[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by beharkey

Brian, this is precisely what is happening to my wife. I sent an email to the support ninjas yesterday ("[OG #434573] Problem with duplicated projects & actions").

She's not double clicking. She's not checking actions off on 2 clients before syncing.

Is it possible that you've got a bug?

It's quite possible there's a bug in there somewhere, but given there appears to be an easy way to cause this behavior accidentally, it's good to rule that out before concluding the observed behavior is evidence of a bug. A wild goose chase is always more satisfying if there's actually a goose to be caught :)

My experience in a past life doing computer support at a university was that people may do things without being aware of it, especially when it comes to "microscopic" things like clicking a button, typing control-S, etc that need to be done over and over. Often, they'll insist (in good faith, I think) that they don't do those things and even express significant hostility when you produce evidence to the contrary. The experience has made me cautious about making definitive self-reporting statements like "I'm not double-clicking on any of the actions that get duplicated" if there's any possibility I could be doing it without noticing, even though my nature is to watch such things pretty closely when I'm suspicious (and I'm almost always suspicious when there's software involved!) If she's aware that double-clicking could cause this behavior and still sees it happening, that is a more reliable data point (to my eyes, at least) than asking after the duplicate actions are seen "did you accidentally double-click on any of those actions?"

[Chris]

Just to follow up on what whpalmer said, it's possible to triple-click without realizing it because sometimes there's a lot of lag between a tap and any feedback.

This morning I did the following: start OF on iPhone and sync (22 seconds, see other thread :)), then I went to "Do Soon" and completed an action. There was a five second lag before the tap registered visually---I counted. That's a long time to wait! I probably would have retapped (thinking I had missed or tapped too lightly the first time) if I hadn't been aware of this issue.

[whpalmer4]

I've been experimenting with going into the action screen, tapping the checkbox and then immediately the button in the upper left hand corner. If I get back to the main screen and the action is still there (I don't stick around to wait for visual feedback from the tap of the checkbox) that means I missed or it didn't register, and it is safe to repeat the process even in the face of unpredictable time lags as the response to the back button shows that OF has caught up with processing the taps, I believe.

[Brian]

Just so we can keep the conversation focused, let's assume that there's a bug in OmniFocus that has to do with actions that repeat on the assigned date.

(Totally fine with discussing the reasons why there can be lag between doing something and when the UI responds, but let's start a new thread for that and keep this focused on investigation.)

Okay, in an attempt to repro the problem, here's what I did:

In OmniFocus for Mac, make a new (parallel) testing project.
Add a "Testing Repeat from Completed" action
Add a "Testing Repeat from Assigned" action
Each repeats 1 minute after completion, in the appropriate manner.
Neither action initially has a start or due date assigned.
Sync the Mac.

Sync the phone.
New actions show up on the phone.

Completed actions on Mac, Synced mac.
Sync Phone. Next version of actions shows up on phone, no dupes.

Complete each action two more times on mac. Sync mac, then phone.
Actions change, no dupes.

Wait 2 minutes on Mac, so both actions go overdue. Sync Mac, then Phone.
Overdue actions show up on phone, no dupes.

Looped back to the "Complete each" step, doing so the phone this time, syncing the changes back to the Mac.

Note: during these steps, I hit a known display bug we plan to fix. Actions completed on the phone will become visible on the Mac, but disappear once you clean up. At no point was I able to get duplicate uncompleted actions, though.

I'm sure you guys are seeing something; I'm just not sure what, or how to get it to happen (yet). Two directions of sync, the number of state changes that the bug might key off of... it's a lot of variables.

I'm going to keep an eye on my database, though. Since you guys are seeing them fairly regularly, the next time you guys see these duplicate actions, please gather as much data as you can about them and send it to the support ninjas.

Best case scenario, you would zip up your sync database and send it to the support ninjas so they can look at the transaction change of the specific actions you're seeing duped.

If you're not comfortable sending that, screenshots of the inspector when the action that precedes the dupes and each of the dupes was selected would help.

(You can take a screenshot by pressing command-shift-4, which will give you a selection cursor. Tap your Space key, click on the window you want to capture, and when you release the mouse the image will be saved to your desktop as 'Picture 1', 'Picture 2', etc.)

You can then drag the images to an email message and send them to us. I'll use the information they contain to try and figure out what's going on here.

[Chrisphelps@me.com]

I've got the same problem. It appeared after I upgraded to the latest version. Last week? Version 1.2.3 on the iPhone, and version 1.6.1 on the mac.

I just put in a new task following the above procedure and it's not recreating the problem. The problem is on two of my daily repeating tasks. I may just recreate them and see if it goes away.

I just wanted to post and let you know other people are experiencing this.

[Brian]

Chris, if there's a specific action that has misbehaved for you, zipping up your database and sending it to the support ninjas would be very helpful. Please include which action you'd like us to look at in your email.

Once we have a case of the potential bug we can directly examine, we'll be able to make some progress.

[Chrisphelps@me.com]

Oops. I already fixed it on my end. It was only two tasks, so I deleted them, and re-entered them. Problem solved. No more duplicates.

sorry I can't be of more help. :(

[Trustworthy]

I've recently set up a few daily routines in the form of repeating projects. Since the tasks are always the same, I put a Start and Due date/time and Duration on the project and made it repeat daily. Repeat from assigned date, of course. I checked "Mark complete when completing last item." I want to finish the actions in my routine, have the project go away, and have an identical list pop up the next day.

It's worked well, EXCEPT for that I keep getting weird duplicate projects, and the auto-completed project will consistently become active again later in the day (showing red/overdue), even though every task in it has been checked off.

The tasks within these projects all get a start and due date identical to the parent project, and an individual task duration. But absolutely none of the individual tasks are repeated (seems like an obvious culprit so I've triple-checked this).

I haven't completely nailed down the pattern; I'm not sure exactly when these completed projects come back to life. I do know that I complete my morning routine (and watch the project get auto-completed), but when I go back after lunch it's been uncompleted and is now showing red, possibly with an inappropriate duplicate project in addition to the grey one waiting for the next day.

I sync with my iPhone several times per day, if that could be a contributor.

Am I overlooking anything obvious here? Should I never give tasks due dates when they're in a repeating project? Having those blank can make things a little of confusing on the context screen.

Any help is appreciated. I just want to get my system streamlined. Let me know if I could clarify anything that might help.

[Brian]

There's been some speculation that there's a bug having to do with actions that repeat from their assigned date, but thus far, we've been unable to reproduce it.

I know there's a thread somewhere else on the forums where we've been discussing this. I'll find it and combine your thread with it. Review the posts in the new thread and let us know what you think.

[beharkey]

Brian,

I've been meaning to try to reproduce this problem. However, I've been terribly busy with work for the past week or so.

I'll try to get to it soon to help with the troubleshooting process.