File count in DT and DTTG vary after new setup

I’ve deleted all DTTG2 and DTTG3 installations and setup a competely new sync store on a WebDAV server using a DT installation on macOS.

I use multiple databases and all have synced properly to all iOS devices… except 1 database which is reported to have 1 item less than all other devices including DT. I check the number reported under the ‘i’ symbol at the bottom in DTTG.

How can this be? To be clear: I consider this to be a completely new setup and immediately after the devices have synced a descrepancy is reported between the item count of one device and all other devices. Although it’s just 1 item according to DTTG3, I don’t understand how that can happen.

The total item count also doesn’t reflect files, as it’s consequently more than the actual number of documents/files in the database. So if I store 100 items in various groups for example, the number of files and groups don’t add up to the item count.

Do you know whether this is really correct and what exactly is different (e.g. different tags)? Do you use feeds?

Good question, because the trouble is I don’t understand how the total item count is calculated.

No feeds, this database is fairly simple containg about 100 pdfs and about 100 emails in about 50 groups. If I add up all clickable items (except the groups) by simply counting them by hand I end up with a total of 225.

All devices show a total ‘item’ count of 261 (which perhaps includes groups?) but strangely just one iOS device reports 260. The total item count of the other databases with many more items are exactly similar on all devices.

So I’m ‘missing’ just one item on one device according to DTTG, but I don’t know what item, and indeed whether it’s actually ‘missing’.

I had the same problem

The “fix” utility URL command helped (help->appendix->utility URL commands)

Keeping an eye on it to see if the counts remain in sync.

I’ll give it a try, but my biggest concern is about the situation itself:

  • DT om macOS
  • DT → sync store on WebDAV server
  • Sync multiple iOS devices one by one with sync store
  • All databases on all devices have the same item count

…except one database on one device that reports one item less than all others.

Don’t you think that’s strange?

Yes, I do. I suspect there might be a bug.

For me, in one case, the only solution was to completely clean the sync store and start over.

Yeah, but I’ve just done that exactly to make sure I wouldn’t run into such things. Maintenance URL didn’t work BTW, but thanks anyway.

Are the item counts of the groups identical?

If it’s really important I can start counting, but as the infobox doesn’t show group numbers and details like DT does, this is a very laboursome question to answer as I have to do it by hand,

But that still doesn’t explain why one device shows the difference.

Update: I’ve just noticed the DT property window shows one item to be of an ‘unknown’ type.

This requires additional information unfortunately:
Is the item count incorrect or is there indeed one item less? What kind of item in this case?

Or if the sync store isn’t too large and doesn’t contain any private data, then a zipped copy would be the easiest way for us to analyze this.

I’ve finished counting and checking all items by hand and as expected all items are in fact on the device.

The item count on one device is clearly wrong (even though it’s one item) if I compare it to the other devices. I added one item (a smart group) and that increases the item count on all devices with one, including the device that reported one item less than all others.

I find the total item count in DT difficult to understand. I’ve created a new test database and indeed it shows 3 groups from the start. I presume those are the Inbox and the trash, but what the third group is I don’t know. Is the database itself counted as a group?

As DTTG3 doesn’t show the details of the item count like DT, discrepancies between devices requires manual counting and that is quite laboursome. At this moment I conclude that the total item count in DTTG3 is not working as intended (n=1), excluding errors on my side which are more likely of course. That said: is the reason why DTTG comes with a ‘maintenance’ URL to correct item count that sometimes somehow go wrong?

The Tags group is an item.

And yes, utility commands are for doing some maintenance on the data.

But I didn’t expect to do maintenance on the very first sync following the setup of a new sync store :thinking:

I’ve just deleted DTTG3 from that single device, reinstalled it and this time the item count is correct.

Together with previous reports about item count and the existence of the maintenance URL I think there’s a bug involved or a relatively easy way item count can be disturbed.

