Unable to login on iPhone

[Bruce]

I hesitate to call this a bug since I know the mobile app is under development and it could be user error.

I just tried for the first time in a couple of weeks to login using Safari on my iPhone. At first it would show me logged in and synced, but all I could see was the "Add Budget" box, not my budget box. The sync process was also very short. I logged out, cleared my history and data in settings then tried again. This time the sync process was taking a little longer (more like I expected), but then I got a pop up box asking if I wanted to allow Financier to use up to 5MB of storage on my phone. I clicked "increase", it started doing the sync spin again, then I got the pop up increase to 5MB box again. This probably went on for 5 times until I gave up.

At his point I can't login via Safari on my iPhone.

[MacMichael]

I get the same thing -- increase database size -- over and over.  Even pressing "cancel" doesn't stop it.

[Alex]

Yeah, safari does all sorts of weird stuff. I'll look into it, but consider it unsupported/broken until I get mobile support released. thx!

[Alex]

@Bruce @MacMichael I may have come to the bottom of this issue. Let me know if it's still a problem when this is deployed:

https://trello.com/c/PSP2XjV8/276-safari-request-websql-space-loop

[Bruce]

Will do. Thanks.

[MacMichael]

@Alex:  Thanks for investigating.  I also had the same problem using Firefox iPhone app.

[Bruce]

@Alex I was able to login. Thanks!

[Alex]

@Alex:  Thanks for investigating.  I also had the same problem using Firefox iPhone app.

If you're on the iPhone, that's understandable since Firefox on iOS uses Safari under the hood -- it's just skinned differently (1).

@Alex I was able to login. Thanks!

Good to hear!

[Paul]

It's been two days since I was able to sync properly from my iPad. I have cleared all website history and the PouchDB file.

In Safari there is a constant loop between syncing and sync complete - with the budget never fully loading.
In Chrome the logged in page syncs but says "sync complete" before my budget is "mounted"
All was fine in the previous two weeks.

Similar issues on iPhone.
Anyone else also suffering?
My desktop still seems ok.
 

[Alex]

Safari has issues if you logged out + cleared local budgets and then try logging back in. (There's a bug in the browser.) However, completely clearing website data + restarting the browser seems to fix it for me. You may also have to remove from the home screen if you did that.

Note that Chrome on iOS (also Firefox) is just Safari with a skin, so they'll all have the same problems on i-devices.

I've spent hours on this problem and it's really unfortunate that Apple has let Safari suffer from all of these bugs. Safari is really a poor browser (at least from a developer perspective) nowadays.

[Bruce]

So I guess the ultimate question is will we have a viable mobile iOS option?

[Alex]

As long as you don't log out + clear local budgets on your mobile apple device, it'll never be an issue.

Although I'll keep digging for the root cause. There will be a workaround I'll find eventually.

For now if you do log out + clear local budgets on an apple device, you got to clear all browser data in the settings...

[Alex]

See this issue where I've been investigating: https://github.com/pouchdb/pouchdb/issues/5943

[Paul]

Thanks Alex - it was helpful to understand that all these IOS browsers are basically just skins of Safari - based on WebKit I presume.

Thanks for continuing to work on the issue

By way of an experiment:

1) I cleared all website data and history on my ipad - and switched off iCloud and Chrome syncing.
2) I loaded up Opera Coast and managed to get my budget synced to it - although even after playing with the browser localisation settings it persists with the mm/dd/yyyy date format instead of dd/mm/yyyy. PS: Opera Coast worked on my iPad but not on my iPhone for some reason
3) I then tried with Safari - it asked me to allow 50 mb space - but is now in permanent sync, never loading my budget.
4) I then tried with Chrome - it just loops "syncing", "sync complete", "syncing" and so on.

So my experience is a bit more extreme than yours. Even after logging out, clearing local data, clearing all website and data, deleting apps and removing syncing I still have the same issue in iOS.
Update:
Have now got things working on both my iPad and iPhone again BUT REMEMBER to switch off iCloud sync of Safari data first.
This maybe unconnected but all my dates have just reverted to mm/dd/yyyy instead of my localised dd/mm/yyy. Date format remains fine in all other web apps

[Paul]

With Alex's kind help and a bit of mucking around here is the fix. Tested on both iphone and ipad:
- Log out of the iCloud Safari sync on your iOS device
- Remove any pinned copies of Financier
- Go to Settings/Safari/Clear All Website Data
- To be sure of the job then go to Safari/Advanced and do the same there
- Restart your device
- Restart iCloud Safari sync
- Log back into to your Financier budget and wait for it to sync
- Be sure never to log out of Financier again or clear local budgets!

Hope it works for you...