"Rules" for syncing?

[Kathy C]

I've read a lot on here and the Facebook group on syncing devices with Reunion 14 on my Mac. It seems to be split equally into two groups... iCloud and Dropbox. I've tried both multiple times, followed directions on the Leister site, and have some success, but mostly failures.

My question is, what are the rules of syncing? Specifically, is it necessary to quit all apps involved (Reunion 14 on the Mac and ReunionTouch on my devices) to facilitate syncing? According to a video on Leister's site about syncing with Reunion 13, you don't have to quit the apps and they should sync on demand. I'm confused about what is necessary to accomplish this.

Also, when I put my file into Dropbox, sync it, then try to download it to my devices, the file is grayed out on my devices within the Dropbox files.

Kathy

[DrJJWMac]

The behavior of syncing to a cloud service can vary depending not only on the procedures followed but also on the version of the app (Reunion in this case) as well as the version of macOS, iOS, iPadOS, and Dropbox being used. Let's suppose that you want to work on a cloud-based database first using platform A (macOS), then later using platform B (iPadOS). Consistency and stability are best approached by doing some things consistently.

* Have only one platform access the cloud database at a time. This means, when you are done with the database on one platform (macOS or iPadOS), close and quit the database before opening it on the other platform. Even when an app says that it can handle competing access to its cloud-based database simultaneously by more than one platform, the "between the lines" statement that is often left unspoken is "but we wish you would only do such things accidentally, not as a matter of habit".
--> A THOROUGHLY SUCCESSFUL SYNC OF THE DATABASE TO THE CLOUD HAS TO BE COMPLETED HERE BEFORE THE NEXT STEP
* Open the cloud-stored database to force it to select the app that will be used rather than opening the app and then selecting the cloud-stored database to open. Basically, sometimes the operating system does a better job forcing the cloud-based database to finish all of its sync steps before handing over the database to the application. Making the application open the cloud based database can be like opening an oven door to check whether a cake is finished rising rather than turning on the oven light. Oops! Not yet I guess (as the cake falls flat).

In a nutshell, what you have the least amount of control over in the above is how fast and how thorough the sync happens to put changes that you made on your local platform into the cloud-based database before you open that cloud-based database on another local platform. Speed is controlled by the speed of your network connections for one thing. Thorough is controlled by the practical graces of how your chosen cloud service (iCloud or DropBox) operates at the moments before, during, and after the sync between your local platform and the cloud-stored database should be completed. Finally, even in the most perfect case of infinite speed (no delays) and absolute thoroughness (nothing left behind), no syncing code ever likes trying to have to handle two competing requests from two different platforms at the same time. None of them ever.

> Also, when I put my file into Dropbox, sync it, then try to download it to my devices, the file is grayed out on my devices within the Dropbox files.

Likely your sync service is still churning away in the background to complete the sync of your local changes into its cloud-stored database. Or your sync service is asleep because the app that is supposed to have said "I am done, complete the sync", never sent the message. Or sent the message improperly. Or sent it in the wrong language (computer protocol) for the given platform or platform OS. Or sent it to a PO box that will only be checked by the sync service when the OS tells it to do so, not when the app tells it to do so. Or sent the message, but the message was pre-empted by some other app on your device that needed to take over the sync processes for its fire-storm activity.

I hope this helps you appreciate what you can and cannot control as you consider improving your practices using cloud-sync services.

[Kathy C]

Thank you! You've given me a lot of info to think about and correct. I appreciate your time and effort.