[Roll]

Using full desktop App in conjunction with iPhone and getting this dialog at random intervals.

In order to display changes from the server database, your local database needs to be reopened. Would you like to reopen it now?

Some recently syncronized changes happened before your most recent local change.

Reopen now. Reopen later.

I am currently running OmniFocus 1.1 sneakypeek (v77.7.0.103077). Any ideas?

[pslade]

Originally Posted by Roll

Using full desktop App in conjunction with iPhone and getting this dialog at random intervals.

In order to display changes from the server database, your local database needs to be reopened. Would you like to reopen it now?

Some recently syncronized changes happened before your most recent local change.

Reopen now. Reopen later.

I am currently running OmniFocus 1.1 sneakypeek (v77.7.0.103077). Any ideas?

Yeah, I see this also and have been wondering what the deal is. I see it on the iPhone side and on the desktop side. Can someone explain what triggers it?

[Ken Case]

Sorry for the hard-to-understand dialog! This is just an advisory message that can occur after synchronization to let you know that your current view is out of date. In the future, we'd like to have synchronization proceed to refresh the view automatically when you finish your current edit, rather than interrupting you with that dialog.

For those who want to understand what's going on behind the scenes, here's a more detailed explanation:

The simplest synchronization case is where you change things on one device, synchronize those changes to the server, then synchronize them back to another device before making further edits there: in that case, OmniFocus can just apply those new changes to the database without reopening it, because OmniFocus knows there is no conflict between those changes and the local database.

Where things get more complicated is when you make some changes on one device, then make changes on another device before synchronizing them: those edits might be in conflict (one copy might check something off while another deletes it), so OmniFocus needs to reexamine all the transactions on both sides to make sure that it preserves whichever change was most recent. It currently does that by reopening the database, and that's when it displays that dialog.

The easiest way to avoid the reopen dialog is to synchronize as soon as you switch devices, before you start editing: the first set of edits would have been pushed to the server by the other device within one minute, so if you synchronize before you edit you'll be working with the latest set of data. But the reopen dialog isn't the end of the world, so don't worry too much about it!

[jalarson]

It seems that if I upgrade to the most recent build before syncing that I lose any changes in the DB that I made on my iPhone since the last desktop sync. In any case, I get the Reopen Local Database message and then my changes are gone. It's hard to replicate because I don't get upgrades every day, but that is what it looks like now. It hasn't happened every time because I usually force a sync as soon as I open OF, but in a couple of cases I've been stunned to see my stuff from my iPhone gone.

[fudster]

I've been getting this dialog even if I haven't made updates on both sides, and indeed, even if I've made no updates at all. I suspect that it may be that some state is still changing, even if I didn't do it myself. i.e., if I complete a recurring task on the iPhone, I think that on the Mac it creates the next occurrence of the task. I'm wondering if alerts or tasks becoming overdue might be causing it as well.

Originally Posted by jalarson

It seems that if I upgrade to the most recent build before syncing that I lose any changes in the DB that I made on my iPhone since the last desktop sync. In any case, I get the Reopen Local Database message and then my changes are gone. It's hard to replicate because I don't get upgrades every day, but that is what it looks like now. It hasn't happened every time because I usually force a sync as soon as I open OF, but in a couple of cases I've been stunned to see my stuff from my iPhone gone.

[ptone]

Originally Posted by fudster

I've been getting this dialog even if I haven't made updates on both sides, and indeed, even if I've made no updates at all.

I'll second this. There is something overly sensitive about the flagging of the local DB being changed. Also, it would be much nicer if it would reopen right back where you were.

-P

[Lizard]

The same issue that causes some bogus conflicts (and lost changes) during syncing is also causing a bunch of changes when there actually aren't any. We're working on it. You can reduce these bogus changes by leaving OmniFocus running on your Mac, instead of quitting it.

[fudster]

Thanks Lizard, I'm glad I saw your reply - I have in fact had OF running steadily, and was considering closing it, thinking it would help.

Originally Posted by Lizard

The same issue that causes some bogus conflicts (and lost changes) during syncing is also causing a bunch of changes when there actually aren't any. We're working on it. You can reduce these bogus changes by leaving OmniFocus running on your Mac, instead of quitting it.

[Ken Case]

The spurious sync conflicts should be fixed on the Mac side in this evening's alpha builds (revision 103681 or later).

They'll be fixed on the phone in the upcoming 1.0.3 release.