Uploads failing; ID "offline"

Platform: iOS

App version number, if a mobile app issue: 1.0.4 (164)

Browser, if a website issue:

URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages:

Screenshots of what you are seeing:


Description of problem:

Step 1: I use the app to take a few photos as a single observation. ID suggestions attempt to slowly load, and eventually the “You are offline. Tap to reload.” screen appears. Tapping just repeats the problem. My wifi service is fine; all other apps working normally.

Step 2: I save my observations, then try to upload them. They spin for a long time and then fail.

This has been happening more and more lately this past week or so. I tried deleting and reinstalling the app, but I am getting the same problems.

It seems intermittent. Some days it works fine. But more and more often it brings my observations to a standstill.

The offline banner appearing during the ID process is a bug, I believe. Sometimes if the model isn’t sure and it’s taking a long time to come up with an answer the app times out and thinks you’re offline. Definitely frustrating, but it’s hard to make the app not endlessly spin and use up battery and patience but still give the system enough time to come back with an ID. Probably something we’ll keep tweaking.

It looks like you’re using version 1.0.4, and we added more logging data around the upload process to see if we can better understand what’s happening. If possible, can you please email your log file to us?

  1. Go to the About screen
  2. Tap on the version number a few times until the see a pink “turn off debug mode” button appear. This means debug mode is on
  3. In the side menu, tap on debug mode
  4. Tap on Log
  5. Tap on email log. Please write a note as to which the problem is when you send the email
  6. You can turn off debug mode in the About screen.
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Thanks! I just sent it.

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Thanks, but I messed up the version number that has more log recording for upload, it’s 1.0.5, which isn’t out yet. I’m sorry about that.

A few more clarifying questions:

  • when you make new observations, do some of those upload? Or do all unsynced observations fail to upload?

  • what happens if you tap on the upload button for individual observations? same thing?

It seems to be better today, although I notice that the default seems to be “Save” – I need to press the sync button to get them to upload. I should add that I almost always take multiple images per observation (anywhere from 2 to 10 or more.)

But today at least they seem to be uploading and IDing properly (even if I have to help push them upstream) - yesterday I had a few observations I had to give up on and upload via desktop, instead. They just refused to sync/upload from my phone. And the ID isn’t going “offline” at the moment.


Correct, and it looks like you’re in Standard Mode. In Standard Mode there are fewer options presented to the user. You can check out Advanced mode, see https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000211878

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