I have 8 apps for different uses that I maintain. Some are larger, some are smaller in terms of data. About half of them are very photo capture intensive, the others have zero or very few photos.
I have been getting sporadic reports of problems with users with iPhones. So, I decided to do a survey, and the results are stark: Out of my 40+ users, if their platform is Android, they’re fine, if they’re using iPhone (which accounts for over half of them), they are all experiencing serious issues with crashes to home screen (which often results in data loss), photo uploads (where applicable) and about half of the iPhone users also report extreme heat and battery drain. This appears to be the case no matter which app they use (large or small, photo-intensive or not). It all seemed to have started about 4-5 months ago (nobody can pin it down for sure) and does not relate to any changes I’ve made since it affects all apps across the board.
I had reached out to support previously when an iPhone user contacted me about these problems, and they were absolutely no help. I granted them access to the apps, all they did was change settings without my knowledge (which only served to cause additional chaos) and offered no actual help or explanation, eventually they just stopped responding.
So… What’s going on with iPhone and Appsheet? Is there an unresolved bug at the core level? Did Apple change something in iOS that is causing issues that Appsheet has not adapted for?
There are many, many users on iPhones in the AppSheet Platform. There haven’t been any other reports that I have seen of other App Creators having issues. I certainly haven’t seen any as co-author on a dozen apps covering hundreds of users.
Considering that, if this was an AppSheet-wide problem, it would likely be well-known after 4-5 months. So, for now, it would seem that the issues you are facing are limited to your apps.
A few questions for you:
Have you seen the issues yourself?
Is there anything in common/shared across all your apps? Datasource, Scripting, external service calls (outgoing or incoming), datasource, etc?
Have you looked at the Audit Log files to see if any errors are being reported? If so, what are they?
How is your App Performance? How long are the Sync times?
Are user on the latest app version?
What has been done to try to isolate and identify the issue?
As for extreme heat and battery drain and assuming it is caused by an AppSheet app, the only things that come to mind that might cause this are:
A constantly running process of some sort. Endless loops are well detected in AppSheet. However, it is possible to create cyclic set of events that are complicated enough that they do not get detected. In general AppSheet apps are extremely lightweight in processing and network communications. It would be difficult to accidently create an app that performs enough processing to overheat the device and drain the battery.
A huge amount of image/file data is being loaded onto the devices such as for offline access.
Any details you can provide about your apps, the data structure, processes implemented, etc will greatly help in a collective effort to try to help identify where the problem is occurring.
That’s the interesting thing, there’s little in common between the apps. Some are huge monstrosities with 15 tables and lots of data and bots, some are extremely simple. None share all the same data sets, although a few share some. All use Google Sheets as data sources, only one sheet has any spreadsheet formulas. There are no automatic processes or bots used except emailed reports that get sent out based on data changes. Again, Android phones do not suffer any problems, the only commonality is that all the problems are on iPhone. I did meet up with an iPhone user and observed all the issues first-hand. I do have two volunteers with iPhones that have done testing for me since they have reported the same issues as everyone else. They are updated, caches cleared, all settings on the phone verified, etc. I created a “copy” of one of the apps to experiment with and test. It is one of the photo-intensive ones since they seem to be slightly more problematic. We have noted the following:
-Turning off saving images to gallery stops the frequent random crashes, but a user must take all photos with the camera app and load the photos in manually. Taking photos within the app crashes the app.
-Similarly, turning off offline mode also stops the random crashes, and seems (limited testing) to allow the user to take photos within the app, but then loading photos from the camera roll causes crashing
-Neither of the above stops phones from getting hot, even if they are idle.
No, nothing in the audit log, ever. These seem to be “local crashes”, in other words, it doesn’t have anything to do with the sync process, it’s the app itself that’s encountering an error on the device. I wouldn’t expect Appsheet to log anything because there’s no transaction in process when the crash occurs. In my experience, the audit just logs when there’s a sync or transaction issue.
Image slots range from 30+ to 15 or so depending on the app. Most users don’t use all the slots. It will crash on putting the very first photo in.
We do see on our end as well that certain large apps are causing memory issues. Sometimes, certain apps have security filters set such that only certain users get a lot of data and this might not be apprarent easily to app creators. There are also differences based on the iOS/iPadOS versions in use. We are working on getting better metrics about these large apps and also looking into any possible improvements we can make.
If you have a repro for a small sized app please reach out via our support channel. Happy to take a look. Thanks.
Well… this EXACT problem has been one of our largest pains and issues the last year, and the problem is getting bigger. @Patrick_Paul is describing exactly what we are experiencing.
