Need help with IPhone vocab sync
wei1xiao4
August 04, 2009, 11:49 AM posted in General DiscussionI posted this two days ago in user conversations to no avail. I can't get my vocab to sync with the new IPhone application. When I open the Chinesepod review app it shows no vocabulary words, when in reality I have thousands saved on Chinesepod. Since I bought the IPhone primarily to access Chinesepod, I'm really disappointed. Can anyone advise me what I am doing wrong? Bueller...anyone???
John
August 13, 2009, 03:43 AMwei1xiao4,
I've been personally looking into your case. Our customer service superstar, Gulam, noticed that you have an unusually large number of vocab labels, so we focused on that first. It turns out that there's a bug in the app which affects syncing when certain characters are used in label names. Specifially, labels that begin with numbers or that contain Chinese characters were causing the bug.
This bug has been fixed already, and is awaiting review by Apple.
In the meantime, if you absolutely cannot wait (Apple may take 1-2 weeks or more), you can get around the problem by renaming your labels. If you're not using all those labels, I recommend removing them through ChinesePod's online Vocabulary Manager (you can't do it through the iPhone app). It will make your review experience simpler and more pleasant.
Hope this helps!
bababardwan
August 05, 2009, 03:08 AMjohn,
"(Open the App Store app on your iPhone, then tap "Updates.")"
...don't we still need to delete the old app first,rather than just clicking on update? Previously that was causing a problem for some I believe.
John
August 05, 2009, 07:02 AMbababardwan,
Yes, that was the case for 1.2.1. 1.2.2 (the current version) fixes this problem, so an upgrade to 1.2.2 from any previous version should go smoothly without the need to delete anything.
bababardwan
August 05, 2009, 07:12 AMAh,thanks John.To be honest,I haven't upgraded from the original version yet.I did upgrade on the other language reviews,but I was a bit shy of doing it for the Chinese due to the culling of extraneous vocab.I have faith that it's been a good move,but I just wanted to try the original a bit longer and I'm having trouble letting go of whatever it is that's going to be culled.I'd love to hear of any feedback on this front.But sorry wei1xiao4,when you're back online,let's see if we can get back to sorting out your vocab syncing.
John
August 05, 2009, 08:57 AMbababardwan,
Culling of extraneous vocab, but addition of lots of new useful vocab (like the "crazy" example from the blog post)!
John
August 05, 2009, 03:05 AMwei1xiao4,
Yes, as Bababardwan says, the first step is to make sure that you have the most recent version of the app. To do this, open up the app on your iPhone and tap "Settings." At the very bottom, you should see the version number. The latest version is 1.2.2. If your version is lower than that, or if you don't see a version number, then you need to upgrade to the latest version. (Open the App Store app on your iPhone, then tap "Updates.")
Please let me know if that solves your problem. If you're on the latest version of the app and still having this problem, then we'll have to go into some more details.
John
August 10, 2009, 08:13 AMbababardwan,
Let me know how you like the newest version!
You're right; we should have updated the blog. I'm the one who usually does that, but I was on vacation when it happened. I'll add an update.
bababardwan
August 10, 2009, 09:40 AMJohn,
Ok,so I've updated to the latest version.I'll let you know what I think when I've given it a burl.You weren't wrong;it was much faster downloading than the original.I had a 230Mb iPhone update to do first.I then just clicked on update for the CPod Quick Review App which it did in like 2 seconds flat.I then had to sync it which took less than a minute.I then disconnected and went on to the apps settings to double check I had the latest version.To see this version number I had to login first.This took about a minute to do during which time I presume it was downloading the vocab[whereas this whole process take about 15 minutes or so with the original version...maybe my connection wasn't as good that day though].I checked and all 1759 words are there.Hey presto;very happy.Incidentally,before I updated I hadn't synced in a little while and I had 1316 words.I just comment on this because in the blog you mention:
"A bug which prevented long vocabulary lists (over 500 words) from being synced"
..whereas I never personally had this problem with the original version,but perhaps it depended on other factors.
Finally,I thought I had updated my other Praxis Quick Review Apps but I can only see the latest version on the Spanish one.With that one at least I deleted before updating as per old instructions.Can it now be said for all Praxis Quick Review apps that you can directly update them without deleting first?
John
August 11, 2009, 09:59 AMbababardwan,
Glad to hear this story has a happy ending. :)
Yes, all of the Quick Review apps have had their code updated to resolve the 1.2.1 bug.
wei1xiao4
August 11, 2009, 07:20 PMStill not working for me on 1.2.2! Help!!! Can you take me through step by step? Thanks.
bababardwan
August 11, 2009, 09:17 PMwei1xiao4,
I'll try.It would help to know though whether the app has at least installed on your phone properly and it's just the vocab you're having trouble syncing.I'll assume for the time being this is the case and just tell you how I did it from there.Once I had the app installed on my iPhone,I disconnected from my computer then opened the app on my iPhone by tapping on it.Once there I went to settings.I had to log in using the same login data one does for logging on to the CPod site.To achieve this you need to have a Wifi connection.You might want to double check that your iPhone is actually connected by Wifi.It won't work simply over 3G.It then takes about a minute during which time it verifies your a bonefide user and should be downloading your vocab.Obviously you then go to flashcards to see them all there.I think that was all there was to it.Let me know how you go.Good luck. :)
bababardwan
August 10, 2009, 12:38 AMjohn,
Ah,I see the crazy example from the first blog entry.Yeah,I only have fa1kuang2 and meng3jin4 on my original version.I'll definitely bite the bullet then and upgrade to the latest version today.Thanks for your encouragement and focussing on useful stuff.Incidentally,I've gone through the blog and there doesn't seem to be a mention of the 1.2.2 version and the fact that you can directly update to it without deleting the old version,so thanks for mentioning that here.Once I've successfully updated later,I might add a comment on the blog pointing that out.Cheers :)
ps wei1xiao4,
I hope you have your phone sorted.
bababardwan
August 04, 2009, 12:06 PMwei1xiao4,
I'm no techie,but I do have it working on my phone,so perhaps if you tell me which version of the app you have and what steps you took to try and sync vocab,I'll see if I can spot the problem. :)