Missing signature images

[1minManager]

Hi I have a table where we require the user to do 3 signatures in sequence before clicking save. All 3 have linked ChangeLocation and ChangeTimestamp columns. The first one even requires them to type in the persons name.

Yet what I’m seeing in about half the records is:

• A name
• 3 x Timestamps
• 3 x GPS stamps

But no signatures. The signature column cells in the spreadsheet are blank and when I check they have never been anything other than blank. There is also no images in the relevant folder.

I’m not specifiying an alternative “Image/File folder path” but " Save externally" is ticked, what ever that does…

Anyone had anything similar?

[Fabian_Weller]

Hi @1minManager I asked once about the “Save externally”.

Signature: Save externally Questions

[image] What does “Save externally” in a Signature column type mean?

Mabye the bug is related to this:

Sketch > Take Photo - FAILS! Questions

Thanks for reporting this issue. We already have a fix and this should be resolve in the next Playstore update (v14.7) which should start rolling out next week. I’ll also post here when the update is fully rolled out. It might be worth pointing out that if you actually save the form, the image will appear in the detail view. At that point you can edit the row and draw on the picture. This could be used as a temporary workaround until the fix is out.

[JA003]

Hello,

I am experiencing this issue today with signatures not being saved, they are collected on the user's devices and all other data is saved in GSheet but the signature field is empty and the folder does not contain any file, it just vanishes after being collected and synced.

Was there any closure or progress to this post? @1minManager  did you solved or managed the issue in some way? Thanks in advance for any help!

[1minManager]

I don't think I did have a response.  But I think what what happening was that the user would click the signature, sign, this triggers the time and GPS stamp, then they click it again which clears it.  

The only way to stop this from happening might be to have a valid if on the signature that if the GPS or Timetamp exists then the signature cannot be blank

[JA003]

Thanks a lot for your reply. 

In my case the signature is set as required, and users are forced to sign to be able to save the form, the issue happens after that when they try to sync, digging a little discovered that the ones missing coincide with people having troubles to sync due to bad reception or something else.

I already opened a support ticket to get to the root cause. I'll leave the findings here later if any. 

Best regards. 

[zoomptastic]

I have the same issue -- thanks in advance for sharing your findings. 

[JA003]

Today I actually received an answer from AppSheet support:

"based on the timestamps in the audit logs I think this may be related to "sync on start" - can you try disabling that and see if it helps? Leaving "automatic updates" on should be fine (and also does a background sync on start, so it shouldn't make a big difference in terms of data staleness)."

I had sync on start ON, I disabled and start monitoring to see if it solves the issue. I'll keep everyone updated after enough testing.

Regards,

[zoomptastic]

I also sent a support request today but haven't heard back yet, aside from a request for screenshots. I also had Sync on Start on, so I tried disabling as well. Thank you for sharing your progress!

[JA003 · Accepted solution]

Just FYI, disabling "sync on start" seems to be solved the issue, haven't lost any signature after that change.

[1minManager]

Hi @JA003 It makes no logical sense why that would work.  But I'll mark that as the answer for others.

[SkrOYC]

April 1, 2022 - Google Cloud Community

Bug fixes

Item

Description

Bug

Fix for missing images or signatures in apps with "Sync on start" In apps with Sync on start enabled, restarting the app with unsynced local changes can cause images or signatures to be missing when those changes are eventually synced. This fix addresses that scenario (there may be other situations where images fail to upload for other reasons unaffected by this). This fix has been rolled out to 10% of free users. Note: If you require an immediate workaround, consider disabling Sync on start. Automatic updates also causes a background sync on app start, but is not susceptible to this problem.

It was a bug @1minManager 

@lizlynch