Android App overwrites Location and date that I updated on Website

Bug Reports
1

**Platform, Android:

**App version number, 1.30.15 (608)

**Browser, Chrome :

**URL https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/243993634

Screenshots of what you are seeing (instructions for taking a screenshot on computers and mobile devices: https://www.take-a-screenshot.org/):

Description of problem
I collect mussels, and bring home to wash.
I photograph and upload on my Android phone
I logon to the website from my PC and use the “Edit observations”
I update the Date and Location of all of the mussels as they show at my house.
Days later I may use the android app to agree with an identification. When I do this. The android app overwrites the date and location that I put in on the website with the original data. Often I don’t know this is even happening until years later when I look for mussels at my home place and some display. Its because the android app over writes the location. If the app would download the changes I make on the website this wouldn’t happen. The app finally will update but I’m not sure what causes it to. This time it was days after I made the changes on the website. This time it did it when I added an identification and it downloaded all of the others. The only work around I found is to delete the data on my phone and let android redownload everything. This has been happening for years. I just finally decided to report it as a problem. It’s a big problem because I don’t even know its happening… Android overwriting data and me never knowing that its done that until later and then I don’t know what the correct location even should be. Is there a setting to make the app download data from the database?

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1 Like
2

Might be a sync issue. Do you have automatic syncing turned on?

3

And the solution is not to agree with an identification or to edit the observation any more on your phone after upload?

Interesting is how iNaturalist Next handles such an situation.

4

it’s unlikely Android is changing the details of the observation when you add an identification. those are different kinds of actions.

more likely, you just need to update your observations in the app. from your My Observations page in the app, just tap, hold, and drag down to refresh the page, like you would refresh a webpage in the browser.

1 Like
5

Yes. The solution I found is to force inat to update my observations on my phone after I update on my computer by dragging down on the screen. Didn’t know this was a thing.

6

I did update observations in the app after I update on computer and it’s solved problem. But I need to remember to do that. Wish it was automatic.

7

You can make it automatic by turning on auto sync in the settings.

Screenshot_20241018-194931
Screenshot_20241018-1949311080×2220 186 KB

8

That synchs phone to site but not site to phone. I have it turned on. I often do batch updates but when they complete the phone doesn’t have them unless I manually update the phone.