We have reached out to Appsheet Support numerous tims regarding this, but no help there. It happens only when opening the Photo function - either to take a photo or upload from camera roll. And, yes, only on our bigger apps with much data. But not sync related.
Her is a screenshot from my iPhone when I tried yesterday. (the app “shrinks” a bit and a frame around appears. And freezes)
At first we thought this was only on iPhone, but it happens on Android as well, but not so often as on iPhone. Then it does not freeze, but appears as a split screen (that still works).
Looks like a much bigger problem and more frequent for bigger apps and on iPhone.
After freeze: App must be swiped out and restart totally to work.
We first experienced this maybe 2 years ago, but a bigger problem now. Versions og iOS or Appshhet seems not relevant. No errors are logged from this into Appsheet (Audit log or elsewhere).
Thanks for the info. From what i gather, this happens for large apps when
you try to take a photo. We are looking into a new improvement around this.
That said, i wonder if reducing the max photo upload size in the editor
help at all.
All, do note that there are limits to overall data size in the app on the device side itself - i.e. not related to AppSheet. I suspect your apps are using up that available app storage size leading to the crashes.
A large set of high quality images as data within the app can reach that limit very easily. It is i****mportant to know how many images and the file size of each that are getting downloaded for a user as part of the app data.
If possible, then set appropriate Security Filters to limit the number of images downloaded to the device in an effort to prevent app size overflow.
Otherwise, you may need to provide an alternative for users to have access to all of the images - e.g. a cloud based storage area that the app simply links to
Please refer to this article on published data size limits.
If that were the case, why would it only cause crashes on $1000 iPhones and
not my $70 prepaid Android? I will check into limiting file size for photos.
It’s how the device operating systems handle app sizes. I’m sure both iOS and Android have app size limits. Maybe Android allows larger space for each app OR maybe each operating systems handles the overflow differently.
To determine if this, reaching app size limit, might even be a possibility, you need to investigate the number of images being downloaded and see what their COMPRESSED size is. How do you see the compressed size? Place them in a zip file and get the size of that file.
According the above article, the max size is about 5MB…OR…10MB depending on device. They don’t say what the two numbers represent but maybe that is the difference between iOS and Android allowed app space?? And maybe 5MB is iOS size and 10MB is Android size? If so, then iOS would see an issue with large apps before Android would.
Thanks for info. It could be you are on to something. But interesting that @Patrick_Paul says: “Similarly, turning off offline mode also stops the random crashes”. We have this feature OFF and still have crashes.
Also he wrote: “Turning off saving images to gallery stops the frequent random crashes”. I asume he ment on the device (App settings on iPhone). How could that effect then…?
So you think its the nubers of Images (mainly) going through the Sec filter that causes this? @WillowMobileSys ?
Here is a image of the split form Android causeb by the same issue and same app.
It’s not really a freeze, but a split (or view is moved to the side). The app continues to work and the photo was added. But one have to swipe out and restart for the app to work properly again. I asume the same issue, but just a different behavior on Android.
If the app is crashing because it is exceeding the app memory/space limit, it can happen at any time and depends on the activity being performed.
With “Offline” mode ON, the app will download ALL files/images, in the background, to the device in an attempt to prepare for when the app MIGHT go offline. If that list of files exceeds the app space, then the app will crash during the download. Turning OFF “Offline” mode prevents this large download process from happening and thus could prevent the crashing. Files/Images are then only loaded into the app when needed.
While turning OFF the “offline” mode prevents the large download of files to the device all at once, it doesn’t prevent download of those files if they are surfaced in a view - such a Gallery view of thousands of images. Or maybe Table or Deck views with thousands of rows that have images displayed.
The common denominator appears to be that the apps use a large number of images. Images use a LOT of storage space (especially high-quality images) and can exceed storage limits quickly.
I would test your app by temporarily inserting a Security Filter that limits the data downloaded to the device and try using the app with the limited data. If no crashing then you know it is the amount of data causing the issue. If the app still crashes then more investigation is needed.
@mandard Here is our support ticket: 1-1125000035042
Feel free to enter this app to see. AFH-1506712. Our account is open for that. We have reached out to support, but no progress there… They last replied 27th of September saying they sent this to experts…
I have been on vacation so I haven’t had an opportunity to do a detailed debrief, but basically what I did was create a “copy” of one of the worst offending apps and turn off offline mode as an experiment. It seems to have cured the problem on iOS. Also, it seems like turning off “save to gallery” has a similar effect on iOS. We’ll need to do further experimentation (and I want to try turning these features back on but limit photo size) to determine if any of them are an actual acceptable fix.
My best armchair theory is that there’s a problem with read/write permissions or caching of some sort on iOS.
