Sync under iOS 8

[jinx]

Sync devices does not work under iOS 8.
Some tasks get dropped and some are multiplied.
When do you plan to fix it?

This is very dangerous especially that Time Master Central does not work with iOS 8 either (so no restore).
When will you fix Time Master Central?

[Adam]

Sync devices does not work under iOS 8.
Some tasks get dropped and some are multiplied.
When do you plan to fix it?

When the Sync does not "work" under iOS 8, you will need to reboot both devices.  There is some sort of Bonjour bug in iOS 8 that is being reported by many other developers that have apps that sync between devices.  The reboot seems to fix that.

Duplicates are being caused by the "Saved State" issue.  What happens is that when you relaunch TM after it had been sleeping for awhile, it will bring up the Time Entry "Edit" screen with a *copy* of the last entry.  If you tap Save, it will duplicate the previous entry.  We recommend that you tap on "Cancel" if you know that you had Saved previous (e.g. unless you were interrupted by a phone call).  We are not aware of any "lost" entries.  Only duplicates.  The "saved state" issue has been fixed in TM v6.0.5, but Apple is really slow right now for "Reviews" and we believe it may be at least a week before the Review it and put it up on the App Store.

If you want, you can email us the Backup files from Both devices and we can try and take a look at your data.  Please let us know what entries you think got "deleted"?

This is very dangerous especially that Time Master Central does not work with iOS 8 either (so no restore).
When will you fix Time Master Central?

No, we stopped supporting TMC back in 2011.  Only about 1/2 of Windows users were able to get TMC to work and we moved to Dropbox at that point.  Dropbox works great on all platforms (iOS, Android and Windows .  That is what we are supporting now and recommend that you use Dropbox.  Setup -> Database -> Online Backup & Restore.

Cheers,
Adam.

[jinx]

When the Sync does not "work" under iOS 8, you will need to reboot both devices.  There is some sort of Bonjour bug in iOS 8 that is being reported by many other developers that have apps that sync between devices.  The reboot seems to fix that.

Yes I have discovered that - but it only works for a short time. I understand you cannot do much about this and we need to wait for Apple to debug its iOS 8...

Duplicates are being caused by the "Saved State" issue.  What happens is that when you relaunch TM after it had been sleeping for awhile, it will bring up the Time Entry "Edit" screen with a *copy* of the last entry.  If you tap Save, it will duplicate the previous entry.  We recommend that you tap on "Cancel" if you know that you had Saved previous (e.g. unless you were interrupted by a phone call).

That is a correct description of the situation. It also correct to state that this issue was not there in TM versions on iOS 7. I am glad that your fix is just over the corner...

We are not aware of any "lost" entries.  Only duplicates.  The "saved state" issue has been fixed in TM v6.0.5, but Apple is really slow right now for "Reviews" and we believe it may be at least a week before the Review it and put it up on the App Store.

If you want, you can email us the Backup files from Both devices and we can try and take a look at your data.  Please let us know what entries you think got "deleted"?

Well some entries are deleted for sure. I run a monthly report for a given client before the sync and after the sync and the difference is 15 hours... (and no records were deleted on any device). The symptom is visible also in the status messages ("deleting entries"). This makes the sync worst than unusable - it makes it untrustworthy - and in conjunction with TMC not working it is making the whole system one point failure (very uncomfortable).

No, we stopped supporting TMC back in 2011.  Only about 1/2 of Windows users were able to get TMC to work and we moved to Dropbox at that point.  Dropbox works great on all platforms (iOS, Android and Windows Cool.  That is what we are supporting now and recommend that you use Dropbox.  Setup -> Database -> Online Backup & Restore.

Cheers,
Adam.

Sorry I usually do not use windows and up to now TMC on Mac was working perfectly.
Cannot legally use customer data in dropbox or other foreign cloud provider if they do not respect data protection laws of my country.
I understand the backup problem is the new TM version problem on new IOS and not TMC problem. So please fix TM so TMC can continue to work as before.

Thanks!

[Adam]

Well some entries are deleted for sure. I run a monthly report for a given client before the sync and after the sync and the difference is 15 hours... (and no records were deleted on any device). The symptom is visible also in the status messages ("deleting entries"). This makes the sync worst than unusable - it makes it untrustworthy - and in conjunction with TMC not working it is making the whole system one point failure (very uncomfortable).

The Sync *always* shows the synching deletions.  Lets say you have an old iPad that hasn't been synced for 6 months or you had to Restore from a Backup that you did one year ago.  It still had to be able to synchronize any deleted entries.  It always does that no matter how old.  This has been there since day one.

No, we stopped supporting TMC back in 2011.  Only about 1/2 of Windows users were able to get TMC to work and we moved to Dropbox at that point.  Dropbox works great on all platforms (iOS, Android and Windows Cool.  That is what we are supporting now and recommend that you use Dropbox.  Setup -> Database -> Online Backup & Restore.

Sorry I usually do not use windows and up to now TMC on Mac was working perfectly.
Cannot legally use customer data in dropbox or other foreign cloud provider if they do not respect data protection laws of my country.
I understand the backup problem is the new TM version problem on new IOS and not TMC problem. So please fix TM so TMC can continue to work as before.

