same problem, "database is incompatible" etc
 

I've been having no problems synching since downloading iPhone OF a couple of weeks ago (iPhone/MobileMe/Mac), but today got the "incompatible" message on iPhone. Haven't changed any settings anywhere, so don't know what prompted this.

Don't want to choose "device" OR "sync database," because was using iPhone OFocus AND laptop OF separately, different entries on both now, and don't want to lose either.

Has anybody found out how to fix this?

I have the same problem with a new install of the iPhone app. Happens on both my work and home computers. Just emailed the ninjas. I'll let you know what they say.

Thank you OFocus for the quick response!

The Ninja's Reply:


I'm really sorry for the trouble here. There's a sync bug on the iPhone that we're currently investigating, and will hopefully have a fix implemented in the next update.

In a nutshell, each edit to your database is stored as a separate transaction file, which form a kind of "tree" diagram, with root and tail transactions. This order of transactions need to be the same on all devices in order to sync properly. If you're editing an item or creating a new one while a sync is running on the iPhone, the new edits aren't properly saved to your database. They're stored in the application's cache, and are added to the database after the initial sync, but the subsequent sync will point to the wrong 'tail' transactions, which causes that incompatibility error.

First, you'll want to tap the following link on your phone:

[url]http://people.omnigroup.com/kc/DebugOmniFocus/EmailDatabase.html[/url]

Then, tap the Email Database link. This will generate a Mail message on your phone with the OmniFocus database attached. Edit the recipient field so that you send the email to yourself. This way, you'll have a recent backup of your iPhone's database.

Now, run a sync on your phone, and select the Sync database when prompted with that dialog.

Now, head over to your Mac. Open the email you just sent yourself, and double-click the attached OmniFocus.ofocus file- this will open your iPhone's database on your Mac's copy of OmniFocus. 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.

If you're still having trouble, feel free to call us at 800.315.6664. We're open from 10AM-5PM PST. In case the phone support people need to refer to our correspondence, your ticket number is 498090. Again, apologies for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,

Jameson Brown
Support Ninja
Omni Group

Is the link correct?
 

I can't get this link to work from my iPhone. I'm entering it in safari as show, although it doesn't look right (too many dots.) I get a not found error.

The link is correct if you tap it -- however it is displayed with the middle section shortened so if you type it in, it won't work. The full text is:

[code]
http://people.omnigroup.com/kc/DebugOmniFocus/EmailDatabase.html
[/code]

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!

[QUOTE=chrispix;78986]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.
[/quote]
It makes no difference how you do the syncs; if you don't sync often enough, you'll get the notification about not syncing.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;78987]It makes no difference how you do the syncs; if you don't sync often enough, you'll get the notification about not syncing.[/QUOTE]

Right, but with WebDAV, it syncs whenever I open the app on my iPhone. When I was syncing locally, I had to open the app when I was at home with my mac not sleeping, which I did rarely.

[QUOTE=chrispix;78986]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![/QUOTE]

I should also add that this error appeared for me after I upgraded to iOS 4, so perhaps there's a new syncing issue.

Chris, you mention the "haven't synced in a while" message, but the thread title is a different message. Can you clarify which message you got after updating your phone?

We haven't gotten any other reports of the message in the title of this thread, but if that's what happened to you and you still have both databases, please contact the [EMAIL="omnifocus@omnigroup.com"]support ninjas[/EMAIL] so we can look into this. Thanks!

[QUOTE=Brian;78994]Chris, you mention the "haven't synced in a while" message, but the thread title is a different message. Can you clarify which message you got after updating your phone?

We haven't gotten any other reports of the message in the title of this thread, but if that's what happened to you and you still have both databases, please contact the [EMAIL="omnifocus@omnigroup.com"]support ninjas[/EMAIL] so we can look into this. Thanks![/QUOTE]

Sorry for the confusion. I previously was getting the "haven't synced in a while" message, so I switched from local sync to WebDAV to avoid it. My phone was syncing fine with WebDAV. A few days later, I upgraded my iPhone to iOS 4, and then I started getting the "database on your iPhone is incompatible with the sync database" message.

So it's possible that the issue has to do with WebDAV sync, iOS4, or the combination of the two. If you'd like, I could send support my iPhone database and my WebDAV info.

