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Spinning Sync Wheel "hangs" forever (Bonjour) Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
Apparently my Syncing is working, but I would never know it, as OF does it sort of "in the background", freezes, and leaves the sync icon spinning forever (cue "Spinning Wheel" by BS&T).

Wondering if anyone else syncing with Bonjour on a local (i.e., home) wifi network is seeing this:

1. Open OF on desktop
2. Open OF on iPhone
3. Watch database load on iPhone
4. After it gets loaded, the syncing wheel at bottom starts to spin; (apparently) Sync is underway
5. Wheel spins forever
6. In fact, at some point, the two OF databases HAVE synced up in the background (I'll get to that in a minute), but there's no way for me to know that at this point in time
7. In any case, the iPhone OF screen is frozen and can't be accessed

(Big sigh, while I wonder why I still have problems with this amazing software I like so much. Pride finally swallowed, I begin the troubleshooting and recovery process...)

8. So I have to "end task" on iPhone OF by holding the iPhone hardware button in until it closes
9. I close and reopen Desktop OF; on Reopen, Desktop OF "blinks" (closes, and opens again, all by itself)--whoa, doesn't that mean it got a "call" from the sync log or something?
10. Now I open iPhone OF...
11. The minute the database loads on the iPhone, I see that it already! has the changes (from #4 process above); but wait, that doesn't make sense, didn't it crash?
12. The sync wheel spins for a few seconds, but I can see from my list that the changes were already made before this short sync even started (during #4 above?)

Is there some fix I have to run to keep this from happening? Would syncing regularly help avoid it? If so, how regularly? (I admit, I hadn't synced for a few days when this happened to me today.) I'm only posting because I've seen this at least once a week (usually more) for the past month. I sync 1-2 times a day, sometimes not at all.

I have the latest versions of OF on both desktop and iPhone, completely current iPhone firmware and OS X updates, and a sturdy wifi network.
 
I see something similar, except that I don't need to force quit out of OF on the iPhone. I push the home button and it (eventually) goes back to the home screen, and when I choose OF again, I see my changes. Perhaps I'll find some time to look into this more. Note that I only see this behavior sometimes--it updated just fine this morning.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by santra View Post
Is there some fix I have to run to keep this from happening? Would syncing regularly help avoid it? If so, how regularly? (I admit, I hadn't synced for a few days when this happened to me today.) I'm only posting because I've seen this at least once a week (usually more) for the past month. I sync 1-2 times a day, sometimes not at all.

I have the latest versions of OF on both desktop and iPhone, completely current iPhone firmware and OS X updates, and a sturdy wifi network.
I'm a little puzzled as to how you are avoiding having regular syncs happen! Do you immediately quit OmniFocus on the desktop when you aren't using it?

I believe that it is relatively easy for OmniFocus on the iPhone to retrieve and incorporate changes from the desktop without appearing to complete the sync. When it starts up again and loads the local database, all the changes will "magically" have appeared. The part that apparently isn't succeeding is writing the new compacted database back to the server. You aren't quitting OmniFocus on the desktop during this time, are you?

It sounds like you should involve the support ninjas directly in your case, if you have not already done so. You paid for them when you bought the application, why not take advantage of them?
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by duetjohn View Post
I see something similar, except that I don't need to force quit out of OF on the iPhone. I push the home button and it (eventually) goes back to the home screen
That's what I mean by "force quit." I push and hold the home button until OF exits and returns me to a home screen.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
I'm a little puzzled as to how you are avoiding having regular syncs happen!
I have no idea what you mean by this. Do you mean that syncing once or twice a day is "not enough"? That I should be running both platforms simultaneously, running my iPhone battery down, so that both platforms can sync every 5 minutes or so?

Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
Do you immediately quit OmniFocus on the desktop when you aren't using it?
I usually run it whenever my MBP is on. So for the most part OF is always running on the desktop.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
The part that apparently isn't succeeding is writing the new compacted database back to the server.
Exactly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
You aren't quitting OmniFocus on the desktop during this time, are you?
Nope. I don't touch it.

Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
It sounds like you should involve the support ninjas directly in your case, if you have not already done so. You paid for them when you bought the application, why not take advantage of them?
Sounds like a great idea. I usually write them concurrently when I post here, and this time I didn't for some reason.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by whpalmer4 View Post
It sounds like you should involve the support ninjas directly in your case, if you have not already done so. You paid for them when you bought the application, why not take advantage of them?
Email sent.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by santra View Post
I have no idea what you mean by this. Do you mean that syncing once or twice a day is "not enough"? That I should be running both platforms simultaneously, running my iPhone battery down, so that both platforms can sync every 5 minutes or so?
The compaction code runs when all the clients are synced up at time T1 and again and time T2, where T2 is at least an hour later than T1. The 1 hour gap is to guard against the possibility that there is a client doing a very slow sync, still in progress. Once all of the clients are current, all the transactions that took place before that time can be consolidated into one file instead of having many small files with a handful of transactions each. If you've only got the one phone and the one desktop client, then syncing them both at the same time once a day ought to keep your file from expanding unnecessarily and that in turn will help your sync performance. With three or more clients, it can be a bit trickier to get the compaction process to happen, but with just two, and the answers you gave, I don't have an obvious candidate to explain why you aren't seeing the compaction. Maybe that is a red herring. If you select the Library/Application Support/OmniFocus/OmniFocus.ofocus file in the Finder and control-click to get the pop-up menu, and then select Show Package Contents, how many files does it list?
 
To clarify things a bit - bonjour is different than the other sync methods. Since both apps have to be running, and because you're on a local network, one copy of OmniFocus will actually notify the other copies right when a change is made. That's likely what the 'how are you avoiding regular syncs' question earlier was about.

I'm not aware of any additional benefit that pressing the sync button offers if you're doing Bonjour sync, but other folks that know more may jump in to correct me.

If folks are seeing the sync spinner go endlessly, please contact the support ninjas so we can look into this.
 
 


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