Data Has Disappeared from iPhone

[rjbinney]

Two questions...

I am helping a colleague troubleshoot remotely (she blames me, as I "sold" her on DJO!), so I haven't actually seen the device.

We synced DJO with Palm Desktop about a year ago. She has not synced since - she just uses the data archivally. (Is that a word?)

Recently, all data on the handheld has disappeared. No other apps' data seems to be missing. Don't know when exactly this happened, if there were any updates, or anything like that.

So, question 1) Any thoughts on how to poke around the phone and see what might have happened?

Question 2) DJO is prompting her to update (from what I can tell, this is post-disappearance).... Go ahead and do it?

I'll be able to help her restore the original data in a week. But in the meantime, would love to be able to offer advice.


(And technically that was three questions)

[Ben]

1) Any thoughts on how to poke around the phone and see what might have happened?

A few things I can think of off-hand:

1. Have the DejaOffice settings been reset? (E.g. check to see if the sync method is set to "None", which is the default setting). If so, then that would indicate the the database has been reset somehow.

Typically, a database reset will happen when you uninstall/reinstall the app (uninstalling iOS apps deletes their data). I don't know of any other scenario where this will happen. Certainly if it did happen in some other case let us know!

2. Check the database record counts, to see if the data is in the database, but hidden for some reason:

a) In DejaOffice, open the Categories app.
b) Tap on the "Categories" title bar header and hold for two seconds. This should open the hidden debug screen.
c) Scroll down to the sections for "DejaCal", "DejaContacts", etc. In each of these sections you'll see the count of each record type in the database.

3. The latest build of DJO on the App Store (1.6.5) has a feature to reset all view settings, caches, etc, which should force all data to display if present. Here's how to do it:

a) In DejaOffice, open the Categories app.
b) Tap on the "Categories" title bar header and hold for two seconds. This should open the hidden debug screen.
c) Scroll down to the DejaOffice Command Utility.
d) Type "resetviews" (without quotes), then hit Return.
e) Enter your private records password if prompted.

Point #3 segues nicely in to your question #2...

2) DJO is prompting her to update (from what I can tell, this is post-disappearance).... Go ahead and do it?

Yes.

[rjbinney]

1. Have the DejaOffice settings been reset? (E.g. check to see if the sync method is set to "None", which is the default setting). If so, then that would indicate the the database has been reset somehow.

Typically, a database reset will happen when you uninstall/reinstall the app (uninstalling iOS apps deletes their data). I don't know of any other scenario where this will happen. Certainly if it did happen in some other case let us know!

I don't believe she uninstalled, but will double check.

Some quick clarifying questions:
1) Would resetting DJO settings necessarily be a manual (but perhaps accidental) activity? In other words, she would have had to DO something to reset them, yes?
2) She has not attempted to sync - at least intentionally - to her original data. I don't remember how we did the original sync (can you go through a white wire, or does it have to be WiFi for Apple?), but should the sync method still be set to None?
3) Is "database reset" a euphemism for "deleted"?

Thanks, I will hold off on telling her about the upgrade until I get the answers to above.

Thanks!


rjb

[rjbinney]

Update...

Her Sync Method is listed as "CL Secure Hosted Wireless Sync"

The db count for each type of record is "0", she also says it reads "all 0's for deleted".

So there you go...

[Ben]

1) Would resetting DJO settings necessarily be a manual (but perhaps accidental) activity? In other words, she would have had to DO something to reset them, yes?

Yes. The only way this should be possible is to uninstall/reinstall the app.

2) She has not attempted to sync - at least intentionally - to her original data. I don't remember how we did the original sync (can you go through a white wire, or does it have to be WiFi for Apple?), but should the sync method still be set to None?

It generally wouldn't be set to None if she's been syncing. I thought being set to None would be a clue that the database had somehow been reset. It doesn't sound like that's the case though.

3) Is "database reset" a euphemism for "deleted"?

Yes.

[Ben]

Her Sync Method is listed as "CL Secure Hosted Wireless Sync"

Okay. It sounds like the database wasn't deleted/reset, unless she reconfigured the sync settings after doing so (sounds unlikely).

Check the sync with native Apple contacts/calendar/tasks (DejaOffice Settings -> Sync). Are they enabled? If so, maybe the DJO data was deleted via sync with native. For example, if the native Apple data was deleted from iCloud (or some other data source) the deletion could have propagated out to DJO.

[rjbinney]

All settings to sync with Apple devices are set to "off".

She says there's no area called "Command Utility", she gets:

• General settings
• Dejacal
• Dejacontacts
• Dejatasks
• Dejamemos
• Dejaexpense
• Dejacategories
• Native apple databases
• Dejacloud preferences
• Wifi preferences
• Dejajournal
• Merge duplicates

[rjbinney]

This is her debug screen... Does this imply All Is Lost?
Paula's iPhone.jpg

[Ben]

rjbinney - The command utility is in version 1.6.5. Earlier versions won't have it.

Unfortunately, since the data counts are zero, it wouldn't make any difference. It appears that there's no data in the app to recover.

[rjbinney]

OK. The word we're looking for here is isn't printable.

She has not uninstalled the app, so something happened, somewhere somehow, that wiped all of her database... Is they any diagnostics that can be done? I'm actually here today with the device, so worst case, I'm going to re-push the data...

[DJOCTO]

I'll discuss with the team any scenario that would clear out the data. Please check for any secondary sync systems, iCloud or ActiveSync.

[rjbinney]

I installed CL 6.0 on her machine (my "free lifetime upgrades" end in version 5, yo!) and resynced - setting it for "Sync Both Ways" just to see what happened.

It would APPEAR that this retrieved the missing records... Changes that she'd made in DejaContacts on the device (and never synced) were now in the records on both the device and in Palm Desktop.

So can't even begin to imagine what the cause was, but it would seem that somehow DJO on the device lost its entire ability to SEE the records, but they were still there. And re-opening the syncing conduit, rewrote them to the data tables. Very strange.


ETA:
One weird thing, although the timing doesn't line up right. In November or so, our corporate mail stopped using "Outlook Web Access" and started using "Active Sync". I'm 99.9 percent certain work mail pushes to her iPhone, I can't speak to how Apples are set up, but on my Android, I don't have any special "Active Sync" software, I simply had to change the name of the Exchange server from "owa.xxxxx.com" to "as.xxxxx.com" in account settings... *I* haven't had any issues with my DJO since that change, but like I said, I'm on Android.

[DJOCTO]

Ok. Glad the changes came back.

I can only think they were there all the time. I'm just not sure how they would appear not to be. There isn't any system in CL that would back up or restore a "sandboxed" file on iPhone.

[rjbinney]

Yup. I played with the device myself - not to be found (no password protections, or missing categories, no nothin'.) Oh well. It's fixed now...