Hi All. Following earlier posts. I’ve now read the documentation on updates. I understand what triggers updates and synchs. I’ve poured all over my apps. Yet have the following situation. I can’t for the life in me explain how the synch updates are so numerous. I’ve had no response to help desk queries so relying on you guys. The problem is, I don’t even know the path by wish I can get to a resolution. Regards.
(As an aside, if Glide wrote out a record every time it did a synch and shared that with the user, the process would be traceable, and could be resolved.)
Before offering any suggestions as to where the syncs might be coming from, I have a question: how many Apps do you have in the team, and which data source/s do they use?
thanks for engaging Darren. I have 3 published apps and many unpublished backup apps, all of which point to the same data source, which is a Google sheet with many tabs. I note this, if relevant…
One thing to check in each of your Apps that are connected to the Google Sheet is whether or not you have Extra Sync mode enabled. You’ll find this in Settings → Data → Sync Mode.
If that is enabled, it can lead to a large sync count.
The other thing is - do you or any of your users make any edits or changes directly to the Google Sheet? This is another thing that could bump your sync count up, because every time an edit is made in the Google Sheet, Google will notify Glide of the change, and that will trigger a sync.
Extra synch mode is off on all apps.
Editing Google Sheets directly. Yes I do this from time to time. I don’t believe this to be the cause but I’ll look out for it.
Regarding “set column values” as part of a bespoke action. Do you know if this triggers one update and one synch, even if several data items are amended?
If true, then I’m no closer unfortunately.
Stepping back, I’m not sure how the number of synchs could ever be higher than the number of edits?
Yes, each Set Column Values action will count as one update, regardless of how many columns are touched. I’m not 100% sure if that will also trigger a sync, but I suspect that it does.
With external data sources such as Google Sheets and Airtable I think it’s possible, as syncs can be triggered without any changes actually being made via the App. But that doesn’t appear to be the case here, and I do agree that almost 5 times as many syncs as edits does look quite off. I’m really not sure what else could be the culprit here, sorry. Perhaps somebody else will chime in with some ideas.
Hi Darren. Some extra light on this. I have looked at the “usage” and “usage beta” categories to help me investigate further. This helps to pin it down, by app. My conclusion is that the development of an app, including testing, creation of new data items, has a significant impact on the number of synchs. (See quote below this paragraph). The recommendation is to test changes on a small sample of data. For me, this adds uncertainty and complexity to the app development process. I would also question how every change can be ascribed to an app; for example updating a Google sheet directly impacts all apps that feed off it. In summary, whilst the Glide team has made efforts to increase transparency, from my point of view there’s more that needs to be done. Thank you for your time.
Further update. After forensically applying minor changes and watching what happens. I can confirm, that making 4 updates on an inline list (add form) screen initially resulted in 8 synch updates, even though according to the documentation, the way I read it is that it should be a max of 2 (1 update + 1 synch). On waiting another 5 minutes with no activity, the synch count inexplicably increased by another 4. A further 10 mins, another 2 synchs inexplicably made despite no activity. Therefore, having now tested this as things stand it remains a mystery. From a personal perspective, I’m unsure how to progress as I cannot predict my synch usage and hence cannot predict my costs.
