Some decks are syncing, some are not

Some decks are syncing, some are not

Postby triastrian » Thu May 06, 2021 8:34 pm

Hi,
I have been using Flashcard Deluxe for several months now, and it has been a fantastic app for me. I have been using the app on an iPad and an Android device. The sync function has been working well for one of my combination decks, and is still working well and syncing perfectly. However, another combination deck (let's call it deck X, which contains just one deck, called deck A) I has refused to sync since I made some updates to the originating spreadsheet in Google Drive (deleting a few words and editing others). The interesting thing is that the version of deck A contained in deck X is the correct, updated version. Yet it refuses to sync, and I suspect that the problem is with the app on my iPad. When I go to Settings -> Sync -> Decks to Sync and check for Deck A, it does not show up with a check mark. It gives me two options:

Cloud only:
Deck A

Local only:
Deck A

If I check the "Cloud only" version of Deck A, then it syncs a new, duplicate Deck A. The version inside deck X does not update. On the other hand, Iif I check "Local only", then it gives me an error saying "Turning OFF deck. Deck name already exists on server".

I've also tried updating Deck A, going to Edit -> select Deck A -> Download/Update. This did not fix the problem.
I've also tried deleting the local deck (on either device), and then restoring from a Backup on the other. I've tried toggling Deck A on "Decks to Sync" back and forth. I've also tried deleting the combination deck X. None of these strategies worked. I'm very exasperated. This is also maddening because the syncing with another deck works perfectly fine, so it must be to some corruption in the cloud database that somehow I can't get rid of.

Any tips for what I should do?

Thanks.
triastrian
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu May 06, 2021 7:59 pm

Re: Some decks are syncing, some are not

Postby Ernie » Thu May 06, 2021 11:42 pm

Hi. Sorry about the trouble.

The sync and Google Drive should be independent things.

I will assume your Android device is more up-to-date regarding Deck A. If you make updates to Google Sheets, you'll run Download/Update to pull in changes from Google, right?

And you've turned on sync for Deck A on your Android device, and it appears to be syncing. You can go to Global options > Sync > Log to see some more details.
In your Decks screen, look along the right for a light-gray vertical bar along the right side of the screen in a deck row. Do you see a thin gray bar? This means it's currently being synced to my server.

On your iPad, you already have a Deck A, but it doesn't seemed to be "linked" to your Android deck. It's not part of a sync, I'm guessing. Is this deck out-of-date? What I would do, if it makes sense, is delete this deck. Then turn on the "Cloud only" version of "Deck A", and you should be back in business.

A combination deck does not contain any cards, it just points to one or more other decks. On your iPad, you should also see Deck X in the "Cloud only" section (if it's be synced already from Android), which you can turn on.

Does this solve all your problems?
Ernie
Site Admin
 
Posts: 5009
Joined: Fri Oct 01, 2010 6:12 pm
Location: San Francisco / Taiwan

Re: Some decks are syncing, some are not

Postby triastrian » Tue May 11, 2021 5:24 am

Hi Ernie,
Thank you for your quick reply. Over the last few days I have tried a few things based on your suggestions and waited to see if the problem is permanently fixed. In short, I ended up deleting all cloud and local copies of deck A on both devices and re-downloading them via the copy already synced in the cloud. (Actually, I had another deck in the same problematic situation as deck A.) This ended up fixing the problem of syncing on both devices. (It is possible that the presence of local and cloud copies with the same name confused the program.)

One unintended consequence is that for one of the decks, all of my progress was wiped and I had to start again, but since the deck was new and there were only ~50 cards on it, I was OK with that. For several days I have used both devices and found them to sync well without significant errors.
triastrian
 
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu May 06, 2021 7:59 pm

Return to Comments, Questions and Feedback