[QUOTE=chrispix;79022]So it's possible that the issue has to do with WebDAV sync, iOS4, or the combination of the two. If you'd like, I could send support my iPhone database and my WebDAV info.[/QUOTE]

If you see the incompatible message again, it would be very helpful if you can zip up the server database and the database from the device that's presenting the message and send those off to the [EMAIL="omnifocus@omnigroup.com"]support ninjas[/EMAIL]. We'll be able to compare the two and figure out what's going on.

(On a Mac, your database is stored in ~/Library/Application Support/OmniFocus. To send the database from an iOS device, open this [URL="http://people.omnigroup.com/kc/DebugOmniFocus/EmailDatabase.html"]debug page[/URL] in Safari on the device, then tap the "Email Database" link at the top.)

Thanks very much for the help with this!

Same problem, still not fixed with latest app upgrade
 

I'm having this same database incompatibility problem as others have had. I tried the earlier suggestion of emailing the databases to the ninjas, but the link just crashed OmniFocus on my phone, and didn't send the data. I'm surprised this is still an issue given the number of people who've had similar problems for more than a year. I rely very heavily on OmniFocus in my professional and personal life -- as the user below said, it's hard to trust a piece of software when this happens. So what do we do? How do we fix this?

[QUOTE=Avrum68;73313]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[/QUOTE]

Contact the support ninjas. The latest version of the app allows you to extract the database via iTunes, so they can have a look at it even if you can't use the email database link.

Thanks for the quick-fix, OmniFocus folks. I got help from the Tech Support Ninjas who got me set up to synch through the omni focus server instead of my local server, which solved the problem. They also told me how to go back into my backups and find any data that might have been lost in the synch issue, so no data lost, and now all is working well. Yay Omni Focus!

Hi

What was the fix? I get the same issue. I'm syncing between my MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, iPad and iPhone 4 (4.1)

[QUOTE=AndyThomas;87351]Hi

What was the fix? I get the same issue. I'm syncing between my MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, iPad and iPhone 4 (4.1)[/QUOTE]

Contact the support ninjas...[url]http://www.omnigroup.com/support/[/url]

Have already done that, was hoping that somebody would share their experience given it sounds like there's a fix

I read this

"Thanks for the quick-fix, OmniFocus folks. I got help from the Tech Support Ninjas who got me set up to synch through the omni focus server instead of my local server, which solved the problem."

So it sounds like there's a general fix

All that guy did was set up sync with a different server, wiping away the old problem, just as replacing one of the databases would have done. It didn't do anything about fixing the root cause.

Contacting the ninjas is better because they can make sure that you really are applying the proper solution, and possibly ferret out some clues as to the underlying problem. If you're having sync problems, you should call them rather than waiting around for email.

Done

Did the simple thing and just gave up on MobileMe and went onto the OG server

Probably easier that way. Over time maybe the MobileMe issue will go, but I doubt there's much OG can do about it.

For anyone else seeing the same thing, just sign up here

[url]http://www.omnigroup.com/sync[/url]

Took me about 2 mins to reconfigure all my devices

Thanks Ninjas!

I've been seeing this message for about a week now and I'm on the Omni Sync Server. I ended up deleting the folder on the server and starting over with syncing from my Macbook Air instance of OmniFocus. After several attempts from a complete 'do-ver' it's working now. I wonder if it has something to do with Perspective syncing... I just turned it back on, so I'll see how it goes. Never had a problem syncing before and I've been using the product since it was in beta....

1.9 appears to have fixed this problem for me. I disabled perspective syncing on the previous version and the problem disappeared. I've reenabled it on 1.9 and everything is working well.... Back to work....

I'm doing daily 3 way syncs with the all three client types and occasionally have this issue. But since I ALWAYS sync before I do any work in omnifocus and then after, I always know whether to keep the local or remote database so it's not a big issue.

(I sync using MobileMe and have iDisc syncing turned on)

Does anyone know:
a) How/Why omnifocus believes the databases are incompatible?
b) If there are any known scenarios that trigger it?

I have noticed that my iPhone clock can drift a few minutes a month and wondered if out of order timestamps might be a factor.