Collector App losing data in Edit despite showing Successful Update

[AdriannaMarchand]

We are finding that Collector App will lose/not actually save information entered in the field at Edit > Update > Update Successful.

By any measure the update seems to be OK but after 15 minutes returning to the Point where the Edit was made, the data entered in the field is gone.  Our Edit and Save/Update shows as being Successful in the App but we are losing some data in the field and scratching our heads.  This occurs over short distances of 200m whilst excellent mobile coverage is maintained.  Is there a Sync bug we need to hear about?  All equipment in the field and App running on most current version.

We haven't found any pattern within the data fields that could prompt this loss of data and it occurs randomly every 1/20 Edit points.

We are using Collector App on iPads loaded with SIM for sync in excellent coverage areas and are syncing to an ArcGIS geodatabase.

Any eyes and ears and great minds on this would be appreciated.  What you think Guys and Girls?  Cheers!

[WengNg1]

We're having the same problem as well and I'm still scratching my head over this as this updates are not registered back into the feature service plus the offline map reverts back to an older version of the database (minus all new data).

This has happened randomly and I haven't been able to replicate this yet.As our feature services are hosted on AGOL, it would be great to get into the logs to check what exactly happened and if there is a way we can recover the files.

[Leighton0]

Did either of you get anywhere with these issues?

I'm especially interested in Weng's comment: "...plus the offline map reverts back to an older version of the database (minus all new data)." We are experiencing a similar issue. Any updates or leads would be helpful, thank you.

[WengNg1]

We did get a response from ESRI and the investigation concluded that it had something to do with poor network connectivity:

The unfortunate data loss the customer experienced was caused by a disruption in network connectivity during sync. When network connectivity is disrupted during sync, an error message is provided, and the mobile device clears all pending edits without moving them to base. During the second sync attempt, no edits were pending and a successful sync message is provided making the user believe that the edits synced correctly

It was recommended that users sync frequently , avoid storage large volumes of data on device and sync via wifi. 

Our user who experienced data loss did synchronise both in the field using mobile data and Wifi back in the accommodation. 

Syncing frequently was not practical due to bad mobile reception and if we wait till the user returns to base and sync, then you potentially risk losing data due to the size of the syncs you need to submit.

Our mitigation method was to teach the user to copy the SQLite database off before the user syncs to ensure that there is a copy of it before syncing.

This isn't very practical from a user experience point of view. 

It'd be good if ESRI can clarify the sync mechanism from Collector to REST  as the step where it 'clears all pending edits' on network issue seems problematic to me.

[Leighton0]

Thank you for the reply Weng. We will keep an eye out for the issues you are describing. We have also opened a case with Esri and will I let you know the outcome.