There were even some Mac users where TMC would not work for.  Although it was small on OSX, it was really bad on Windows.  Absolute worst case is that you would have to attach the device to iTunes and save the "database.rsd" file from the "Documents" within the Apps Tab (see the Manual).  I don't know if this can work due to Apple removing the old "libraries" (programming tools) from the latest versions of the iOS compiler.  We had to remove a lot of legacy stuff to make it work with iOS 8 and have to keep up with what Apple provides for us.

[jinx]

The Sync *always* shows the synching deletions.  Lets say you have an old iPad that hasn't been synced for 6 months or you had to Restore from a Backup that you did one year ago.  It still had to be able to synchronize any deleted entries.  It always does that no matter how old.  This has been there since day one.

Well if you synchronize 2 devices just restored from the same database there should be no deletions (and no additions to be exact). In my case there are deletions and I lose 15 hours on both devices after a synchro. So no more synchro for me...

There were even some Mac users where TMC would not work for.  Although it was small on OSX, it was really bad on Windows.  Absolute worst case is that you would have to attach the device to iTunes and save the "database.rsd" file from the "Documents" within the Apps Tab (see the Manual).  I don't know if this can work due to Apple removing the old "libraries" (programming tools) from the latest versions of the iOS compiler.  We had to remove a lot of legacy stuff to make it work with iOS 8 and have to keep up with what Apple provides for us.

I do hope you restore the situation before iOS8. The TMC was working perfectly well and very fast - a great tool (indispensable if one is serious about his accounting process). I hope you will be able to correct TM so TMC works again.

By the way I do notice that a lot of WiFi networking functions work in suboptimal manner in iOS 8. sometimes I just put plane mode on and off to restart the whole thing afresh - here Apple is to blame...

[Adam]

The Sync *always* shows the synching deletions.  Lets say you have an old iPad that hasn't been synced for 6 months or you had to Restore from a Backup that you did one year ago.  It still had to be able to synchronize any deleted entries.  It always does that no matter how old.  This has been there since day one.

Well if you synchronize 2 devices just restored from the same database there should be no deletions (and no additions to be exact). In my case there are deletions and I lose 15 hours on both devices after a synchro. So no more synchro for me...

Well if this is the case, then we would only be able to fix this if you can send us your backup files.  Since you are the only one who is having this issue, without being able to reproduce it, there is nothing else we can do.

Note that the program *always* says Synchronizing Deletions.  That will NEVER go away.  It is part of the sync process.  You may have never noticed it before, but it has always done that.

There were even some Mac users where TMC would not work for.  Although it was small on OSX, it was really bad on Windows.  Absolute worst case is that you would have to attach the device to iTunes and save the "database.rsd" file from the "Documents" within the Apps Tab (see the Manual).  I don't know if this can work due to Apple removing the old "libraries" (programming tools) from the latest versions of the iOS compiler.  We had to remove a lot of legacy stuff to make it work with iOS 8 and have to keep up with what Apple provides for us.

I do hope you restore the situation before iOS8. The TMC was working perfectly well and very fast - a great tool (indispensable if one is serious about his accounting process). I hope you will be able to correct TM so TMC works again.

By the way I do notice that a lot of WiFi networking functions work in suboptimal manner in iOS 8. sometimes I just put plane mode on and off to restart the whole thing afresh - here Apple is to blame...

Sadly, yes.  We can only hope that they will fix it in iOS 8.1 which should be out soon.

[jinx]

Well if this is the case, then we would only be able to fix this if you can send us your backup files.  Since you are the only one who is having this issue, without being able to reproduce it, there is nothing else we can do.

I will do no sync till 8.1 and then recontact you with results with 8.1 and your new version.

Note that the program *always* says Synchronizing Deletions.  That will NEVER go away.  It is part of the sync process.  You may have never noticed it before, but it has always done that.

Of course - you have to sync what has been added and what has been deleted according to timestamps on both devices. This does not explain how 2 devices just after being restored from the same backup show one total on a monthly report then and the previous total -15 hours after a sync that directly follows (no operations on data on any of the devices other than restore, report, sync, report)

[jinx]

P.S. in the conditions I described there should be no deletions mentioned by the sync or actually done

[Adam]

Exactly.  And without being able to trace thru the code while they are Syncing, with your data, there is nothing we can do.  We have not experienced this here and there is no way we can "guess" what is happening on your devices.

[jinx]

Is there any information stored outside the database? (that would not get overwritten by a database restore?)
If so is there a way to erase it? (reinstall app?)

I remember that before doing the operation described above I did erase a number of duplicate entries a cause of the duplicate bug.

[jinx]

Any reply?

[Adam]

No.  The backup file contains the whole database file with all the settings.

You can erase the app, but it won't do anything differently.

[jinx]

It is a mystery then - I will wait for 8.1 and redo the sync then and inform you

[jinx]

I have iOS 8.1 on all devices now - Time Master Central on Mac works again!

BAD NEWS now - the synchro is still completely broken:
- I initialize 2 devices with the same database
- I do report on both - they show both the same number of hours
- I sync the 2 devices
- I do a report - they show both the same number of hours (but the number is less than in the previous step)
- I sync
- I do a report... etc. etc.

After every sync the report gives a different number of hours. I lose hours from one given project (always the same) after every sync - SCARY!

Please investigate as if there is one thing people dislike most in those systems - it is losing hours that were worked

[Adam]

You are the only person who is having this issue.  As I stated before, we can look at your database if you email it to us.  We can debug it and see what is going on.  Otherwise there is nothing we can do.  Sorry.