Collector not syncing 100%

[ANRGIS]

We have a fairly basic collector application for inventorying trees.

It contains a feature service with mobile access and sync capabilities for offline/disconnected use.

We are using the latest Collector App for iOS.

The issue is that when the user downloads a map to the device, collects information, then comes back to WIFI to sync, the sync process never reaches 100%. The status bar seems to advance to about 40% then doesn't finish completely. It seems to send data to the server (but not always), but it always shows that there are features that still needed to be synced. This means that the map needs to be removed from the device, then re-downloaded to remove the indicator that there are still features to sync.

Is anybody else having this issue? Any ideas?

Thanks!

[RussRoberts]

Hey Peter,

How much data are you syncing back?

Are you using alot of attachments?

Are you using hosted or ArcGIS server feature services?

Russ

[ThomasColson]

Russell, does this imply that there is a size/feature count/attachment limit with Collector? I too, observe this behavior, intermittently. It would be nice if there was:

1. Some kind of logging that we could access to see what/where the failure is occurring;
2. Some way to recover data off the collector device when the sync fails;
3. Some way to globally reset GlobalID's on new or edited features on the collector device to force them to post to the server;
4. Not being able to recover data off a collector device when sync fails is a pretty significant deal-breaker when evaluating Collector for operational deployment. I've done really mean things like turn off the wireless router or reboot the device mid-sync by means of testing, which, is the kind of operational environment that reflects real-world use cases. When that sync fails, there's some "flag" set somewhere that convinces some part of this whole system that the sync was successful, and I'm not getting that data back on the server....ever. Bad news for a team of 6 that just came back from the field and collected several dozen new features in Collector every day for a week.

[RussRoberts]

There is not a size/feature limit with Collector 10.2.4. We did have a limit on Android in 10.2.3 but that was fixed in the 10.2.4 update.

For #1 enabling debug logging on the server can help see if the issue with the sync coming back in is server related.

#2 we do have that python script that was posted in the older forums which worked well features that are being created . We are also working on other solutions that can help sync the data back through your service.

[ANRGIS]

We are syncing anywhere between 30-200 points and yes, many of these will have photos.

We are using ArcGIS Server 10.2.2 in a feature service that currently has 3 layers within the service.

[RussRoberts]

Are you seeing both small and large syncs failing? If you could provide the error message you see on the screen when the sync fails that can help us determine the issue and because you are using server I would enable debug logging and see if the server returns any info as to why the sync is failing.

[ANRGIS]

This seems to happen for both small and large syncs. Some more info...

Upon syncing, the status bar will reach approximately 30% across, then stop. It stays at 30% for HOURS. It will not give an error message and is not frozen. The user can 'cancel sync' at any time. It seems like once it reaches this threshold, it will sync (or not in some instances). Even if we cancel and the features sync, the unit still shows that there are features to sync.

This is happening on 3G iPads that are using WIFI for syncing. There are no service plans for these iPads. We only needed 3G for its internal GPS. The sync process seems to work for iPhones with 3G/4G service.

I will try some logging... Should I put verbose logging on the feature service? Is that what you mean?

[RussRoberts]

right under verbose should be the debug option. The sync is bi-directional so when you are uploading the sync with 200 features with attachments back to the server it is also trying to download any changes so all other previously sync data will be coming down to  the device which could take some time. I will try and repro this with my celluar iPads with cell data plan disabled.

[ANRGIS]

I have yet to debug this, but have you had any luck trying to reproduce this?

[RobertRayner1]

I have also had intermittent problems with syncing since 10.2.4 update, back to ArcGIS 10.2.2.

This is what worked for me:

Using Android, I opened the folder Internal 'storage\ArcGIS_Collector\offline_data', then the users folder, and then one of the containing folders with the GEODATABASE files.  There were a few empty folders in there with cryptic names relating to syncing, servers, and geodatabases; I deleted them.  Once they were gone I was able to sync once again successfully.

YMMV. 

I also used the tool Data Management>Distributed Geodatabase>Export XML Workspace Document to capture the data for re-import as well in case deleting the folders did not work and I had to manually import the data.