New Bug Encountered: Delay in view showing changed value after several manual Sync attempts

This bug may explain a few issues I have read about and encountered myself.

Today I was manually resetting a record in the sheet to a previous state by changing the values in the sheet. I clicked the manual Sync button and the value did not update in the app. Several attempts to re-Sync did not update the app.

Even launching the View Data shows the changed value but not in the view.

After some period of time and repeated Syncโ€™s. The value will finally update.

This does not happen consistently but is happening frequently. Other apps do not appear to affected by the same issue. However, I have witnessed this very similar issue in the app of a client - a separate bug was opened for that.

See video.

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Austin
Participant V

do you have server cache or delta sync enabled?

Server cache is not yet enable but Delta Sync is on. Why? What are you thinking?

From my understanding delta sync stops appsheet from pulling tables that it doesnโ€™t think has updated. So if Appsheet doesnโ€™t have a reason to think that the sheet was updated, IE the sheet was manually updated, it wonโ€™t grab any data from that sheet and just use what it has on hand already until it does a periodic check and grabs the new data.

The other possibility is the browser is caching but that is mostly related to files/images from my experience.

Hmm, I always thought that Delta Sync was applied to the automatic Syncs and not manual Syncs. I guess it could be applied to manual Syncs also. Bottom line is that the data IS updated but the view is not until some later Sync is performed - without any interim updates. So there definitely is some disconnect somewhere.

Try to recreate the issue then open the app in an incognito browser. It will probably show 2 different data sets even if you sync both apps.
I would think with Appsheets new ability to trigger automations with google sheet changes that delta sync would also get that but it may not. The line canโ€™t be used with external formulas probably would also apply to manually changing outside of Appsheet.
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Iโ€™m not sure what you mean to prove with this approach. I think itโ€™s fairly cut and dry - unless something has changed with Syncing that I am not aware of. Sheets can be changed from any number of sources. A Synce should simply retrieve and update those changes - even those made manually into the sheet.

Iโ€™ll try turning Delta Sync off to see if makes any difference.

Well, @Austin_Lambeth, turning of Delta Sync does make a difference. I updated over a dozen times with no issue. Kudos to you!!

Further, I changed that simple app I referred to to have Delta Sync on and it now suffers from update issues.

I have never seen this problem in the past. Is this a known issue?

We use databases which are constantly updating from other sources and when you use a trigger and delta sync you donโ€™t get that new updated information from the trigger for a few minutes. I donโ€™t know if it is a commonly known issue, I have just personally experienced it. Server caching runs into the same issue but it handled slightly better since in general read only appsheet tables donโ€™t update as often outside of Appsheet.

I donโ€™t think its โ€œan issueโ€ more so just not clearly understood as the same thing as external formulas. I do wish it was possible to check but I think it would defeat the benefits for sync time to do so.

Did you happen to ever take it up with AppSheet?

Delta Syncs are intended to make data transition faster not slower. This is most likely a bug. I read up a bit on Delta Sync and it is dependant on timestamps - i.e. knowing that the recent change was later than last Sync. The documentation implies that maybe sometimes this timestamp doesnโ€™t get properly updated.

However, if I am Syncing multiple times and then eventually the data update is applied without any other updates and View Data shows the updated valueโ€ฆthats gotta be a bug.

I am curious where the Delta is taken - on the server or on the device/browser?

Iโ€™m running into the same issues. I update a row and once sync completes it reverts back to the old data.

I have delta sync off.

This functioned fine 2 weeks ago, and now issues have arisen in the past week.

This sounds like a different issue where the value is being updated but then something else is overwriting it. If you are using a Google sheet, I would have it open and as you perform your test watch the data. Youโ€™ll likely see the column(s) change based on your updates and then change back.

I would recommend opening a new Questions post to get the most help with your issue.

Austin
Participant V

If I ever did it would have been a year and a half ago or around then so I do not remember. Plus we only use databases not sheets so there is an extra level of issue. We have resorted to just not using server caching or delta sync on any of our apps to avoid these issues as much as we can.

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