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OmniFocus not automatically activating pending project Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
I set quite a few tasks to pending, and every once and a while I have the feeling that something should be active that isn't. I've had this feeling three times, and each time I was correct: there was a pending task that should be active that isn't. All the settings are correct (ie. the task has a context, the date is set correctly, etc), and I can verify this through the horrible solution that I've found. Basically, to get these tasks to activate, I have to restart OmniFocus. As soon as I restart it, I get the growl notifications saying that the task has become active.

It's infuriating, but more than that, it causes OF to lose its 'trusted system' status. I need to be able to rely on those start dates. I went through the effort to set them because they're important.

I sent an email to tech support, and they just told me to make sure the project wasn't stalled. I know for certain it wasn't stalled because because it activates when I restart OF.

Has anyone else experienced this? I've rebuilt my database several times, but I this problem keeps popping up.

It's terrifying to be losing trust in OF. In other ways it's been great at keeping me on track.

Here's a screenshot of OF not activating a task.

http://vinylwarrior.net/omnifocus/Om...enSnapz001.jpg
 
For me it happened only if I let OmniFocus "open" over midnight (I always put my MacBook to sleep instead of turning it off) and had tasks that are not becoming available exactly at midnight. Restarting OmniFocus was the only solution for me but I think the Omni people already fixed this problem in the vapor trail so it will be fixed with the next update.

Until then, maybe force yourself to quit OmniFocus when you go to bed and reopen it when you wake up.
 
I had thought my problem might have been a result of leaving OF running for days or weeks on end. My computer never sleeps though (stupid bug is OS X...), so my problem wouldn't be exactly the same. Also, I've gotta into the paranoid habit of starting and restarting OF frequently.

I wonder if the problem is with my computer not sleeping... Maybe OF thinks the computer is asleep so doesn't activate the task.

However, even the problem you've described is unacceptable, and your solution, while functional, is crappy at best. The problem shouldn't exist.
 
We consider this urgent, and it's at the top of our priority list for 1.0.x fixes: it's entered in our internal database as <bug://bugs/44815>.

The symptoms of the problem seem to be that an action or project doesn't change state (become available or overdue) immediately on schedule, but does when you trigger a state review in some other way (e.g., by relaunching or by changing the state of a nearby item that also affects its state).

Unfortunately, we haven't been able to figure out the circumstances that cause the bug. We've reviewed the code several times and it seems correct, and we've tested it in a number of ways and can't seem to trigger the problem. Yet, as your screenshot so clearly demonstrates, the problem does exist—so there must be some essential ingredient that we're missing in our tests.

If anyone has any clues as to what might trigger this problem, we'd very much appreciate your help!
 
I wonder if it could be an international/language issue - what is the default language and date/time setting of the users experiencing this? I was suffering from the problem in the more recent sneaky peeks (seems OK now, but I can't say for sure... I don't think I've left the app open overnight for a while). I'm UK based, with British English as the default language and date/time format.
 
Ken,

I was able to reproduce the problem (some days ago in the 1.0 version) with the following recipe:

1) Create a task with a start date tomorrow at some time after midnight.
2) Leave OF active over night.
3) Voila: Task does not get a state change at start time

If you create tasks with start time 00:00, they will become active on the date change - but a task with start time 00:01 or later will be forgotten until OF is restarted.

Hope this helps,
Christian
 
That would explain why matters have improved for me - I stopped bothering to enter a start time a few weeks ago, and as those tasks that did originally contain an edited one have progressively been completed, I have no longer been seeing the issue (afaict).
 
jup ct181 it's a general problem or fact ;) ran in the same thing in the OF demotimer. if you dont switch off your computer and let of run all the time the demo time doesnt expire ;) . on one of my computers i was able to run the demo days over the expiry date while i already purchased a licence on my other computer. just let the other box run in demo mode out of curiosity ;) so of isnt updating states properly .
 
I had trouble with this once before, but thought I had taken care of it. But it is happening again just as described above: Some actions that should be triggered as "Due Soon" don't change states until there is some sort of outside force, such as re-starting OF, changing the default trigger time and back again in prefs (such as 2 days to 3 and back to 2 again) or even marking something complete in the same context or project. It is a bit disconcerting to say the least when something suddenly pops up as Due Soon that should have alerted me hours or a day before.

I see that Ken said above that this was a known issue almost a year ago, but there wasn't any resolution I could see.

I have been using OF for awhile now, and I am sure that there isn't some random setting or view that I have set wrong. I am about to submit a bug report, but I haven't seen many other people with this problem and wanted to see if anyone had this with a successful fix.

Thanks!
 
Try rebuilding your database.

I haven't had any problems lately with OF on my Mac, but I have had some problems with the iPhone version, although I think those are mainly resolved now too.

Rebuilding my database usually cleared things up fine. If you've never done that, it'll probably solve all your problems from here on out.

File -> Rebuild Database
 
 


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