[rigel]

Hey, all. Second time poster here.

About a week ago, my iPhone stopped syncing with my desktop version of OmniFocus. Here're all the stats I can think of which might be important to the situation:

Desktop
Running Mac OS 10.5.8
Running Omnifocus 1.7.1 (as of tonight -- before was an earlier version)
Using Bonjour to sync
Connected to our router via a wired connection
"Show Clients" only shows this computer

iPhone
Running OS 3.0.1
Running Omnifocus 1.5.2
Using Bonjour to sync
Wi-Fi is on and appears to be connecting

Trying to sync from the iPhone results in the error "Unable to synchronize database with server. -- Unable to find sync server." Retrying causes the same error with shorter full text.

Trying to sync from the desktop causes no errors or alerts, but I'm pretty sure it's just syncing with the desktop itself.

Also: We recently replaced our router. The network is named the same and has the same password, but as with all switches, sometimes not everything populates correctly. We do have wireless working in the house, though.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[Greg Jones]

If 'Show Clients' only shows your Mac, then you are no longer paired with your iPhone. I'd suggest starting the pairing process over using the instructions in the OmniFocus Mac preference pane.

[rigel]

Hm . . . that seems to be causing a bit of a "chicken and egg" issue . . .

When I try to share database settings with my iPhone now, the Share Settings button in the Synchronization Preferences doesn't seem to go through. When I instead send the settings, it tries to sync but I still receive the same error: "Unable to synchronize database with server. -- Unable to find sync server."

Specifically, the error says: "Unable to find sync server. No server could be found that matches your sync settings. Please make sure that your sync server is awake and that Omnifocus is open."

Thanks for that suggestion, but so far I don't seem able to get that to work.

[whpalmer4]

If your iPhone can't find your desktop when it is broadcasting the sync settings, it sounds like you've got a networking problem of some sort. What are you using for a router?

[rigel]

I'll have to meander over to a place I'm not currently at to check this, but if it helps, I opened up terminal on my desktop and pinged my phone to see if it could find it, and that worked perfectly fine.

AFAIK the phone was finding the wireless network fine before, but just to make sure there wasn't some sort of renewal issue I forgot the network entirely and re-found it.

[whpalmer4]

Right, but that doesn't mean the Bonjour advertisements are being sent everywhere they need to go.

Can the Apple Remote app find your machine? My bet is that it cannot.

[spinnakerco]

Originally Posted by rigel

Hm . . . that seems to be causing a bit of a "chicken and egg" issue . . .

When I try to share database settings with my iPhone now, the Share Settings button in the Synchronization Preferences doesn't seem to go through. When I instead send the settings, it tries to sync but I still receive the same error: "Unable to synchronize database with server. -- Unable to find sync server."

Specifically, the error says: "Unable to find sync server. No server could be found that matches your sync settings. Please make sure that your sync server is awake and that Omnifocus is open."

Thanks for that suggestion, but so far I don't seem able to get that to work.

I encountered two different problems
1. OF on my Mac was throwing errors when I attempted to sync to my standard archive on my computer (Preferences>Sync) [I'd click disk, then click Bojour at which point my cursor would change to the pinwheel and then say that my computer wasn't able to find the proper data base (or something like that) and would point me to a error log (see below)
2. I could not get my iPhone to see my computer when performing a sync.

[Wed Dec 02 17:22:44 2009] [warn] RSA server certificate is a CA certificate (BasicConstraints: CA == TRUE !?)
[Wed Dec 02 17:22:44 2009] [warn] RSA server certificate CommonName (CN) `sp2-c-10-18-09' does NOT match server name!?

Note the past tense of encounter :).

Step one was to set up a computer to computer network (really just disconnecting my computer from my office wifi). This resolved the strange error message that the volume on my computer could not be found. [This is weird because this was totally local to my computer, so the fact that the wifi was contributing to the problem was a surprise to me, but whatever)

Step two to set my iphone to airplane mode, turn on wifi, and select the c2c network (For some reason, my phone didn't want to acknowledge the wifi connection when it had the opportunity to connect to a cellular signal...)

Step three - sync as normal.

Hope this helps!

[rigel]

Hey. Sorry to have not gotten back to anyone for a bit. I seem to be stuck at the same place again. :/

To review: I use OmniFocus on my iPhone and Mac. I sync via Bonjour. They are both connected to the same network (wired for Mac and wireless for iPhone) and seldom to ever experience issues with the connection itself.

I stereotypically experience the same issue many others do with having to press the sync button twice to have it sync, but I can deal with that.

Every once in a while -- like now -- it stops syncing at all.

I receive the "Unable to find sync server" error.

Last time, I solved this in a remarkably simple way . . . one which I can't find the documentation for now, of course. But it may have been as simple as resetting the database on the phone, or possibly just restarting OmniFocus.

Now I'm back to a point I think I was at before. I reset the phone database (something I don't even believe I needed to do, in retrospect) and now can't set up syncing in the first place. It doesn't find the desktop on the Sync With Mac screen, and when I try to set up manually, it lists the server, but trying to save throws the same "Unable to find sync server" error.

The last time I had this happen, I struggled for weeks and nearly stopped using OmniFocus in its entirety. Should I be rebuilding the database or something?

Help?

Addendum: Even when I try to send settings and have it manually sync I receive that error. Aargh.

[rigel]

Well, the good news is it's working now.

The weird news is that while it didn't sync the same evening after wipe, it did sync the next morning after doing nothing different.

Huh.