[malisa]

I've think I've done my due diligence and tried to find the answers here, but can't. I've been syncing fine iphone->mobile me<-powerbook for a couple weeks. Today, it's timed out and then I got a message about the file being unusable or something to that effect on the iphone. I can sync from the mac to mobile me, but now the iphone won't sync. I tried to take a picture of the message on the screen of the iphone, but it's not showing up on my camera roll.

I can see the OmniFocus.ofocus file on my idisk. I'm trying to look at it's size and it keeps making Finder beachball (not responding) and I never can get it's size. I have to force quit/relaunch.

I then tried to rename it, thinking that if I just named it something else and synced mac->mobile me, I'd get a file that my iphone might be able to grab. But when I try to rename it I'm told it's in use and to try quitting applications. I closed OmniFocus, and it still said the same thing. I tried to show contents of that package and also had to force quit.

I looked at the OmniFocus.ofocus file on the mac and it's 17.4 MB and has got 4,393 files in it's package. Almost all of them are 4kb, there are a couple that are 8kb, one that's 20kb and one that's 248kb.

I have only been using OF for a few weeks so I didn't have much to archive. But I archived things more than two weeks old. Not really any change. A couple days ago, after reading the trouble with attaching files I deleted a couple files that I'd attached. They don't have to be attached, but since the feature was there, I used it.

So where do I go from here? TIA

I'm on the latest build (it ends in a 44), I've not updated my iphone to the latest and I'm on 10.5.4.

[ohammersmith]

If mine grows over a meg something is wrong. I've had to run the Coalesce script a few times. Every time I do my document goes down to something like 84k and takes hardly any time to sync to my iPhone.

See the Keeping iPhone Sync Speedy thread.

[malisa]

Thank you. I had a feeling that this would be my time to run the Coalesce script, but I can't re-name or delete the existing file on my idisk. That's my first problem. It says it's in use.

"The operation could not be completed because the file "OmniFocus.ofocus" is in use. Quit applications and try again."

I'm going to see if I can tell it to sync to some other location on the idisk. That's my next thought.

Thanks for the link to the coalesce script. I was going to go look for it.

Any further suggestions appreciated.

[malisa]

After running the script my database is 260k. Just one item in the package and it's 260k. I hope that's good.

I set up a folder on my idisk at the same level as the Documents folder called CurrentOF. I changed my sync preferences in OF to point to this folder.
But OF is telling me "Unable to synchronize database with server...Please make sure that the location set in your Sync preferences actually exists."

I tried moving the folder into the Documents folder on the idisk and changing the sync preferences accordingly. Same thing.

This isn't like the mobile me cloud delay issue with push email is it? If I rename the file on the idisk, it's immediate, right?

Thoughts?

[whpalmer4]

I wonder if you perhaps have iDisk syncing turned on in the .Mac/MobileMe preferences? When you do, changes you make through the Finder are not immediately transferred to the MobileMe servers, though any transactions done by OmniFocus are because they access the servers directly. The advantage of having the iDisk syncing turned on is that it offers you access to the iDisk files even when you are offline, and syncs them as well. The big disadvantage is that if you aren't careful, it can corrupt your OmniFocus data in some cases!

If OmniFocus is saying (or reporting that the server is saying, to be more accurate) that the folder you created doesn't exist, that leads me to believe that you have this syncing turned on, and the new folder hasn't been created yet on the MobileMe servers. You can wait up to an hour or so for the sync to happen by itself, you can force a MobileMe sync (select the iDisk icon in the Finder sidebar, and click the sync button next to it), or you can turn off iDisk synchronization in System Preferences and try again with the folder creation.

You should be able to get rid of the old OmniFocus.ofocus file, however. I would try quitting OmniFocus on the iPhone (just to make sure it isn't in the middle of an attempted sync) and restarting your computer, then see if you can move the old file aside. If you do have the iDisk sync turned on as I suspect, you'll have to force it to sync to get that change back to the server before you try running OmniFocus again.

260 KB for your data file sounds entirely reasonable. I posted an article the other day describing how to track down large attachments in your data file which gives a brief description of what all the files hidden inside the OmniFocus.ofocus file do, if you are curious. If you are comfortable with using the Terminal, you can get a count of actions in your database by using the following command:

Macbook% sqlite3 ~/Library/Caches/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus/OmniFocusDatabase2 'select count(*) from Task';
8018
Macbook%

("Macbook% " is my Terminal prompt -- yours will be something different. press <return> after typing the long command string, which starts with "sqlite3")

The question that comes to mind for me is why isn't the OmniFocus sync process compacting your data file? You only have one computer and one iPhone in your sync pool, correct? What does the Clients button in the Sync preferences in OmniFocus show? When things are working properly, you should have one entry for the Mac and one for the iPhone. If you have duplicate entries which are not being synced, they will eventually cause the sync code to issue a warning to you about a client that hasn't synced for a long time. This is necessary because the compaction can only take place when all the clients are up to date. If you have only single entries for all of your clients, and they are showing sync dates in the last day or so, my suspicion would be that you aren't leaving them both running OmniFocus for enough time when they can both sync. Apparently the compaction code needs them both to be in sync for two successive hourly syncs before it will be deemed safe to compact. If you can periodically arrange for both to be on for an hour or two, running OmniFocus, and able to sync successfully, you shouldn't suffer from the incredibly expanding database issue. If you have some duplicate client entries which should not be there, you can select them and click Unregister to get rid of them. Be sure you don't delete the current client entry or you could lose any unsynced changes from that client.

[malisa]

I'm half way through getting this fixed.

I think that the auto-sync setting for mobile me + my incredible growing database (it's already 1.4MB and it's only been a few hours:eek: ) together created the issue.

I turned off auto-sync. I had a little bit of trouble getting the old file deleted. I was able to do so online, rather than through the finder. Since I was sure the old file was screwed up, I was fine deleting it rather than re-naming it.

Once I got it deleted. I restarted everything and tried to sync, still no go. I made a DIFFERENT new folder and changed the destination in my OF sync preferences and it started to sync the first time, but failed (seemed to time out). I hit it again and it synced.

I'm now going to try syncing the iphone.

And I'll copy this into my email to the ninjas.

My question to them, but I'll ask it here too...what is supposed to happen with the OmniFocus.ofocus file? Is it supposed to generate one of the 4k zip files with each sync? with each change? I was down to a handful of files when it was down to 260k this morning but it's back over 300 of them this afternoon...and I was gone most of the day. The powerbook was shut down. There is only the one, proper sync client (the powerbook). There was another one a few days ago and based on something I read on the forum I deleted the old one. But there's only been the one, proper one since all the trouble started with the syncing yesterday.

Thanks for your help whpalmer4.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by malisa

My question to them, but I'll ask it here too...what is supposed to happen with the OmniFocus.ofocus file? Is it supposed to generate one of the 4k zip files with each sync? with each change? I was down to a handful of files when it was down to 260k this morning but it's back over 300 of them this afternoon...and I was gone most of the day. The powerbook was shut down. There is only the one, proper sync client (the powerbook). There was another one a few days ago and based on something I read on the forum I deleted the old one. But there's only been the one, proper one since all the trouble started with the syncing yesterday.

Yes, you do get another one of those zip files whenever something changes. I haven't looked carefully enough to say with certainty whether you get one for each and every change or if it ever bundles things that changed since the last zip file was written out. I do know that all of the "past history" which has been synced by all the clients is mashed together into one big file. The file format is relatively easy to read if you want to copy one of those new zip files to your desktop. Just double-click to unzip, and then open the contents.xml file produced with TextEdit or BBedit and have a look. You should at least be able to see what changed.