Sync Troubleshooting

Sonto allows you to sync tasks across any number of devices using iCloud. This is great for privacy as your data is encrypted and not accessible to anyone. It also means you don’t need to create yet another account for Sonto, you don’t need to give me your email address, and even I as developer cannot see how you are using Sonto. Normally, you should not have to do anything special for syncing to work. If you are signed in with iCloud, it just works. However, occasionally folks run into issues. When you do, there are a number of things you can do to make sure you’re set up right. This article walks you through them.

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1. Check your iCloud accounts

It is crucial to understand that sync works through Apple iCloud, only. Being signed in to the same Apple Account on all devices that you would like to sync is a hard requirement. Is it also required that you have some free storage space available on iCloud. If you’re not signed into iCloud at all, Sonto will warn you in settings: Make sure that error goes away before proceeding, by signing in via iOS / MacOS Settings > iCloud. Once signed in on all your devices, also check your iCloud storage is not full. That will prevent syncing. And while you’re in your iCloud settings, pull up the list of applications that use iCloud for data storage. Check that list: Sonto should be in it, and its toggle should be ON.

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2. Check syncing status

When you open Sonto Settings (the General tab), you’ll see the sync status displayed. Healthy indicates everything is set up for sync and you should be good to go. If you see a Syncing status and its your first time launching the app on a new device, it might take a few minutes to finish syncing. Best to just keep the app open and lets it do its thing. Subsequent syncs will be much faster.

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3. If syncing hangs

If for any of your devices you see that your sync status shows stalled, iCloud might have gotten stuck. This happens sometimes, and unfortunately is not entirely within Sonto’s control to fix. Usually, it is iCloud itself having issues. Usually, this is easily fixed by restarting Sonto. If that does not help, restarting your Mac also helps. This problem does not seem to happen on iOS.

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4. Clear Sonto’s local cache

If restarting Sonto or your Mac does not help, a nuclear option that works for some users is to remove the local cache that Sonto holds for your data, so it fetches it anew from iCloud. This usually solves syncing issues. Do remove the cache, follow these steps:

• Quit Sonto on the Mac
• Open the Finder
• In the Go menu click Go to Folder and enter this: ~/Library/Group Containers/group.net.map-territory.space/Library/Application Support/
• You end up in a folder where you’ll see a bunch of files and folders
• Delete the following files default.store, default.store-shm, default.store-wal
• Start Sonto, it should start syncing

Note that if you remove the local cache you will lose any changes that had not synced to iCloud yet!

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5. Still having problems?

Send me an email and tell me the following:

• please confirm you’ve followed the steps above
• what OS version are you on?
• what Sonto version and build number are you on? (Menubar Sonto and About Sonto)
• did sync work for you in the past?