Syncing unrequested then locking up

Bug Reports
1

Platform iOS

App version number 15.8.2 on iPhone 6S

I’m submitting this bug report for my iPhone on my desktop, so no screenshot. However the error message says "Whoops! Looks like there was an error: Request failed:client error (422)

The SYNC feature will self-activate when I do not want it to do so, then locks up. When I click on OK in the iNaturalist app when I get a 422 error,SOMETIMES it will stop trying to load to SYNC and then all is normal. Today it did let me stop the app from synching to download observations.
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Description of problem

  1. When I am making observations in the field, I do NOT sync them to download until I am back where I have WiFi service to ID them.
  2. I also wait till then as I customarily take multiple shots using the photo app on my phone, and end with one shot using the iNaturalist in app camera to record location info.
  3. That last photo in the iNat app often means the moth or other creature has already left, but the iNat photo serves as a placeholder for me to know where to add the camera app photos of it.
  4. So routinely, NO synch is done by me till I have cropped and added additional photos to the observation, ID’d what I can, and changed the location to obscured where appropriate.
  5. Twice now, the sync button has activated of its own accord and the previous 40 or so observations of what look like garbage shots (but are my placeholder shots!) are downloaded to iNat in a batch, which means I have to scramble to change an annoying bunch of photos-of-no-particular-organism to research quality observations without annoying all the kind ID’ers who are wondering what idiot takes a photo of a brick, a post, a fence…

Any suggestions so this does not continually repeat? Yes, a new phone and new iOS is on the list for next month… Thank you.

2

I’m sorry for the late reply. Is this still happening?

  • do you you have auto upload turned off in the app’s settings?

You can take a screenshot and email it to yourself, then post it to the forum.

3

Hi and thanks for your suggestion – but I just reconfirmed in settings that automation upload is still toggled to OFF. I depend on that setting since I don’t want to waste battery power having my phone search for wi-fi or carrier connectivity where there isn’t any! I thought it might be the iOS on my 6S phone, but I upgraded to iOS17.5.1 on a 3rd gen iPhone SE last week and the 422 error is still happening.

4

Can you please send a screen recording of this process to help@inaturalist.org? Screen recordings contain a lot of details that can often help us investigate a bug.

5

Is this still happening? If so, please let us know. I’ve set this topic to close in three days.

6

This topic was automatically closed after 3 days. New replies are no longer allowed.