For what it’s worth, the connection has broken down 3 times since your suggestion, none of which have exhibited the odd ability to connect on the same network segment but not from outside. I begin to wonder if that was some kind of browser-caching fluke misdiagnosis on my part? Whatever the case, it’s still incredibly annoying that it stops responding so frequently. Any other ideas?
Another data point. The last couple times the server stopped responding, I’ve noted a timeout error in the DEVONthink log window, which previously wasn’t configured to show itself automatically. It appears that if there’s any single failure for a network call–and I’m not sure what’s timing out in light of the message–then the server is unresponsive going forward. Does that help? I’ve got an Ethernet cable on order to give the iMac on which it’s running a hard network connection rather than Wi-Fi. We’ll see if that helps.
Server timeouts aren’t shown in Window > Log, this was probably a temporary network issue of the sync.
I’ll capture the specific error message next time. Assuming it is, in fact, a temporary break in network communication, would that help explain why it completely stops responding?
Hard to tell without knowing the exact message yet.
Got it! The server stopped responding again today, and here’s what I saw in the Log window:
Given that I’m on a Wi-Fi network, it drops from time to time, so maybe that’s what’s causing my issue? Every other server application I have seems to survive such drops just fine, but maybe DEVONthink doesn’t?
That is a Apple CloudKit (hence the CK I presume) error message. Apple Developer Documentation
How does the device which throws this error (I assume this on the “server” running DEVONthink) use CloudKit? I assume synching? If you changed to another third-party internet-based sync method/service does things work better than with Apple’s CloudKit?
Yes, the only thing for which CloudKit is used (as far as I know anyway) is syncing my DEVONthink databases. I’d prefer to stick with that too since it seems to work best. I never had a single sync problem with that machine when it had a hard Ethernet line, nor did I have the server-stops-responding issue since the devs fixed an issue quite some time ago. I really think the sync failure is because Wi-Fi drops from time to time and that somehow messes up DEVONthink’s server connection.
I would always opt for an Ethernet connection when it’s available. WiFi is just too variable, even if it’s ubiquitous and sometimes the only option.
Of course. It’s just not easy in the new place. Until August of last year, I lived in a house with hard Ethernet in every room. Now I’m in a rental with Wi-Fi. I’m going to run a cable to see if that fixes the issue, but the DT server should also be resilient to a dropped/restored network connection anyway.
Development would have to weigh in on this.
For the record, I get the same problem when the iMac in question has Wi-Fi disabled and a hard-connection to the network instead. There’s clearly an issue here. Nothing in the log window today when it stopped responding. And I know the iMac is still online and good in all other respects.
Hold the Option key and choose Help > Report bug to start a support ticket.
Thanks! I’ll do that when I get back into town. I actually got a different error message tonight when it stopped responding. I’ll attach the screenshot here and to the bug report.
The “CK” means it is an Apple Cloud Kit error. Have you checked with Apple about this? That is their naming convention. To confirm, do an internet search for that error message.
I know you don’t want to do this, but is it time to at least experiment with another sync engine? Certainly for purposes of debugging your issue that seems to go on forever, why not?
Probably just another temporary glitch of the iCloud servers. Verifying the sync store might be a good idea nonetheless.
Just to be clear, do you mean verifying my databases? I just did that and they’re all fine. I couldn’t find anything in the help about “verifying the sync store”. I’m filling out that bug report today.
you will find that command in the dialog box for the sync preferences.
Help > Documentation > Troubleshooting > Sync Issues.