Feature request - Merge preamble should list out-of-sync objects

PloughGuy

I am currently dealing with the iPad-and-iMac out-of-synch problem reported by others around the June timeframe. Mine last updated on my birthday - 9th June - and I have been ignoring the problem ever since hoping it would sort itself out. Apple's sandboxing makes 1P on iOS a dubious proposition at the moment anyway. Hopefully Apple will find a solution before the rusted-on fans start switching...

Anyway - I get the Merge Not Recommended message. The details screen shows that the iPad is 99.8% similar.

Two points:
1 - what is the meaning of "similar" in this context. Does it mean "identical"? As in 99.8% of items are identical and 0.2% differ in some way?
Or does it mean what it says which is that 98.8% of entries are somewhat like each other and the other 0.2% are identical or radically different?
2 - and if 99.8% are identical, it would be useful to see a list of the problem cases so I know where to expect trouble.

As it stands, I do not know if I should
- do a merge and deal with the unknown consequences;
- spend some unknown amount of time trying to fix an unquantified problem
- or, as I will probably do, do nothing and let the problem get worse.

So this is actually twoxxx three enhancement requests:

1: Be more specific than "Similar." Perhaps one of the many unloved arts majors at McDonalds could help with the language.
2: In the dialog box that shows the difference between the local vault and Dropbox, add a function to show the items at risk.
3: Add an option to for each vault - "Change only this vault" that allows us to designate the preferred source of truth.

From the user's perspective, this is a very ugly problem. We need more help dealing with it than "You probably shouldn't do the only thing that I am offering you."

PloughGuy

And another thing - wtf happened to all my beautiful formatting?

MikeT

Hi @PloughGuy,

And another thing - wtf happened to all my beautiful formatting?

This board uses Markdown syntax, which means for numbered list, it has to start with 1. instead of 1:. Also, you don't have to increment the digit, Markdown will do it for you, so you can just do 1. something, 1. something for two, and it'll show up as 2. something for two.

1 - what is the meaning of "similar" in this context.

It means that both vaults are about 98% same in terms of raw data, there are 2% of changes in the remote vault that's not in the local vault.

If you know you did make changes in the remote vault, then merge them in.

The point is that if it is drastically different, then it is likely not the same vault. We probably need to be more human in what it means instead of being very technical and raw about it. We'll see what we can do to improve this.

3: Add an option to for each vault - "Change only this vault" that allows us to designate the preferred source of truth.

Unfortunately, that's difficult to do. In order to select the remote vault as the truth, the local database has to be wiped and that's not currently possible from the sync setting. You basically have to reset the app completely and then pull the data from Dropbox to set it as the truth.

From the user's perspective, this is a very ugly problem. We need more help dealing with it than "You probably shouldn't do the only thing that I am offering you."

We understand, thank you for your feedback. We'll figure out a better way to explain this clearly.

In the meantime, you can go ahead and merge it in if you know for 100% sure that it is the same vault. The point is to avoid merging in outdated vault or a different vault that belongs to someone else.

We do have a bug in the current stable version where it didn't have to show these message due to inaccurate calculation, there were files that didn't matter and we included it in our counts. If we excluded it, it would've shown to be exactly the same and avoid the prompt that you saw.