[Lizard]

Originally Posted by Sandpiper

So what is happening when the double arrows on the phone are turning and what happens when it says Updating With Synced Data. In the first is it just locating the data on mobile me or is it locating and downloading? Is the second the result of the phone having downloaded the Database into a buffer and then writing it to the active Database?

When the arrows are turning, OmniFocus is talking to the server. When it says "Updating with Synced Data" it's taking the data it downloaded and building a database out of it.

[whpalmer4]

Originally Posted by colicoid

Inside my iMac's .ofocus package there is one big file of 1mb. the rest of the 38 files are tiny. Whats that?

That's all the past data that everyone agrees on, what remains after smooshing. The tiny files are new transactions that haven't been synced in by everyone (and subsequently smooshed). How many actions do you have in your file? You can find this in the terminal by doing

sqlite3 ~/Library/Caches/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus/OmniFocusDatabase2 'select count(*) from Task;'

I've got 7165 actions in my db, which occupies 870 kb. I have very few files imbedded in the notes, but I would guess you might have some judging from the size of your file.

I wouldn't assume that iPhone sync time is necessarily only dependent on the time it takes to read or write that file; the iPhone isn't going to be much competition for your desktop machine in a cpu benchmark -- it's gonna get smooshed! Okay, I admit it, I like that technical term Lizard gave us :D

[laradar]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

The solution in 1.0.3 is to fix the algorithm to only look at each transaction once (which is how we meant for it to work in the first place), but a workaround you can apply now is to reduce the number of transactions by making sure each sync client connects on a regular basis (which lets OmniFocus clean up old transactions that it was only preserving in order to let out-of-date clients catch up).

Even after resetting the database on my iPhone I still can't complete a sync. (I assume resetting the database is as up-to-date as you can get.) Also, I never saw this issue in OF 1.0.1. Was this code new in the 1.0.2 update, or was it there before but just didn't cause any problems?

[santra]

Just installed the new iPhone firmware 2.0.1. Opened OF on iPhone, it started to sync, 5 minutes later something I've never seen:

the sync icon (double circular arrows) had an exclamation point in the middle. I tap on it and the error message says: "Unable to synchronize database with server. Timed out."

Groan.

Update: synced iPhone in iTunes twice. Tried again to sync iPhone OF over wifi--will not sync.

[santra]

Originally Posted by Ken Case

We've tracked down the slow sync problem, and fixed it for the upcoming 1.0.3 release.

Please--the sooner the better. I can no longer sync my iPhone after installing the new 2.0.1 iPhone firmware.

I either get the above error, or it takes 10-15 minutes EACH time to sync.

[santra]

I give up. I'm reinstalling Things on my iPhone (and that app doesn't even sync yet!).

It's just That Upsetting--i.e., wanting to rely on software that I've paid for, and losing 1-2 hours a day now because it doesn't work. I know Ken has promised it will be corrected in 1.0.3, but that could be days or weeks--I can't afford to lose the reliability I place on PM/todo software on my iPhone now for that long a time.

The reason I get so enraged about this stuff is because I care so deeply and passionately about good software UI, reliability, accountability, and just plain integrity. What's ironic about this is that the iPhone release is "regular" software, and it's the version that's breaking down; whereas the desktop OF client I'm running is a beta (sneaky peak), and yet it's working fine. Great, in fact.

Would it be possible for OmniGroup to please Twitter when 1.0.3 comes out? I didn't even know when 1.0.2 was released...I only got the news from some obscure RSS feed; and then I had to dive deep into a forum to learn that it has to be "rebought" from iTunes Apps store to install correctly. An email announcement to all paying iPhone OF customers would be even better, of course, but a twitter is faster now (and less work for OG). Thanks.

[Andrew]

Sorry to hear that things are not working for you. We are certainly working very hard to identify and fix all the issues that have been raised.

Note that we do typically twitter when updates are released. The twitter for 1.0.2 is here, for instance: http://twitter.com/omnifocusiphone/statuses/873982450

[Andrew]

As a follow-up, we have done some initial testing with iPhone OS 2.0.1 now, and we're not seeing any problems. I realize that doesn't help you, but I suspect that your increased problems are coincidental with the 2.0.1 release. Hopefully 1.0.3 with its performance improvements will solve the issue for you when it is released, which should be pretty soon if all goes well.

[colicoid]

Originally Posted by whpalmer4

That's all the past data that everyone agrees on, what remains after smooshing. The tiny files are new transactions that haven't been synced in by everyone (and subsequently smooshed). How many actions do you have in your file? You can find this in the terminal by doing

sqlite3 ~/Library/Caches/com.omnigroup.OmniFocus/OmniFocusDatabase2 'select count(*) from Task;'

I've got 7165 actions in my db, which occupies 870 kb. I have very few files imbedded in the notes, but I would guess you might have some judging from the size of your file.

I wouldn't assume that iPhone sync time is necessarily only dependent on the time it takes to read or write that file; the iPhone isn't going to be much competition for your desktop machine in a cpu benchmark -- it's gonna get smooshed! Okay, I admit it, I like that technical term Lizard gave us :D

I had about 2.5k files.

[Zack42]

I too was have problems and extremely long synch times with my iphone 3G. Last night I loaded all the updates to OF for the mac and iphone that were available. When starting up OF it recopied my database from my iMac to iDisk, and then I synched my iPhone, which reloaded it's database from iDisk. I then upgraded to 2.01.

Syncing is now very fast for both platforms. At one point via wifi on my iPhone it took 20 minutes, if it completed. Now it's a minute or two. I have around 70 projects and a few hundred actions.

We're moving in the right direction...looking forward to 1.03