[adrian]

I've had a consistent but minor annoyance with OmniFocus syncing for the last few months.

Namely, whenever any of my Macs wake from sleep, OmniFocus immediately attempts to sync via WebDAV (I'm using the Omni Sync Server beta). That's excellent; it would be great if it worked. However, because this happens right after waking, the network interface (Ethernet or WiFi; I have Macs that use both) are not yet ready. So the sync fails with a "internet connection offline" message. (An ! appears in the sync button.)

This in itself would not be so bad, but it appears that OmniFocus does not retry syncing for at least a very long time after an error occurs. So every time I wake my Mac from sleep, I have to manually click the sync button to clear the error; only then does automatic syncing start again.

Is anyone else experiencing this little hiccup? Does anyone know how to get OmniFocus to retry syncing after the network connection comes online?

[Brian]

Welcome to the forums, adrian, and I'm sorry for the trouble this is causing! We've had a few folks with a similar network setup request either/or longer delay before trying the first sync, or a shorter delay between the first failure and a second attempt. (Just to generally handle this better, in other words.)

If you email the support ninjas, they can attach you to that feature request - we give the most-requested changes the highest priority, all other things being equal.

[adrian]

Thanks, Brian! Will do.

[kocab]

Did you get anywhere with this adrian? I've got the same problem on my laptop. (It's not a problem on my desktop for some reason.)

[CatOne]

Originally Posted by Brian

Welcome to the forums, adrian, and I'm sorry for the trouble this is causing! We've had a few folks with a similar network setup request either/or longer delay before trying the first sync, or a shorter delay between the first failure and a second attempt. (Just to generally handle this better, in other words.)

If you email the support ninjas, they can attach you to that feature request - we give the most-requested changes the highest priority, all other things being equal.

To be fair, this has been an open problem for 2+ years. I've sent feedback before, but this isn't really a "feature request," it's a bug. OF should not try to sync IMMEDIATELY on wake and find the network isn't up yet and then just quit. Hell, next time I try I have to dismiss a modal dialog box that tells me my connection was offline.

Of the thinks that stink about OF sync, this is among the top of my list.

To others who see it, I filed OG #394569 on January 2, 2009.

[adrian]

Nope, not yet. I have faith that the OmniGroup folks are working on it, but for the time being I just hit the "sync" button manually every time I wake a machine from sleep.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by CatOne

To be fair, this has been an open problem for 2+ years. I've sent feedback before, but this isn't really a "feature request," it's a bug.

They prioritize bug fixing (in part) by the amount of distress it is causing, too, although I think there's a healthy amount of speculation done as to whether something is likely to cause a lot of support traffic, and it seems that regressions get a high priority. They are just a little more up front about what they are (or are not) doing than some other companies. I don't think you can show me a company with a product of any consequence that has a bug list that gets worked down to 0 before any new development takes place.

[CatOne]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

They prioritize bug fixing (in part) by the amount of distress it is causing, too, although I think there's a healthy amount of speculation done as to whether something is likely to cause a lot of support traffic, and it seems that regressions get a high priority. They are just a little more up front about what they are (or are not) doing than some other companies. I don't think you can show me a company with a product of any consequence that has a bug list that gets worked down to 0 before any new development takes place.

True. That said, this is a pretty significant bug, that affects a pretty major area of the product. About 25% of the time, sync DOES NOT WORK on the desktop and doesn't start up again until I manually click the sync button and dismiss a modal dialog box. All for something that is a transient situation for about 3 seconds after a machine wakes.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by CatOne

About 25% of the time, sync DOES NOT WORK on the desktop and doesn't start up again until I manually click the sync button and dismiss a modal dialog box.

That's not what I'm seeing. If I make a change (which causes a sync to be scheduled for 1 minute later), immediately put the machine to sleep, wait several minutes, then awaken it, I get a failed sync. At that point, if I just start using OmniFocus, making changes, the syncs caused by those changes get the machinery moving again with no intervention on my part.

You could dial your MaximumTimeBetweenSync value down to 5 minutes with

defaults write com.omnigroup.omnifocus MaximumTimeBetweenSync 300

in the Terminal and have your system heal itself quickly even if you aren't making changes.