Troubleshooting the most reported issues with DTTG

There are a number of issues being discussed here. Before I get into those issues, let’s make sure everyone is on the same page:

  1. Please make sure you have the latest copy of DT Pro (v 2.0.5) installed on your Macintosh.
  2. Please make sure you have selected items to sync with your device by placing them in the ‘Sync group’ in DT Pro on your Mac.
  3. Press the sync button in DTTG. You should see your computer listed. Tap on your computer and see if you get the “pairing” dialog.

Now if you are not seeing “Sync group” in DT Pro, sync will not work in any event. If that is your issue, please post as to:

A. Sync groups show up or not
B. Your Mac processor type (PPC, Intel)
C. Your OS version

If you do have ‘Sync group’ in your DT Pro desktop application and selected items to sync, then the next issue to address is if you see your Mac in DTTG. We use Bonjour services to discover computers on the network and it appears that this service is not working correctly for some users. In that case, make sure your Mac’s firewall is turned off (at least while syncing). You can obtain a (free) app titled “MyDevices” that will allow you to see if your iPad can ‘see’ your desktop computer via Bonjour. If not, we will be posting further hints tomorrow as to how you might resolve this issue. Keep in mind that you must be on the -same- WiFi network, and your WiFi router might actually be blocking Bonjour traffic (and unfortunately, we are not going to give out advice as to how to fix your router to allow such traffic, but you may want to contact your vendor’s product support staff). Further, office networks (appear to) routinely shut down Bonjour services, so this might pose an issue as well. The “MyDevices” app will let you know if this is the case.

Lastly, you DO have Sync group in DT Pro, you CAN see your computer on DTTG, and you CAN connect your mobile device to the desktop - but nothing seems to happen. We recommend:

A. make sure your Mac’s firewall is turned off (at least while syncing)
B. shut down other computers on your WiFi network during the sync operation.
C. try syncing only one or two files to make sure the connection is really happening - syncing large files, or large numbers of files, can take a long time.

We are working on a simpler, more robust “one button” approach to syncing that should remove most of the steps currently required in this process. (Also more user-friendly in giving feedback during the sync process). It should also be more resilient to the vagaries of WiFi network setup and failures. Given the effort involved and Apple’s review cycle on iOS app updates, we cannot give out timeframes - but rest assured this is a top priority for us. That said, the problem of “missing sync groups” and at least some of the Bonjour problems will be addressed as soon as we find solutions.

Hi there,

please also check the strange behaviour of “mixed-up” databases on the ipad.
Means I have two different databases which each contain the content of the other ones. So database A contains all the synced groups and docs from database B and vice versa.
I have named my Sync-groups in each database including the database name, i.e. “Sync - General”…

Many regards from Germany and thanks a lot for your efforts…

dave

My iPad/MacBook Pro connection was working for sync until this afternoon, when suddenly the mobile device kept timing out. Going through the standard trouble shooting process of first restarting the applications, and then restarting the hardware involved, retrying with every one led to it working again. Specifically, rebooting my wireless router resolved the issue for me at this time.

Ralf

I just migrated from an iPhone 3 to an iPhone 4 (GS) and now I no longer can sync where previously, things were working fine. Running current versions of DT (2.3.2) and DTTG (1.2.2). DTTG doesn’t see my computer at all (yes, it does have a name). The error I get is “Bonjour Failed: Bonjour was unable to find computers.” Bonjour Browser shows “_devonthink._tcp. - 1” with “Can’t resolve link-local name / 10.211.55.2:60032”. I did “reset synchronization settings” in DTTG to no effect.
What shall I do to get syncing to work again?

@Al-Ei, I recently migrated an iPad 1 to iPad 2 and had a similar experience (root cause was problems propagated by iTunes when it restored the new device from a backup of a the older, defective version of iOS 5 – Apple was the culprit there).

Shut down DEVONthink on the desktop. Delete DTTG from your device. Do a hard reboot (press off + home buttons on the phone and hold until the screen goes blank and the Apple logo reappears). Reinstall DTTG from the App Store. Reconnect to your local network. Restart DEVONthink on the desktop. Now, attempt to configure DTTG.

(You might need to bounce your desktop and router too, just to clear out the cruft that’s confusing Bonjour - causing everyone on the network to reregister - you’d bounce the devices right after deleting DTTG from the phone.)

I have the same problem as AI-Ei, but before I go as far as deleting DTTG from my iPad and iPhone, can someone answer the following? All my devices are on the same network, but the security configuration for the computer is WPA2 and for the and for the iPad and iPhone is WPA. Could that be the problem?

Not likely. The security setting is between your device and the network, and should be transparent to applications.