Sync problem solved!

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KitchenSync

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Oct 15, 2008, 10:25:06 AM10/15/08
to Yojimbo Talk
I had a database of over 2000 items (more than 400mb) that stopping
syncing to dotmac (mobileme) when I upgraded to Leopard. Upgrading
other machines to Leopard did not solve the problem nor did any of the
sync reset protocols I tried. This included the "nuclear reset" option
and the protocol supplied by Barebones technical support.

The main problem seemed to be the size of the database (and perhaps
the size of certain items in it). I could never get the database to
sync for the first time after the resets. Examination of the console
log and the IDisk (library/application support/syncservices/schemas/
com.barebones.yojimbo.yojimbodata ) showed that the sync was stalling
after a certain time. In my case a temporary file of about 260mb was
created before the sync process was terminated by the server. Since
the first syncing of the database from the "master" machine never
occurred, syncing other machines generated blank databases.

Solution (probably not the most elegant): export all the large
database items (web archives and PDFs) to a new folder. Then delete
the originals from the database. Use the Barebones protocol to reset
sync on all the machines. Sync the new small database from the master
machine. Sync the other machines. Then import in the web archives/PDF
files in small batches (I did this 4 times) to the master database.
Sync this and other machines sequentially as before. This took most of
a day. But now the syncing of all the machines is very quick. WARNING-
this solution will remove the date and tagging of all the exported
items. So don't use this solution if you have limited patience.

Hope this helps someone.

Johan™Strandberg

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Oct 16, 2008, 8:01:00 PM10/16/08
to yojimb...@googlegroups.com
Granted, it is a solution, but it sure sucks. For me it is useless
since I store many large PDF documents (I keep random manuals in there
with everything else). I have ~3700 items in my main repository, plus
an unknown number of items in an orphaned archive that had to be
abandoned when sync broke for me 10 month ago.

Since you can't search for "kind=PDF" or "size" I can't tell you how
many entries would be affected, but I assume way too many... [sigh]

However, this brings me to the most important point. Having gone
through this Herculean effort of splitting out large files, syncing,
re-inserting the files, etc., what are you going to do when a change
in sync format forces a full sync again? I'm not bringing this up just
to scare you, but this is exactly how my laptop archive became
orphaned; when Yojimbo had a routine version upgrade about 10 month
ago, it forced a full sync and everything broke.

Now, I don't know if that full sync directly resulted from the update,
or random interference from the Phase of the Moon caused the sync
service to trigger, but the end result is the same. Clearly the sync
service is not set up to handle large chunks of data. (Even the
pre-Leopard Backup program was careful in slicing data into smaller
packets before sending them on to the iDisk.)

Still, I love much of what Yojimbo does for me, but I view it as a
single machine database and would never recommend using it with any
kind of sync across platforms. Some day a competent alternative will
come along and cause me to switch, but until then I'll use it every
day (and secretly hope that Bare Bones will come to their senses and
just fix the damn thing.)

--j

barstep

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Oct 24, 2008, 7:44:05 AM10/24/08
to Yojimbo Talk
Sync over .Mac now MobileMe works fine for me and has done for years.

tonyb

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Oct 26, 2008, 7:28:11 AM10/26/08
to Yojimbo Talk
Sync is broken for me and I'm worried I may lose documents

TjL

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Oct 30, 2008, 10:52:07 AM10/30/08
to yojimb...@googlegroups.com
On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 7:44 AM, barstep <bar...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Sync over .Mac now MobileMe works fine for me and has done for years.

That's hardly useful. How big is the archive? How many PDFs?

Sync over .Mac and MobileMe hasn't worked for me for ages (1200 items,
about 400mb if I recall correctly)

No amount of resetting has helped.

Yojimbo is now a dead product to me.

I'm syncing files using Dropbox, and migrating everything else to
Evernote, which is a shame because I really prefer Yojimbo.

My guess is that there's a large number of Yojimbo customers who would
have moved to Evernote if there was some sort of automated process.

My guess is there's also a large number who have already done it manually.

My guess is that there's a large number who don't need sync or for
whom sync has worked fine who will continue to use Yojimbo and love
it.

I suspect that the blame lies more with .Mac than Yojimbo. I can't
even get my contacts to sync cleanly over .Mac despite a number of
"Replace information on computer from Mobile Me" attempts.

TjL

Krzysztof M.

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Oct 30, 2008, 10:55:54 AM10/30/08
to yojimb...@googlegroups.com
On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 3:52 PM, TjL <luo...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 7:44 AM, barstep <bar...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Sync over .Mac now MobileMe works fine for me and has done for years.

That's hardly useful. How big is the archive? How many PDFs?

Sync over .Mac and MobileMe hasn't worked for me for ages (1200 items,
about 400mb if I recall correctly)

No amount of resetting has helped.

Yojimbo is now a dead product to me.

For me too, but I wish we had an update for that application. But more, of couse nobody from BB are willing to say something about ongoing future for this application. Shame on them! 
 
--
Krzysztof M. gMail

cubic....@fastmail.fm

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Oct 30, 2008, 6:39:12 PM10/30/08
to yojimb...@googlegroups.com

On 30 Oct 2008, at 14:52, TjL wrote:

> I'm syncing files using Dropbox, and migrating everything else to
> Evernote, which is a shame because I really prefer Yojimbo.

Dropbox is really, really, good, to be fair. I've not tried symlinking
my Yojimbo Library folder to it yet, but if that works it would be
terrific. These days I do most of my work with Circus Ponies Notebook,
synced via Dropbox.

