I am using Bonjour to sync a couple of databases. The computer I was working on is the sync server and the idle computer is a client. I left the idle computer with DEVONthink running.
As I worked on my primary computer (the sync server) in OmniGraffle, I kept getting warnings that the file was overwritten. It wasn’t until I exited DEVONthink on the idle computer that the problem went away.
The file in question was indexed in DEVONthink, in the same file system location on both computers. The file was not in a cloud folder.
Should this have been happening?
Do you use any automation (e.g. smart rules, Hazel, scripts etc.) on the other computer?
No to both.
I did reopen DEVONthink on the client side and the problem started again. So, it might be easy to debug.
The error surfaces when OmniGraffle does an auto-save.
That wouldn’t be a sync issue then. Can you disable the autosave in OmniGraffle?
I don’t know how to disable that or even if I want to.
I don’t know what you mean that it’s not a sync issue. OmniGraffle is auto-saving to disk and sees the file has changed. That only happens when DEVONthink is left running on my idle computer. The only thing I can think of which would cause my idle computer to alter the file on my working computer is the synchronization.
I assume that the synchronization is being triggered from the idle computer and motivating the working computer’s DEVONthink to touch the file. But, only OmniGraffle is working on the file - I don’t even have it selected in DEVONthink for preview purposes.
Since the file is only being modified on the working computer outside of DEVONthink, why would DEVONthink write to the file?
By the way, this is a file I added today on my working computer. I see that it has sync’d to the idle computer, but I’ve never opened it in any application on that computer.
Post a screen capture of the problematic file selected in the item list of DEVONthink with the entire Name column showing.
Is OmniGraffle also running on the idle computer?
No, it’s not running there.
Hold the Option key and choose Help > Report bug to start a support ticket.
Please provide screen captures of where you’re indexing from in the Finder so i can try to replicate your setup.
I did a bit of monitoring this morning. I had everything sync’d up and working with the two DEVONthink instances. I then started up OmniGraffle on my work computer. I did nothing to the document other than opening it. Shortly after that I saw a new document arrive on my work computer with “copy” appended to its name. And after that, the copy version appeared on my idle computer.
I will say that it is rare that I leave my idle computer with DEVONthink running. I’ve been working a lot recently trying to master the care and feeding of DEVONthink synchronization.
This doesn’t mean nothing is going on in OmniGraffle.
Also, is your Settings > Sync > Conflicts set to Duplicate documents?
I just did another experiment. The same problem happens when I work with a Microsoft Word document. And, the same for Excel.
Yes, it’s set to duplicate. I had guessed that the extra file was the result of a synchronization conflict.
When I’m running DEVONthink on my idle computer, I have no other applications running. Later tonight, I’ll boot the idle computer into safe mode and test again, just to confirm no background process is tricking DEVONthink into thinking the file has changed and causing it to push changes to my working computer.
Just to eliminate a variable, is the time set the same on both Macs?
Yes. Both computers’ times are synchronized to Apple’s servers.