Despite the new much ‘faster’ item count in DTTG 3.0.4 released yesterday, the count itself seems to stay troublesome for me now and then.

After importing and moving several thousands of e-mails to/from my global inbox yesterday, the item count in DTTG is stuck at thousands of documents,

I’ve used the ‘clear caches’ utility command and the new verify/repair option, but those didn’t work. The e-mails have actually been removed from the global inbox and when I manually browse through it, there’s only some group and several documents.

The only true resolution seems to be reinstalling DTTG again and again, but although it’s not a very difficult proces, it gets tedious after a while :grinning:

Might I invite @eboehnisch to try out the following:

  • WebDAV sync
  • DT and DTTG
  • Import large number of documents in global inbox of DT like archiving e-mail
  • Sync to WebDAV server
  • Sync DTTG with WebDAV server
  • Check addition of imported documents to global inbox in DTTG
  • Check item count (A) in DTTG

Set iOS device to airplane mode / disable Wifi (no network connection)

  • Move imported items in DT from global inbox to other database
  • Sync to,WebDAV server

Disable airplane mode / enable WiFi (restore network connection)

  • Sync DTTG with WebDAV server
  • Check removal of imported documents from global inbox
  • Check item count (B) in DTTG

My iOS device shows the item count (A) as a high number number, as expected following the import. But it still shows as a high numer when I check for it under (B). The airplane mode is used as a simulation for situations where the device is not connected to the network.

This should, of course, always be only the last resort :slight_smile:

Now, from your description it looks as if the item count is not updated after you moved the items. As after emptying the caches the counts are all calculated from scratch I wonder why they should be off when everything is recalculated … :thinking:

Beside the ‘delete caches’ and verifiy/repair, I executed the ‘fix’ utiltity URL command this weekend. That didn’t work either. But for some inexplicable reason during the weekend (long after the fix command) the item count suddenly dropped to about 50% of the number of emails. That still left me staring at thousands of items that weren’t there.

I’ve just checked and to my surprise, the item count has now gone down to a number that’s similar to other devices. So it’s correct now.

To be clear: the device that reported the item counts wrong is disconnected from the WebDAV server now and then, but certainly was connected and synced multiple times after the e-mails were moved (as can be concluded from the fact that the emails weren’t visible in the global inbox the whole weekend).

Exactly. There seems to be some kind of delay in the update of the item count, even after the above URL utility was performed. The count was initially stuck at thousands, then dropped to about 50% of that and now dropped to the actual count. But that took multiple days.

I wonder whether the count is encountering hiccups because the app goes background and is stopped by iOS, stopping some form of housekeeping?

That’s a good suggestion, but when I moved the e-mails and synced the involved device I could definitely see the sync being performed including the indexing etc. with the circle going round.

And when I checked the item count under 3.0.3 I could see the ‘calculating’ process taking place, Which was the reason why I was so surprised to find out the item count didn’t go down at all. Then we’ve had the upgrade to 3.0.4 and the speed up of item count. Nevertheless it still was stuck at the high number.

Also, another device that was laying around was synced in the background and displayed item count correctly when I was confronted with the high numbers.

My preliminary guess is that it has to do with the network disconnects somehow. That’s a sure difference between the device with the high numbers (and now have been restored) and the other ones. That might also explain why users keep reporting item count differences now and then.

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I’ll have another look at item counts as I’m currently removing some performance bottlenecks.

Hello! I wonder if I am looking at the same problem here. Global Inbox shared across Macbook Pro, iPhone and iPad. The first two are happily reporting the same total item count (of 25 items all in a single folder), but the iPad is some off. See attached: there are clearly 25 items in the folder ‘Filing’ (which is correct) but the sidebar count reports just 22. (BTW the database was still syncing – well, it was, but that didn’t resolve the issue).

Can I reset the count in some way? I fear I may have caused it somehow by messing around on 3 devices in short succession without waiting for successful syncs at all ends, but I thought that the syncing engine would probably handle that.