The sync between devices is very slow and takes quite some time. It’s 2024 and pretty much all other apps have an instant sync. I do remember this with v3 and was hoping it would have improved for v4.
Does anyone know if there is a reason for this or if the Omnigroup are looking to bring it up to speed with other apps?
I’ve been using OmniFocus for well over a decade now and am enjoying v4!
Mine seems as fast as ever.
Although I miss the animation in the Synch icon, instead of the (presence or absence of a) dot.
I just tested mine out with one task and it went through in under 5 seconds.
But then I did another test with a project of 20 items and I got mixed results. I created 20 items and they synced without issue. But then I copied and pasted them and tried the sync again and it still hasn’t updated on my phone.
I’m not sure if it’s tied to the number of changes that are being made at once.
Initially I thought OF4 syncs faster than OF3. But this morning it took quite long. More than 10 seconds I guess, but I didn’t measure it exactly.
Speed might vary.
But this morning I also had the impression, it doesn’t seem to be faster than it was before.
Just a suggestion Do we really know what counts as ‘start’ and ‘complete’ on (Omni’s) servers - so as to be able to compare like with like: server identified; server contacted; ack; handshake; initiated and then completed; verified; disconnected?
Perhaps - sorry, again - the new icon is referring to different stages along either or both of these processes from the respective cases in OF3. Hence a perceived difference?
To be honest this is the one area that prevents me from ever going all-in on Omnifocus. I’m seriously baffled when OF users say there’s no syncing problem for them. Or say it only takes 2-5 seconds. Maybe it’s because you guys are based in the U.S. close to the sync servers or something?
I’m based in Australia, and every other to do app I have syncs within a second or two. I’ve tried more than 15-20 different task management apps. None sync as slowly as Omnifocus.
I’ve gone through phases of using Omnifocus for a few weeks or so, and I’ve often opened up my iphone and sat there waiting for more than 60 seconds, for no more than 3-5 tasks to sync and be marked as complete. And not after not using the device for weeks or something. I’m talking on a daily basis. I’ve heard similar issues from a european user. And no I don’t need to archive. Or rebuild the database. And no I don’t have hundreds of projects or even more than 3 folders. It’s just baffling to me that these super long sync times aren’t brought up more often. The shortest amount of time I’ve ever waited for my Omnifocus to sync (between my mac and iphone) was around 10 seconds. And thats because I had already been using both devices that same day.
I’m in Australia too and can 100% say that I have the exact same experience with the slow sync issues. As you mentioned, every other 2Do app syncs almost instantly.
Does anyone from the Omnigroup read these? As I’d be happy to troubleshoot or follow any specific settings I need to have on my devices to get it working. It’s 2024 and instant sync is everything as we’re constantly moving between devices.
I recommend reaching out to Omni Support. You can send them an email by choosing Contact Omni from the Help menu (Mac) or the … > Help (iPhone & iPad).
These forums provide a way for users of Omni’s apps to communicate with each other but are not the place to get support or make feature requests. See the Welcome to our forums! for more information.
Thanks Tim. I think the problem with that though is that it’s treated like an isolated problem for an individual user. And therefore what we’re given in terms of solutions is often stuff we’ve already tried. Like archiving, or rebuilding the database, etc. It really needs to be seen as something affecting lots of users so that it’s finally prioritised and fixed.
I think thats why people gravitate towards the forum expecting the Omni group to check in on issues affecting more than one user. It’s kind of surprising really that they don’t.
I expect that Omni Support could provide you with additional troubleshooting steps to help isolate the issue. You can also request to join Omni’s Slack workspace. This is an active workspace that’s frequented by members of Omni’s team.
My syncing is as quick in OF4 as it was in OF2 and OF3. Located in Canada.
Thanks Tim, I’ve reached out to support and looking forward to any advice they have to get things moving faster between devices.
Please post their responses.
Just for your information in case you didn’t realize it, it is possible to set up your your own WebDAV server to sync OF from a server that you control yourself:
I did this for a long time but at one point I had to replace the server and restarting the OF sync wasn’t immediate. Instead of taking the time to set up WebDAV again I decided to try OmniSync, and I’ve been using that ever since.
WebDAV sync has the advantage that you determine where the server is. Thus syncing should be fast. The disadvantages are two-fold: you have to have the expertise and you have to have a server.
After a couple of weeks of several-times-a-day use, I can also say that synching (Omni) does indeed seem slower than usual: has OF4 got more data to be synched, perhaps?
This page might be helpful…
if I make a change on the iPhone or iPad the other iOS device updates in the 15 sec to 30 sec range, My Mac takes 3 to 5 minutes to update and sync changes! Running OmniFocus 4 on all devices. Deleted OmniFocus 3 on all devices as I thought that may be the problem - seemed to help a bit on iOS devices but not the Mac. Hope they can get this figured out.
Are you saying that your Mac doesn’t realize it needs to sync for up to five minutes? Or that the Mac starts syncing immediately, but it takes five minutes for the sync to complete? (If you prompt it to sync by hand using Command-S, does it sync more quickly?)
I’m assuming that you’re saying the Mac doesn’t realize it needs to sync for up to five minutes, rather than that the sync itself takes five minutes (which would be an incredibly long sync time). You can check your Sync Log (in Settings > Sync > Sync Log) to find out.
