Switch From MobileMe To Omni Sync Server
 

I am considering switching from MobileMe to OSS as I have been getting unusual sync failed messages lately both on the desktop and the mobile apps. Since I am still fairly new to OmniFocus, is there a safe procedure for switching from one sync host to another?

I need to switch the following devices:

- Two desktop machines in two different locations (home, work)
- One iPhone
- One iPad

Thanks.

EDIT: I have no idea why I posted this in the Mac forum when I should have posted it in the Sync forum. Oops. If someone could move I would appreciate it.

EDIT AGAIN: I failed to mention that I have previously synced with OSS, but the data there is old. Since there doesn't appear to be a way to remove the old data from OSS, how would I deal with that when moving from MobileMe to OSS?

What kind of strange messages? Do you have MobileMe's disk syncing feature enabled?

No. I actually use Dropbox for computer to computer file sharing. I only use MobileMe for other sync services (calendar, address book, etc.), and so I don't have iDisk syncing enabled. I never found it terribly reliable. To be clear, however, I am using MobileMe for OmniFocus syncing, I just don't have iDisk sync enabled so I don't have iDisk mounted on my desktop or anything like that.

I am getting messages like "could not find iDisk" or something like that, and "500 error" or something like that. I don't get them every day, but they have been happening every few days or so. When I get the error, if I manually sync OmniFocus again, the sync works fine. Odd. I have not lost any data as a result, so it's really just an inconvenience more than anything.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I have already synced with OSS before. There doesn't appear to be a way to remove old sync data from OSS, so how would I handle that issue as well when I move from MobileMe to OSS?

Switching to a new server is pretty easy.

First, sync all of your devices one after another, and make sure that all the syncs complete successfully.

Next, take the last one of your devices to be synced (it should have all of the changes), and configure it to sync with the new sync server. Force a sync. The sync will just happen if there wasn't a database already on the server. If there was a database present, you'll get a message alerting you to this and asking if you want to keep the sync database or the device database. Here, obviously you'll want to keep the device database. Make sure the sync completes successfully.

Now you can reconfigure your other devices to sync to the new server. If you like, you can simply reset their database and enter the new sync parameters, and then you won't have to stress over answering correctly for that same question about "which database should I keep, boss?" (note that for all but the first device to be switched, the correct answer is now the sync database).

You'll save yourself a little bit of trouble if you switch one of the Macs first, as you can then just suck over the settings in the sync setup on the iPhone and iPad instead of having to type them all in.

The error messages just indicate that OF couldn't connect to MobileMe when it tried. There are lots of possible reasons for that, network trouble, temporary MobileMe outage, etc.

Regarding switching back to OSS, you'll want to make sure all the clients are synchronized. Then connect one of them to OSS. You should get a message about the two databases not matching and be prompted to pick one of them to use. Choose to use the one on you local machine. Once that syncs successfully, then switch each of the other devices over, but choose to use the server database with them.

Well... Definitely easy enough. Thanks for the help.

[QUOTE=ifonline;83507]No. I actually use Dropbox for computer to computer file sharing. I only use MobileMe for other sync services (calendar, address book, etc.), and so I don't have iDisk syncing enabled. I never found it terribly reliable. To be clear, however, I am using MobileMe for OmniFocus syncing, I just don't have iDisk sync enabled so I don't have iDisk mounted on my desktop or anything like that.
[/quote]
Okay, just wanted to make sure that the problems weren't the result of iDisk attempting to sync OmniFocus databases and making a mess of it (OmniFocus writes directly to the WebDAV server, so there's a race condition if you also have your Mac attempting to sync some potentially stale data).
[quote]
I am getting messages like "could not find iDisk" or something like that, and "500 error" or something like that. I don't get them every day, but they have been happening every few days or so. When I get the error, if I manually sync OmniFocus again, the sync works fine. Odd. I have not lost any data as a result, so it's really just an inconvenience more than anything.
[/quote]
And indeed, this sounds like a hiccup on the MobileMe server of some sort.

[quote]
Oh, and I forgot to mention that I have already synced with OSS before. There doesn't appear to be a way to remove old sync data from OSS, so how would I handle that issue as well when I move from MobileMe to OSS?[/QUOTE]
The instructions I supplied should work.

It is possible to remove the old sync data. In the Finder, use Go->Connect to Server... to connect to https://sync.omnigroup.com/<username>/ which will mount the directory, allowing you to go remove the OmniFocus.ofocus file. I've noticed that after a few hours, the Finder seems to get confused and thinks the file is an alias, and I need to eject the volume and mount it again if I want to do something like Show Package Contents on the OmniFocus database.

[QUOTE=whpalmer4;83514]Okay, just wanted to make sure that the problems weren't the result of iDisk attempting to sync OmniFocus databases and making a mess of it (OmniFocus writes directly to the WebDAV server, so there's a race condition if you also have your Mac attempting to sync some potentially stale data).[/quote]

Yep. Very familiar with these issues from other software.

[quote]And indeed, this sounds like a hiccup on the MobileMe server of some sort.[/quote]

Yeah, I figured it was. The cloud sync of Calendar, Address Book, etc. has always worked really well for me, but anything related to iDisk seems to struggle at times. Not sure why, and definitely not limited to OmniFocus.

[quote]It is possible to remove the old sync data. In the Finder, use Go->Connect to Server... to connect to https://sync.omnigroup.com/<username>/ which will mount the directory, allowing you to go remove the OmniFocus.ofocus file. I've noticed that after a few hours, the Finder seems to get confused and thinks the file is an alias, and I need to eject the volume and mount it again if I want to do something like Show Package Contents on the OmniFocus database.[/QUOTE]

Interesting. I tried this before, but was never able to connect. I just tried again, and discovered that I wasn't using the trailing "/" in the past, and that alone kept me from mounting OSS to my desktop. Thanks for the tip.

[QUOTE=ifonline;83516]The cloud sync of Calendar, Address Book, etc. has always worked really well for me, but anything related to iDisk seems to struggle at times. Not sure why, and definitely not limited to OmniFocus.[/QUOTE]

FWIW, I've been syncing OmniFocus to MobileMe iDisk for years (since it first became available) and it's been very reliable for me. Although, I suppose our MobileMe accounts are likely on different servers, perhaps in different geographic locations, and we probably connect through different routes on the Internet. There are a lot of opportunities for different experiences there. :-)

I don't think there's anything special about iDisk's WebDAV implementation though — for better or worse. I would guess Apple's probably using Apache on a flavor of Unix, possibly even Mac OS X. Omni is probably doing something similar for their sync server.

When I first wake my MacBook from sleep, I've seen my first OmniFocus sync fail. I've always assumed it to be some kind of race condition in re-establishing my network connection (OF tries to sync before the connection is back up). Manually initiating a sync right afterwards always seems to work, so I don't think this issue is the fault of MobileMe.

Is this what you've seen, or do you see failures at other times as well?

-Dennis

I have actually been considering that as the culprit, that OmniFocus is trying to sync before the network is fully operational. This may account for the issues on the iPhone as I run WiFi at home and at work, and the issue may be the iPhone reestablishing a WiFi connection after being in standby. Not too sure, though. Every time I have had an issue, however, the very next sync works fine.

I will need to pay closer attention to see if it is related to a "suspended" network connection.