iPad does not sync

Syncing was fine except for the last four weeks. The sync process starts and lasts “forever”. I let it sync for two days - but it did not finish. The size of the databases (actually four) varies from 5GB to 20GB. Sync is done via iCloud and the internet connection is really fast - so this should not be part of the problem.
Any suggestions what I can do?

Greets

Mike

I don’t think you can conclude that from the download or upload speed of your connection.

It’s like you’ve got some materials stored in a self-service warehouse that is owned and maintained by someone else, and you drive up and down a fast road to transport that material to and from your house. If the warehouse owner replaces the janitor, uses new transport carts with an oversized wheelbase or moves your belongings to a different warehouse, you might experience a better service and a shorter turn around time, but you could also (inadvertently) experience a longer one. That time is independent from traffic jams that might also influence the turn-around time.

Therefore, a fast internet connection does not equal fast syncing with a webservice (that neither you nor the DT staff control).

If you want (near) full control over synchronization, I suggest you use a method that you can influence/observe/adapt to your liking such as Bonjour or WebDAV on a NAS in your LAN.

You might consider a NAS in your LAN like your garage, where you store the goods you previously stored in the warehouse. The downside is, a garage is usually locked from the outside. You can install a remote door opener, but of course that could lead to intruders breaking into your garage without you knowing.

In the end, allowing acces to your data over the internet involves a certain security risk. that is mostly mitigated by the provider of a webservice. I personally advocate not syncing your data over the internet, unless it’s really necessary. And to put proper locks on all of your doors (i.e. good passwords, 2 factor-authentication, encryption etc.), and think through whether you need more measures if your data is accessible over the internet.

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I am aware about the IT-background(s) of the problem. Syncing is without any problems with MacMini and MacBookPro in the same network. It is the iPad that has problems. Other Apps are downloading from iCloud with really high speed. So the problem is located somewhere else, beds this, the progress indicator shows the low speed within the sync process. It may be that syncing is aborted of “hangs”.
I decided to use iCloud - I have two NAS up and running (and can access from abroad) - but iCloud has been more, say, convenient, and it worked without any problems since a few weeks ago. I’m, quite often on business trips so it is great to have all data in sync.
Greets from actually Dortmund
Mike

Sorry if I over-simplified it for you with the warehouse example. I’ll leave it though, as it might help others understand the difference between an ISP connection and a webservice.

I don’t know the details of iCloud-sync, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it performed some kind of file-integrity check like CRC after upload. Of course TCP also performs a checksum of every packet (the ‘C’ stands for ‘control’). So it might be e.g. that packet loss causes so much damage to the file(s), the upload fails and therefore the sync stalls.

But this is just a guess from my side. My point is: a webservice beyond control of you or DT is difficult to troubleshoot, as you don’t have many options to intervene, adjust or observe the process.

Perhaps @BLUEFROG has another suggestion, but you might consider using one of your NAS if it supports WebDAV, considering they’re already accessible from the internet (and I presume you are already aware of the potential security risks I explained and took measures to prevent the NAS from getting compromised).

Viel Glück!

I’m having a similar issue. If I don’t open DTTG on my iPad for a period of time (2, 3, 4 weeks?), the sync takes forever. It looks like it’s downloading the entire database from the iCloud. I don’t know, yet, if it’s just this one database or all of them, as it’s been hours and still working on the first one (total Db size is 2.7Gb). Why does it have to re-download the entire database an not just what’s new or changed?

Is this an iCloud thing? Would switching back to Dropbox be better? Is it actually downloading or it is comparing what it has local to what’s in the cloud?

Update: after it finished the sync, it started resynching again, but this time it didn’t take as long. It has not moved onto the next Db, and based on the circle progress meter, it’s also looks like it’s going to take a while.

If I don’t open DTTG on my iPad for a period of time (2, 3, 4 weeks?), the sync takes forever

If you’re not opening DEVONthink To Go for up to a month and you are heavily using DEVONthink on the Mac, then yes clearly there could be a large amount of data to sync.

Why does it have to re-download the entire database an not just what’s new or changed?

There is no data to support this assertion. It’s impossible to assess without logs.

Update: after it finished the sync, it started resynching again, but this time it didn’t take as long. It has not moved onto the next Db, and based on the circle progress meter, it’s also looks like it’s going to take a while.

Again, there could be a considerable amount of data to sync and there’s no way to control iCloud’s behavior or speed.

Is this an iCloud thing? Would switching back to Dropbox be better?

I would ask why you’re even using a remote sync option, especially given you’re only rarely using DEVONthink To Go.

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Even if the whole DB is downloaded the time it consumes is strange. What I did:

  1. Deleted DT on the iPad
  2. reload from App-Store
  3. selected only on database to sync (10GB)

Actual download speed is 20Mbps which is roughly 2.5MBs, so it should take less than 70 minutes to download the complete database. The reality is really far away from this and I have no explanation at the moment. Normal download from iCloud is really fast, I measure approx the download speed I have.

What if I’m not heavily using DT on the Mac? Or if I’m using but only adding a few text documents? It doesn’t seem like it should take as long as it does. I really don’t have empirical data on how much was changed on the Mac, but I don’t think it was a large amount. The entire Db is only 2.7 GB which would take less than 40 minutes to download on a slow connection (10 Mbps) and I don’t have a slow connection. The changes were nowhere near that large in size for it to take over an hour to sync. Thus, it’s puzzling. It’s even more puzzling that DTTG didn’t take this long to sync on my iPhone and it was about as out of date as DTTG on the iPad.

Yup, true. I don’t know what it’s doing, but even if it nuked-and-paved the entire Db, it doesn’t seem like it should have taken as long as it did. Now, this is via iCloud, so who knows what’s going on there. I was just bringing this to your attention.

Asking why I’m using remote sync? To have my documents available to me on my mobile device.
Asking why I’m not using Bonjour instead? Because that doesn’t seem to work well for me.

Let’s assume the issue resides in iCloud. If I enable both iCloud and Dropbox as sync locations, will DTTG use whichever has the faster connection, or whichever is placed in the top spot?

Another question would be, can DTTG sync in the background (without having to open it on a regular basis)? Seems like this would solve this issue.

Food for thought: every time i nuke-and-pave a DB and re-sync DT, it is downloading files from way back when.
i.e. currently there are only 2 files in my global inbox. fresh installation on one of my ios devices is downloading 120 files for my global inbox and after a lot of downloading and work, i see only 2. Some of those files are from 2018 or 2019.
=> I don’t think the database size is at all indicative of how fast a sync should be

I don’t think the database size is at all indicative of how fast a sync should be

It only should matter on the inital push and import to other devices. Beyond that, the database’s size should have no affect subsequent syncs.