Smart Lists disappear at random in the Android app but not in the web app
(closed account) says:
I've recently redone all of my smart lists and tag system, so I have a bunch of new ones, some changed and another removed. I've done this in the past and I know that these kinds of drastic changes involving almost a thousand (incomplete) tasks can confuse the Android app (I guess that it uses cache to speed things up), so I'm used to deleting the app data from time to time.
My problem is that some of my new smart lists don't appear in my Android app, but they are visible in the web app. Thereby I know that I have tasks that satisfy the smart list search criteria (I can also type in the exact search criteria and the Android app will show me the correct results). This seems to happen randomly for some lists, while some lists are always visible. I have tried to delete app data and also uninstalled the whole app, but the problem still exists.
Can it be some kind of memory problem with my phone not being able to read enough data for the app to show? I suspect that because of the apparent randomness of the disappeared smart lists.
However, the sync seems to be in order because if I try to create a smart list with the same name in the Android app, it will tell me that I already have a list with that name.
My problem is that some of my new smart lists don't appear in my Android app, but they are visible in the web app. Thereby I know that I have tasks that satisfy the smart list search criteria (I can also type in the exact search criteria and the Android app will show me the correct results). This seems to happen randomly for some lists, while some lists are always visible. I have tried to delete app data and also uninstalled the whole app, but the problem still exists.
Can it be some kind of memory problem with my phone not being able to read enough data for the app to show? I suspect that because of the apparent randomness of the disappeared smart lists.
However, the sync seems to be in order because if I try to create a smart list with the same name in the Android app, it will tell me that I already have a list with that name.
andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:
Hi johan.nilsson,
This sounds like a sync or Smart List problem that we may want to look into with you; it'd be great if you could post the Smart List criteria here or contact us so we could look at those specifically.
Ultimately, the caching is only used to update the counts of the Smart Lists, and that should take a few seconds at most to update. Also, tapping on the Smart List would update it right away.
Since that's not working, and since reinstalling didn't help, I'd guess this wouldn't be a sync problem (but it's possible), and more likely a problem with the Smart Lists working consistently between the web and Android apps.
I would guess that the Smart Lists aren't visible in the app because you have them set to hide when empty? Toggling that may help isolate the problem.
Keep me posted on what you find!
This sounds like a sync or Smart List problem that we may want to look into with you; it'd be great if you could post the Smart List criteria here or contact us so we could look at those specifically.
Ultimately, the caching is only used to update the counts of the Smart Lists, and that should take a few seconds at most to update. Also, tapping on the Smart List would update it right away.
Since that's not working, and since reinstalling didn't help, I'd guess this wouldn't be a sync problem (but it's possible), and more likely a problem with the Smart Lists working consistently between the web and Android apps.
I would guess that the Smart Lists aren't visible in the app because you have them set to hide when empty? Toggling that may help isolate the problem.
Keep me posted on what you find!
(closed account) says:
I found the problem. The problematic smart lists had the incorrect quotation marks. Instead of U+0022, I apparently had used U+201D, which the web app but not the Android app recognizes.
I wrote all the lists in a Word document that I have to keep track of all my rules for which tags to use, due dates to use and what all the smart lists do and how and when they are supposed to be used. I must have been lazy for some of the smart lists and just copy-pasted their search criteria directly from Word. I guess that Word uses U+0201D for quotation marks instead of U+0022. I changed it for one list and it worked.
Of course it worked before when I manually searched with the exact criteria, because then I wrote it with the correct quotation marks. As a professional programmer, I should have known better and retyped all the smart lists. I should also have recognized the different styled quotation marks.
Well, thanks for your help and explanation of the cache implementation!
I wrote all the lists in a Word document that I have to keep track of all my rules for which tags to use, due dates to use and what all the smart lists do and how and when they are supposed to be used. I must have been lazy for some of the smart lists and just copy-pasted their search criteria directly from Word. I guess that Word uses U+0201D for quotation marks instead of U+0022. I changed it for one list and it worked.
Of course it worked before when I manually searched with the exact criteria, because then I wrote it with the correct quotation marks. As a professional programmer, I should have known better and retyped all the smart lists. I should also have recognized the different styled quotation marks.
Well, thanks for your help and explanation of the cache implementation!
andrewski (Remember The Milk) says:
Thanks for confirming! I've passed that cause on to the development team too. Sorry about that!
I'm glad to hear those are working well now.
I'm glad to hear those are working well now.