We are using Appsheet out in the forest in Ca...

[Ann_Gish]

We are using Appsheet out in the forest in Canada and our staff sent us the following problem.

Any advice?

we just got back to camp so I’ll be synching my tab shortly but we seem to be having a recurring issue with the app closing randomly and not able to open it back up when we’re in the bush … yesterday it was my fault I swiped up or did something with my finger and it closed the app and I couldn’t get it back open but today the app froze and closed itself and wouldn’t re open (happened to 3/4 tablets today )

… it just so happened that We had cell phone service and were able to use our cellular hotspot to connect the tab to the internet and got the app to re open but then it wouldn’t show me the data I had just collected … it did however show at the bottom that the info was in the sync cache so I knew it saved but then I wasn’t able to review what I had already collected … we always have paper to record as a back up but I’m just not sure why this is happening or why when we get the app reopened thru wifi or hotspot that it doesn’t allow us to review the data …

[Adam-google]

Hi @Ann_Gish, can you answer a few questions to help diagnose the problem?

• What kind of devices are in use (Android, iOS, both?) - Is your staff using multiple AppSheet apps while in the field or just one? - When it won’t reopen, do you see an error like ‘network error’ or does it just immediately crash/close, or something else? - About how many total rows of data are sent to the device? - How long has this been a problem?

[Ann_Gish]

@Adam_Stone_AppSheet

They are using iPad minis and are only using 1 app in the field.

I will check to see what the error messages are and get back to you.

We’ve only been using the App for a few days.

I’m not sure how many rows of data are being sent.

Do you think we should adjust our sync settings.

Here’s a screenshot of what they are set at currently. Our users don’t have access to the Google Sheet data source - could that be part of the problem? Ann

[Adam-google]

Users shouldn’t need access to the sheet. You could try turning off sync on start to see if it helps. When starting offline the sync is expected to fail. For offline-enabled apps it should fail silently but we’ve had a couple reports of people seeing sync errors when starting offline.

The symptoms suggest the locally cached table data is being cleared. If that happens, the app cannot launch offline until it syncs new table data. The most common reason is running out of available storage space. iOS devices are more susceptible to this as they only allow 5MB with the storage mechanism we use. But usually this happens after running multiple apps, once the total data across all of them exceeds the limit. Hitting the limit with one app is less common but can happen if the tables include tens of thousands of rows.

[Grant_Stead]

This is fascinating

[Adam-google]

Just to rule out some other possibilities,

• did you confirm that offline launch appears to be working at least initially? For example launching online successfully, closing the app, turning off wifi, and then trying to launch again offline?

• are your users launching the app with a homescreen shortcut to your specific app, or with the main AppSheet app installed from the app store?

• when the app randomly closes, is it usually just after capturing data? Or when taking a photo?

• what device model and iOS version are the iPad minis?

@Gil_Littman_AppSheet FYI this is another case of the app freezing on iPads.