Sync populates everdo with outdated items

[Camilo]

“The synchronization issue has disappeared. The developer @Andrei probably fixed it in the background. I don’t think the product is out of the game. It is a very well-designed application for the GTD method. I have tried many applications, including Nirvana HQ, but I stuck with Everdo. Development is now slower than in previous periods, but I think the developer @Andrei himself uses Everdo and it is in his interest that the application works well. There are a few minor issues that would be good to fix, but they are not very important. Maybe the developer will surprise us with new features in the future.”

[lassepe]

It makes no sense to claim that the issue has been fixed when there is no official response by any of the devs.

For me, this problem is certainly not fixed. My task list just got populated, once more, with tasks that I had previously re-scheduled on a different device for another date. This creates so much duplicate work.

[Camilo]

Hey, you might be right that I haven’t verified if the developer made the changes. I just want to say that the synchronization issues have disappeared for me. I don’t know what caused it, but this problem with Everdo has really disappeared for me. It’s a real shame that the developer doesn’t at least let us know that he will look into the issue and possibly fix it. This lack of communication can discourage current and future users from using and purchasing Everdo."

[lassepe]

FWIW, I haven’t observed this issue for at least a month now.

[lassepe]

Nevermind…it just happened again and flooded my task list with items that I already re-scheduled on a different device…

[Camilo]

So I have the same problem. I also got stuck with tasks that I moved in the morning and changed their dates back in focus. Pretty much sucks. Anyway thanks to migrating to ms365 I’m starting to use ms planner, so everdo unfortunately I have to leave anyway. I believe that evedo will pick up again in the future and continue to evolve.

[Andrei]

Thank you everyone for all the detail provided. I assumed the issue was fixed at some point, but I created a new ticket today to treat this bug with the highest priority it deserves.

In the meantime, a few comments on the thread.

The duplication of tasks described in this topic happens because the sync algorithm (sometimes incorrectly) sees repeating items created on different devices as distinct.

@lassepe

The only thing that could be worse is deleting items. As far as I can tell, this hasn’t happened yet but my trust in sync is certainly reduced: I cannot tell 100% if I lost important todos because I would have to remember what all my tasks were (which defeats the purpose of maintaining todos in an app).

You can be sure no deletion is taking place. Not only it was never ever reported on forum / email or found in testing, but the algorithm is not programmed to ever delete anything unless there is a record of the user deleting the exact same item ID.

This topic understandably conflates a few unrelated issues together (duplication, counting, error messages) which is why there are some concerns about items being missing or deleted.

Let me say it one more time - The Sync Algorithm cannot decide to delete items on its own. It’s programmed to follow the log of user actions when it comes to deletions.

@mrkwhlbrk

I’m facing a similar ESS issue, on my primary desktop install I have 1363 tasks in Someday, but on my iPhone I have 1643. Other lists are usually off by a few, but it doesn’t give me confidence in the system. I’ve tried to Clean Pull multiple times on the iPhone, but it doesn’t solve the problem.

This is definitely a counting bug, unrelated to sync. The iOS app is filtering the Someday/Maybe actions slightly different from Desktop and Android. I’ve created a ticket to fix this soon.

@lassepe

I have thus far only observed the problem on repeated tasks. As of recently, I get the following error message in the bottom right corner but it is not clear to me how to act on it because I see no actionable error logs:

Thanks for submitting the error log. I looked through it and found the cause (to be released in 1.11.x), but it’s unrelated to sync or repeating items.

@Camilo

I believe that evedo will pick up again in the future and continue to evolve.

This is correct. Sorry for the silence.

[Andrei]

Update on the issue

What seems to be happening:

• The bug happens if you start Everdo on a device that has no internet connection at the time the app starts, so the app needs to process repeating items without access to sync.
• Repeated actions are not actually duplicated. They just move from the completed status back to Next+Focus.

I’m still investigating other potential causes.

What’s next

• If my understanding of the root cause is correct, then this is definitely fixable and will be fixed soon.
• It will take an update to each of the platform apps to reliably fix.

In the meantime (working around the bug)

• Try to make sure the device has internet connection before starting Everdo
• If the action get moved to Focus due to this bug, it’s safe to simply apply whatever edits you’ve done in the past (move/complete)
• Once background sync ships on Android, it should stop contributing to the issue because it won’t go a long time without sync. But that won’t help in the case of Desktop/iOS

[Andrei]

All the investigation I’ve done so far suggests that this issue only exists for Scheduled items, not Repeating ones.

I think the behavior of Repeating items might indeed have been fully fixed in the past. If you get this bug with Repeating items specifically, please post as many details as you can about how it occurred.

A fix for Scheduled items Android and Desktop is in internal testing now, iOS will be soon.

[Andrei]

A fix for the Android app has been released in 1.9.5

[lassepe]

Thank you for your reply @Andrei . One quick question: is the fix the “background sync” mentioned in the release notes or something else? I think for many cases that I care about, simply hoping that the phone is online enough won’t cut it. I have, for example, seen sync issues after a long-distance flight which naturally has my phon offline for an extended period of time (and to make matters worse, has it “spawn” in a new time zone).

[Andrei]

Let me give a more detailed update on this.

I will define the two different bugs and comment on each.

Case 1

1. Create a scheduled (non-repeating) action, sync it to devices A and B.
2. Close Everdo on B and don’t open until step 5.
3. On the scheduled date, the action moves to Focus on A.
4. Make some changes to the action on A, for example complete/reschedule/unfocus
5. Open Everdo on B, while there’s no network
6. B moves the action to Focus on its own (expected behavior since at this pointB is unaware of changes made on A)
7. B gains network and runs sync. Result: The changes made on A in step (4) do not reflect on B, and in fact get reverted on A as well. (this is the bug)

My comments on this case

• The bug is caused by the app running on device B, so it can’t be fixed at the sync service level. Instead each of the apps needs to be updated
• This is a well understood and easy to reproduce case.
• A fix for the Android app is in 1.9.5. It’s the last item in the release notes.
• Fixes for the Desktop and iOS apps are on track to be released next.

Case 2

1. Create a repeating action, say daily, sync it to devices A and B.
2. Close Everdo on B and keep it closed for multiple days.
3. A keeps generating an action each day, you process it and mark as completed.
4. ???
5. Open Everdo on B.
6. B generates its own repeated action copies for each day. (this may or may not be expected behavior, depending on whether sync ran or not before the repeating copies were created.)
7. After sync does run, the changes made on A still don’t apply to the repeated actions created on B and may get reverted on A

Comments

• This ones is tricky. I don’t have a way to reproduce it, as you can see (step 4 is missing).
• It definitely existed at some point in the past but many improvements have been made to the sync algorithm to prevent similar issues
• I also don’t have reports that definitely confirm it exists at the current version of the apps

On background sync.
I know it’s not a proper fix for either Case 1 or Case 2. I only mention it because it’s somewhat related and will make the probability of similar issues lower.

I’m still looking for reports / steps to reproduce Case 2.

Hope this clarifies any confusion.