Sync occasionally fails
 

I bought the new iPhone app and after using it for about a week, I decided to buy the full blown desktop app. I generally love it, but I sometimes have problems with syncing. Today, I put about 5 new things in my Inbox on the iphone. I made sure I did a sync on the iphone, then I opened Omnifocus on my Powerbook and did a sync there. None of the items made it to the Powerbook. They didn't disappear from the iPhone either. How can this happen? What steps should I take to make sure both copies are the same.

Thanks,
Jason

I have the same problem. I have a shopping list project, and I sometimes type out a quick list on my Mac and then hit sync before going to the shops. This usually syncs okay to the iPhone, but when I complete items on the iPhone they don't sync to the desktop even when I manually press sync. I'm going to try deleting the iDisk version of the database and try resyncing everything to see if that works, I'll post if it does.

OK, I've tried deleting the file from my iDisk, deleting the app from my iPhone and reinstalling (and resynching from the desktop). The original database is all synced, but then when I go to type out a new shopping list, hit sync and then open Omnifocus on my iPhone it doesn't load the new shopping list. It's like Omnifocus on the iPhone isn't looking at the server? The loading time when it opens is negligible, I don't think it's loading the new actions on when it starts. Is there any way to force this?

I think it must be the auto syncing when the iPhone app opens that's the problem. If I manually sync the database from the iPhone app after it's open it appears to sync the changes. I may be under the false impression that the loading screen when the iPhone app opens is contacting the server - but perhaps it doesn't? Can anyone confirm?

I think the problems were occuring when I wasn't syncing changes between the two manually. If I make changes on the iPhone app and then forget to sync before using the desktop app I was creating problems. I think some of these issues must have been resolved with the recent update - because I seem to be getting error messages now when the two databases sync at the same time. But it would be good if the error messages were a bit more user friendly - rather than saying it was restoring from the database, it might be a bit easier to know what's going on if it asked which copy of the database you wanted to go with (ie desktop or iPhone).

Anyway, seems to be working quite well now, so I can't complain too much!

The "Loading" progress bar when OmniFocus for the iPhone launches is not it contacting the server - it's just it loading the local database.

OmniFocus sometimes will contact the server on launch, but only if it hasn't checked for changes in the past hour. This applies to both the iPhone app and the desktop app. If you're not seeing changes that you think should be there, it may simply be that OmniFocus hasn't grabbed those changes from the sync location yet - try doing a manual sync in that case. (And make sure that OmniFocus has pushed the changes to the sync location from wherever those changes were made. It will automatically push changes a minute or two after you make the change, but if you exit OmniFocus before it has a chance to sync up, those changes won't get pushed until you next launch the app.)

I think I've figured out the problem. This afternoon when I got home from work, I was careful to first press the sync button on the Omnifocus on my iPhone to get all the latest items on the MobileMe server. Then I opened Omnifocus on the mac and pressed the sync button. This time everything was perfectly in sync.

I think what was happening before is that I started the Omnifocus on my Mac and on the iPhone at the same time. Does Omnifocus have trouble merging changes from two different devices at the same time?

OmniFocus can handle changes going both ways at once, but it is _much_ faster if it only has to handle changes going one way at a time. So for best performance, when you head out the door, sync your mac and then your phone. When you come back home, sync your phone and then your mac before using OmniFocus on your mac again.

I still have a problem. When I got home from work today, I pressed the sync button on my iPhone. Once it finished, I quit the iPhone app. I then started Omnifocus on my Mac. I pressed the sync button and then nothing. None of the items I put in my iPhone all day long made it into the Omnifocus on my Mac. Needless to say this is very frustrating. I'm now doing double entry every day when I get home.

jcarucci, this is probably a dumb question, but are you sure both copies of OmniFocus are syncing to the same place?

Big problems
 

I am having similar issues, however mine seem to be a bit worse.

I am using mobile me.

When I add items to the inbox on my mac and sync, only some of the items transfer to the iphone. I have no idea why some do and some do not...

When I add items to the iphone none of them update to the mac.

I am using the latest build as if this morning.

Ideas?