First time sync issues

[deadbolt]

I just bought FM Touch yesterday and tried to transfer a database to my iPad. I seem to get to a different point every time when it finally blows up on me.

Today I confirmed that I had the latest plug in for FMP-Advanced v11.0v2 installed. That's the v1.96 plug in. I start up FM and I open up the sample database that comes with the plug in. I make sure that sharing using "FileMaker Network" is on and net access is set to "All Users".

On the iPad, I open FM Touch, hit the little "i" in the lower left corner, the "+" in the upper right and I see my workstation listed. I tap on it and it says "Authorizing". Now at that point it may sit there for 5 minutes... or... I did it just now and it immediately said "Connection Time out".  Occassionally I get it where it let's me choose the DDR and get to where it says "Transfer in Progress..." but again after 5 minutes it'll time out with a "Connection Time Out" pop up.

OK... this time it just let me do it... got to "initialize" and now I get the "Incompatible Database" message and a button that says "NOT READY".

(I'm obviously giving you a blow by blow as I step through this)

After easily a dozen attempts I got a database to port over. I see it's the one from before that I wasn't able to initialize. OK, I just got where I can see the sample one called "fmtouch" that was included with the latest plug in. Says database is open on FMTouch and on the Computer. Starting Sync... in progress... at the bottom of the screen it's running the PreSync Script... running for about 2 minutes now... about 3 minutes now... my battery is dropping about 1% per minute... interesting... about 8 minutes... just got to running the POST sync script... 15 minutes of "in progress"... lost 20% of my battery and I'm aborting because it doesn't look like it's finishing.

With this one it does appear that after I restarted the app that everything is there. Yep, counted records (all 20 of them) and everything is there. Now I delete a record in FMT and do a sync... it warns me that the Wi-Fi is not available. Got that message many times. If I go to the iPad settings I see that I am booted off of the network and have to manually join the network. No other application dumps my Wi-Fi connection and I have several big data intensive apps... I'll term serve into one of my servers for 30-40 minutes and never get dumped so it seems like something actually kills my Wi-Fi connection.

The whole process has been take a step and fail, fail, fail, succeed, take the next step, fail, fail, fail, succeed and so on and I'll finally get some data but nothing that doesn't take me less than an hour to get and then trying to sync after that is just as ugly. I'm a network/security engineer by trade so I've been able to try two different WAPs, manual and DHCP addressing, running FMP on my laptop, my Windows XP workstation and I have a Mac but haven't tried that one yet (I will though).

Obviously, I'm in need of some guidance.

TIA

Kevin

[Lance]

I happened across your thread and notice that no one has replied so I figured I would explain why and try to help a bit. Usually on a forum like this people won't respond if it's obvious that you haven't done your homework. We aren't here to do that for you, unless of course you're going to be sending me $. Before you post to any such board you should first search through the board and of course help files and manuals to try and solve the problem yourself. Only after doing so without solution should you ask a forum to help out, and when you do so please tell us what versions of what software you are running. In this case the missing info would be what version of FMT, and Computer OS and perhaps what type of stuff are you trying to get working, such as simple or complex files, anything in containers etc..

The iphone OS has always been a bit rough with the wireless connections and apps other than Safari and Mail and iOS4 is worse than it was before. The issues that you describe all sound like they are most likely related to this. Presumably this will be improved by Apple et al in an update. Since update to iOS4 I often have to quit FMT, or any other app that uses a wireless connection from the Backgrounder and then have Safari connect and load a page, then fire up the application (such as FMT) again and try again. Connections do often get dropped currently with apps other than Safari and Mail. Even then it's a wee bit hit and miss but not too bad.

Aside from that there are other things that might come into play, which you can research more here on the forum and in the manuals:
Is your DDR optimized (search for DDR Size, this can help a lot across the board with speed)?
Do you have pictures or other media in your database that may take a while to transfer?
Transferring lots of big files by wireless takes a while.

If it's any help, for comparison I have a fairly simple file, a few fields, no relationships etc. with about 400 records that (since iOS4) can take anywhere from 3-30 seconds to sync. With iOS3 this usually took 1-3 seconds. I have a fairly complex file with tons of related stuff, pop ups etc. and about 4,000 files that usually takes 1-2 minutes to sync. Both of these assume that I have first established a wireless connection with Safari or Mail.

Good luck, holler if you really try and still get stuck.