I am trying to use DDTG on my ipad as a information ‘collector’. I share items to DTTG, switch to my Macbook Devonthink and they are not there in the inbox. Why? Because I have forgotten to open the app on the iPad and wait until it has finished syncing (which can feel like ages as it takes several pushes of the cloud icon). It is so FRUSTRATING! If I save to any other app on my iPad, iCloud, Dropbox, OneDrive, etc. things appear fine on my Macbook.
I know lots of people have written on this, but please Devonthink, sort out DDTG syncing or I will have to abandon it.
But… I could have some set up setting wrong. Is there anyway to get DDTG to sync in the background? Thanks
You do not say specifically how you sync with what service. A lot of the performance of sync speed depends on actions or lack of action by the synch service provider.
You say “cloud” so i am guessing Apple? Reported by many here as unreliable and with what looks to be a mind of its own.
Bonjour known to be the quickest and most reliable.
Perhaps when the Mac is handy, collect there and let the slower synch eventually update the slower iPad?
Well, off you go then. To be slightly less facetious, you’d actually need to get Apple to change things, rather than DT. DT have explained the reasoning behind this a number of times in the past. The low down of it is that the sync process in DT is rather more complicated than, for example, syncing a text note. Apple will allow software to work in the background for a limited (und if I understand things correctly, somewhat unpredictable) amount of time. This limit effectively precludes DTTG from offering effective background syncing.
As @rmschne has suggested, you may find Bonjour sync helpful; I simply sit down with my iPad when at my Mac and find everything has been happily synced something like 30 seconds later.
Thanks for your comments. I have Bonjour enabled on my Macbook DT. My Ipad has both Bonjour and Dropbox syncing enabled. But bonjour does not seem to kick in or at least I can’t tell if it is working. Anyway to easily check Ipad is talking to the MacBook via bonjour? OR let me know how I should set up bonjour on the two devices. Thanks for all your help (and sorry I let off a bit of steam).
Please reread the Bonjour setup instructions in the outstanding DEVONthink Handbook. Enable incoming Bonjour only on one device. I suggest making that device the Mac.
Glad to hear it. We advocate using a sync on your local network unless you really need a remote sync option.
PS: DEVONthink To Go already supports Background App Refresh. However, the operating system controls if and when this happens and only allows about 30 seconds of activity before it shuts it down again.
Does Bonjour sync on iPad also when the iPad is in block screen mode, so in the background?
Or do I have to take the iPad, activate the screen and open DTTG when I want to sync?
DEVONthink To Go must be open to sync (just as other apps technically do too).
Ideally it’s the frontmost application as well since Background App Refresh is controlled by the operating system and only allows 30 seconds or so of activity.
@BLUEFROG I’ve found Bonjour sync to be flakey - it is set up correctly.
I don’t understand why apps like Things sync so rapidly and robustly even when they’re not in the foreground? I get that DT is vastly more complex data…
You’ve answered your own question, I guess. A task list consists of toby p morsels, a DT database is a lot bigger and more complex what with all the metadata etc.
Things is likely doing very different things data-wise. I haven’t looked at it in awhile but if it’s writing to an SQL store, that is a common and simple mechanism for data transfer. It’s also a very limited one made for such small bits of data. This is similar to how Apple Notes behaves.
Bonjour is still using the same mechanism as other sync methods, i.e., it’s not just doing a file copy between devices. It’s still raw, chunked, and encrypted sync data being passed between them.
Steam is a natural entity, and it’s really nice to see we’ve found a working solution so quickly