> I suspect that the blame lies more with .Mac than Yojimbo. I can't
> even get my contacts to sync cleanly over .Mac despite a number of
> "Replace information on computer from Mobile Me" attempts.

I am also very disappointed with Mobileme's performance. I have moved
my entire task system over to Taskpaper (synced via Dropbox, which is
basically how the iDisk _should_ work) and only use Mobileme for
calendar and address book and Safari bookmarks, all of which I could
do without if it came down to it. I've had Mobileme screwing up my
whole system several times and I just don't have any confidence in it
any more.

For the record I've had great support from BB regarding syncing issues
- they have really paid very keen attention to issues and been swift
in responding - but after a while of all sorts of solutions being
suggested one just has to say "this is too much now". Ironic as I only
ever got .mac to use with Yojimbo in the first place.

Florian

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Nov 4, 2008, 7:04:48 AM11/4/08
to Yojimbo Talk
On Oct 30, 11:39 pm, cubic.arc...@fastmail.fm wrote:
> On 30 Oct 2008, at 14:52, TjL wrote:
>
> > I'm syncing files using Dropbox, and migrating everything else to
> > Evernote, which is a shame because I really prefer Yojimbo.
>
> Dropbox is really, really, good, to be fair. I've not tried symlinking  
> my Yojimbo Library folder to it yet, but if that works it would be  
> terrific. These days I do most of my work with Circus Ponies Notebook,  
> synced via Dropbox.

Just to mention this: I am using the free version of Dropbox for some
months now to sync my Yojimbo libraries (I have much less than 2 GB of
data), which works like a bliss (Dropbox runs on SVN, so even if you
get something mixed up, you can easily revert - not that I needed it
so far, but good to know it's there). I do not like Evernote too much,
because it has no simple client side encryption functionality (you
could do it yourself, but then where is the ease of using it?) and
some of the data I have is strictly private to me. Where Evernote
shines is the web and iPhone integration and a nicer interface. I
definately believe Yojimbo needs to come up with something better soon
if they want to stay competitive, but for now I still prefer good old
YJ.

> > I suspect that the blame lies more with .Mac than Yojimbo. I can't
> > even get my contacts to sync cleanly over .Mac despite a number of
> > "Replace information on computer from Mobile Me" attempts.
>
> I am also very disappointed with Mobileme's performance. I have moved  
> my entire task system over to Taskpaper (synced via Dropbox, which is  
> basically how the iDisk _should_ work) and only use Mobileme for  
> calendar and address book and Safari bookmarks, all of which I could  
> do without if it came down to it. I've had Mobileme screwing up my  
> whole system several times and I just don't have any confidence in it  
> any more.

As for this part, I left .Mac/Mobileme behind long ago. Who is anyway
as crazy to pay for a service that is available for free? Filesyncing:
Dropbox (foir Yojimbo, Address Book, Safari Bookmarks, OmniFocus,
etc.). E-mail and calendar everywhere and in sync: GMail/GCal with
Mail/Calendar and some Automator scripting for even more fun. Webpage
using iWeb: Easy iWeb Publisher (if you wanted that). And so forth. If
you really are paying $ 100 or so for those services, my bad - you
threw away a great dinner with your beloved one...

-Florian

Florian

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Nov 4, 2008, 12:20:01 PM11/4/08
to Yojimbo Talk
Oh, since I am already being asked how to do this syncing with
Dropbox, I thought I might add the explanation here. I just used a
little "link magic": you move your Yojimbo library folder into your
Dropbox and then in the orginial location you create a true symlink
(not the junk non-symlink the right-click command of OSX gives you,
but the real "ln -s" link). So if you have Dropbox and Yojimbo
installed in the default locations, the two command line things would
be (NOTE: _QUIT_ AND _BACKUP_ YOJIMBO TO SOME OTHER LOCATION BEFORE
DOING THIS!!!!):

mv ~/Library/Application\ Support/Yojimbo ~/Dropbox
ln -s ~/Dropbox/Yojimbo ~/Library/Application\ Support/

That's it, start Yojimbo again and your set. If you every change the
YJ in two locations at once, you might get conflicts. Therefore, I
suggest for the highest safety you quit YJ when leaving a machine so
you can't get into conflicts. But, as said, because of Dropbox
versioning, you always can reconstruct older YJ DBs.

-Florian

Andrew Janjigian

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Nov 5, 2008, 6:55:22 PM11/5/08
to yojimb...@googlegroups.com
Florian -

This seems like the ticket for me. I've been using YJ for years, and
it gets out of sync at least a half-dozen times a year, requiring a
pain-in-the-ass hard reset each and every time. I did this a few weeks
ago and already I have things not syncing. I'm finally fed up to the
point where I need an alternative. And I don't think the problem is
with dotmac per se, since none of my other dotmac apps ever get out of
sync, only YJ. If anything, dotmac is not robust enough for yj, and BB
needs to come up with some other sync architecture.

Here is my question about your method: I assume you first move one
machine's library to dropbox, and then link the other machines to that
library, since once you move one of them, you'd have duplicates right
and left. So do you just move it once, and then only create the
symlink on every other machine?

Thanks
Andrew

Florian

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Nov 7, 2008, 5:28:12 AM11/7/08
to Yojimbo Talk
Hi Andrew,

Yes, obviously you should first make sure to have your libraries in
sync and then link them all to the same Dropbox file just as you
assume in your last paragraph. That's another reason why I say to do a
backup before. Well, to be precise, if you have TimeMachine running
and a sparse-bundled drive dedicated to YJ already, you should not
need that, but just as safeguard.

Regards,
Florian
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