User setting drop-down not updating on iPhone

RobertLerner · 03-23-2020 06:54 PM

I’ve got a large table with multiple records for each U.S. state. I’ve set up a User Setting on variable State as an Enum drop drop-down – and it has always worked perfectly on both my development laptop and iPhone app (i.e. all states were displayed on the drop-down).

Last week I set up a security filter that correctly displayed only two states (Florida and California) on both the laptop and iPhone. But today I removed the security filter and the laptop correctly showed all states in the drop-down, but the iPhone still shows only Florida and California. I of course tried re-syncing as well as all sorts of different “App to Cloud” settings- but nothing updates the iPhone drop-down list to display all states.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Steve

By “laptop”, do you mean the app running in a browser on your laptop? Or the running in the emulator in the app editor running on your laptop?

How is the dropdown implemented? What are the expressions involved?

Are the contents of the large table otherwise accessible to the app? Is there evidence that the security filter is or is not still in effect elsewhere?

RobertLerner

Thank you Steve. What’s so maddening to me is that I don’t see why it should work perfectly in emulator but not on the iPhone! But in any case…

By “laptop”:

I mean the app running in the emulator in the app editor running on my laptop.

Implementation:

I have a table called Tool2ForAppsheet with an Enum “State”. I have a USERSETTING with an Enum var called “State” with the data validity formula SORT(Tool2ForAppsheet[State],FALSE) which correctly sorts the drop-down. Neither this table – or any of my other tables – has any security filter set.

Large Table Accessibility

Yes, the large table is accessible for all the app’s views in the emulator.

Security Filter:

There are no security filters in effect for any table.

Steve

Do you have an unsaved changes in the app editor?

Have you synced the app on your phone since the last save from the app editor?

RobertLerner

Nothing unsaved and tried syncing on the phone multiple times.

Steve

I’m at a loss then. You could try clearing the cache of the phone and/or reinstalling. Other than that, I’ll have to refer you to support@appsheet.com for more help.

RobertLerner

Yes, I need Appsheet support. I’ve tried cache clearing and reinstalling - and now I cannot even install the app in question (BF Data Tools). It’s my only deployed app. I presume I can just email support directly and refer them to this thread. Thanks very much for trying to help.

RobertLerner

Appsheet support was fast and right on! Both issues were caused by my overloading the app with too much data. I assume my use of Google sheets is the issue, and if another database were used I’d be OK. Any suggestions for a reliable, reasonably-priced and relatively simple alternative I should look into? Thanks.

Steve

How was the app overloaded with too much data?

RobertLerner

Steve, the two the problems appeared after I removed my security filters and disappeared when putting them back in. I assume the size of my tables are too high in combination with my use of Google Sheets. For my education, if there’s another explanation please let me know.

Steve

I suspect the problem is not with the amount of data in the spreadsheets, but rather with the amount of data the app is trying to work with. Google can handle large amounts of data just fine, but your app is more limited. Security filters actually reduce the amount of data sent to the app: rows that the filter excludes never reach the app, making the data set the app uses smaller than without the security filter. Moving your data to another database wouldn’t change the amount of data, so you’d still have the problem.

I suspect your best bet is to continue using security filters to ensure your app is only receiving the data it needs to function. Unfortunately, even that may not be sufficient if the app still needs a lot of data. You might also consider restructuring your data. These articles might give you some ideas:

https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/database-diagram/database-design

RobertLerner

Thank’s Steve, that’s really helpful and makes perfect sense. Have a good day.