The intended design is that whenever one device makes a change, it sends a push notification to your other devices to let them know that there’s a change available for them to sync. In your sync log, these push-triggered syncs will be listed with a “Received Push” annotation.
If that fails for whatever reason, the fallback is that each device does a “Scheduled” sync every so often just in case it missed something. It doesn’t do this constantly, because that would waste network bandwidth and battery life. But it sounds like your Mac might not be receiving push notifications, so it’s falling back on Scheduled syncs instead.
Again, the way to find out exactly what’s going on with your syncing is to check your Sync Log. Not only will this show you how often your device is syncing, it will also tell you how long each sync is taking (for me, syncing typically takes 1-4 seconds). With much more specific information about what sort of sync delays you’re seeing, it will be a lot easier to diagnose and fix those delays!
Ken,
Thank you for the reply. Been using OmniFocus since at least Ver2 and never have had any sync issues like this.
Yes I can make a change on my iPhone or iPad and they will usually update with in a minute but my Mac (Mac Studio MacOS 14.2.1) takes 5 minutes or more. Did some test today making changes on iphone and ipad and it took the Mac 10-12 minutes to update. I did notice that somehow the old Omnipresence was running as well so I quit that and got some improvement.
Yes the Command-S does sync more quickly. Once syncing begins it does not take long.
Here is some sync activity from the Mac. Only see 1 Push annotation?
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:57 PM Scheduled (4.59s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:43 PM Bonjour (3.27s) u:0 d:1
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:39 PM Bonjour (2.63s) u:0 d:2
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:38 PM Manual (2.24s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:37 PM Bonjour (2.83s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:37 PM Manual (2.30s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:30 PM Scheduled (6.69s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:15 PM Recent Edit (0.56s) u:2 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:15 PM Recent Edit (0.23s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:15 PM Recent Edit (0.24s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:15 PM Recent Edit (0.71s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:14 PM Recent Edit (0.64s) u:2 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:14 PM Recent Edit (0.25s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:14 PM Recent Edit (0.27s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:14 PM Recent Edit (0.74s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:12 PM Bonjour (2.85s) u:2 d:1
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:06 PM Bonjour (2.54s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:06 PM Recent Edit (0.25s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:06 PM Recent Edit (0.25s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:05 PM Recent Edit (0.71s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 1:04 PM Scheduled (3.32s) u:0 d:1 (This was after waiting 12 min after adding task on iPhone)
Feb 7, 2024 at 12:51 PM Bonjour (3.29s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 12:51 PM Received Push (3.16s) u:0 d:2 (This was after waiting 10 min fafter adding task on iPad)
Feb 7, 2024 at 12:40 PM Bonjour (2.44s) u:0 d:1
Feb 7, 2024 at 12:38 PM Bonjour (2.34s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 12:32 PM Recent Edit (0.70s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 12:25 PM Scheduled (2.25s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 12:13 PM Scheduled (2.41s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 12:02 PM Recent Edit (0.70s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 12:00 PM Scheduled (2.16s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 11:48 AM Scheduled (2.22s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 11:35 AM Scheduled (2.27s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 11:23 AM Scheduled (2.35s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 11:11 AM Scheduled (2.49s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 11:00 AM Scheduled (2.55s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 10:45 AM Scheduled (2.30s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 10:31 AM Scheduled (2.43s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 10:20 AM Scheduled (2.32s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 10:07 AM Scheduled (2.44s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 9:56 AM Scheduled (2.31s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 9:44 AM Scheduled (2.14s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 9:33 AM Scheduled (2.20s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 9:21 AM Scheduled (2.18s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 9:09 AM Scheduled (2.35s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 8:57 AM Scheduled (2.37s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 8:43 AM Recent Edit (0.79s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 8:40 AM Scheduled (2.56s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 8:28 AM Scheduled (2.72s)
Feb 7, 2024 at 8:14 AM Recent Edit (0.51s) u:1 d:0
Feb 7, 2024 at 8:14 AM Recent Edit (0.71s) u:1 d:0
Thank you for sharing your sync log, it’s very helpful to know that the issue you’re seeing is that the push notifications are not being delivered promptly. (I do see some Bonjour-triggered syncs in that list: we use Bonjour notifications as another sync trigger mechanism, enabled when your syncing devices are connected to the same local network and when you’ve granted OmniFocus access to that network. )
Push notifications are sent from the app which makes a change to a server on our end, which forwards the notification to Apple’s push notification servers to come back to your devices.
Looking at the stats on our end right now, we’re receiving and sending well over a thousand of these push notifications each minute. Apple is reporting back that some of these push notifications are being delayed, but they don’t tell us why. I’ll see if I can find more information about why notifications are sometimes delayed. (It might be as simple as a device being offline—but presumably that wouldn’t apply to a Mac you’re actively using!)
Ken,
Thanks again for looking into this.
You are correct this Mac is running 24/7 as it is used for business and personal use.
I did another test and disabled the wifi on my iphone to take Bonjour out of the mix.
The first test from the iPhone completed on the Mac after a few minutes. Seeing the log saying it was “Scheduled” I suspected I added this task just before the scheduled update. I immediately did another test task at 8:42pm. This 2nd test came through on the Mac at 8:54 PM on another “Scheduled” not a “push” as I was expecting.
Feb 7, 2024 at 8:54 PM Scheduled (3.42s) u:0 d:1
Feb 7, 2024 at 8:39 PM Scheduled (2.57s) u:0 d:1
