So I had issues forever using iCloud sync on my iPhone until … 2 months ago. Now it’s flawless. The problem? iPhone bug.
I was trying to install an iOS update and it asked if it could delete a few apps to be able to download the update, install it, then reinstall the apps. I was like “what!? I have 75gb free!” So yeah some bug was taking up all my iPhone free space without me knowing. I restored iPhone from backup and never looked back.
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Understood, but even if it were possible, it’s not realistic to ask users to go around with gigabytes of md files downloaded to their devices all the time. There has to be a way that Obsidian can be set up to “see” what is available and then download what is needed selectively. To be frank, I have stopped using Obsidian on iOS. It’s just too frustrating. Instead, I now use iA Writer on iOS to do all the things that I wish I could do with Obsidian. iA isn’t as seamless with my set up as Obsidian would be, but it gets the job done and shows, I think, that the kind of file-handling I’m dreaming of for Obsidian isn’t crazy talk.
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I agree it would be better if Obsidian could cope with that, but Markdown files are tiny — the famously heavy novel “War and Peace” in plain text is ~3MB. A multi-GB vault would contain lots of big attachments or an enormous library converted into Markdown.
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Thanks for the explanation.
Wouldn’t there be a way to share the index on all devices?
Or make the synchronization happen in the background, so we can start working while the indexing is going on?
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I’m not convinced this issue is all about waiting for iCloud to download all the files. For example, if i wait for it to “download all the files” then switch to another vault, and then switch back, it makes me wait all over again. Nothing has changed in the vault… and yet there is still a wait of around 10s.
This is on an iPhone 14 Pro Max, iOS 17, with approx 160GB free space on the device. Additionally the Files app shows the Obsidian folder as fully downloaded.
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You can prove this to yourself by launching Obsidian, waiting for the “iCloud download” to complete, pulling up the command palette, and choosing “Reload app without saving”. Despite having just downloaded from iCloud, and the app staying open, it still has to “Wait for iCloud” again.
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The problem seems to be with .obsidian folder which is hidden in iOS
If that’s the case, using a separate settings folder on each device may help. Select files and settings to sync - Obsidian Help
Or you may have a plugin that frequently writes to its settings or data files.
It might be solved by Obsidian Sync, I don’t know.
But I think the main point of discussion is that the Mobile App is almost unusable with iCloud sync.
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Suggestion -
- charge $49.90/yr for Obsidian on Mac
- charge $29.90/yr for Obsidian on IOS
- solve “Obsidian for iCloud”
That’s similar to iA Writer pricing scheme for Apple users.
It is worth it - if they solve for “iCloud sync”.
Math
United States4 (USD)
50GB : $0.99
200GB : $2.99
2TB : $9.99
6TB : $29.99
12TB : $59.99
Most of Apple users pay for one of the plans above (each country/region has a pricing structure…). Charging for an “iA Writer scheme” makes sense for Apple users and for Obsidian.
Let’s face it - good apps, like Obsidian, are not made for “freeware”.
Has anyone found a way to resolve this issue? It’s gotten especially bad for me in the past month or two, and even after un/re-installing the app and un/re-enabling iCloud syncing, it’s still often taking a while to boot up the app. For an app that I use possibly more than any other app, the slow bootup is really unfortunate.
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This morning I did an experiment with timing how long the iPhone app took to start up.
First time: 3 minutes
I let the iCloud configuration sync, and gave Omnisearch time to do its thing once the app was running
- force reload -
Second time: 3 minutes
Turned off 5 plugins
- force reload -
Third time: 3 minutes
Gave up.
This tells me the slowness isn’t because of any extra data to sync.
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Same here, I am really loving Obsidian, but it is effectively unusable for me on iOS due to this bug. By the time the vault finally opens, I forgot what I was launching the app for. It consistently takes over 50 seconds for the vault to open. I will buy 10 software licenses for this application just to show some support if we can get this one fixed.
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This issue had me go down from 5 stars to 2 stars on iOS, I still love obsidian. With that said, I was able to narrow it down to a “consistent” workaround. Going to the obsidian icloud folder and executing “download now” on the vault folder, waiting for it to complete all items, followed by opening a fresh instance of obsidian fixes it. It’s not ideal because you might have this happen every now and then, somehow icloud will “Cache” files which is not great but it is what it is until a native solution is in place.
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Any chances that this issue will be fixed? I have separate configuration folder, without any community plugins and startup will take up to a minute after just closing and opening application again. I really love desktop app but with such startup times it is just unusable (
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Why do I get a prompt when I enter twice without any changes
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I have a separate settings for iPhone, but it still has this problem.
Besides, I turned on safe mode, and it still had this problem
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This is also a very frustrating and intrusive issue for me. I would happily pay for an Obsidian Sync subscription if it made iCloud syncing work properly.
- I see the issue on iPadOS and iOS, but not macOS.
- It doesn’t seem related to actual sync status. Like others, I’ve seen this happen on two subsequent app launches, with no new changes to sync.
- Doesn’t seem to be resolved by freeing up local storage space.
- Often, even if I hit “Skip”, the app will still fail to launch, usually hanging on “Loading workspaces”.
I have been starting to find other ways to edit Markdown files in my vault on iOS (I use Shortcuts to append text to daily notes) because I can’t reliably open Obsidian when I need to.
Obsidian Sync isn’t a solution because I want “app closed” syncing to work, which AFAIK is only possible with iCloud or other cloud storage providers right now.
Has there been any official acknowledgement of this issue?
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The very first comment is from an Obsidian team member.
That comment and the few further comments that I read from team members are not helping or assuring that the issue is known and recognized as issue that should be fixed.
This is the main reason that I started using Anytype some months ago, as they are open source, fast loading on all platforms and don’t even require any payment for a basic sync solution via their infrastructure.
Their apps seem to be Electron/Type Script/Rust on MacOS/iOS.
I started using Obsidian again as I like the minimalism, search, bi-directional linking and daily note integration. It just feels more comfortable to me.
I used to pay for Obsidian Sync, but am using iCloud sync and it takes after a brief Obsidian logo loading screen, ~10 seconds with “Waiting for iCloud to synchronize Obsidian configuration files” until I get to the third Obsidian loading screen for the workspace. If I skip the iCloud loading one, I still get updates that I have created after I force closed the app.
Syncing of new text happens almost in real-time to my iPhone while I have Obsidian open and type on the Macbook.
I can deal with it, but it’s not really attractive and I would hope that it can be improved on Obsidian’s side or that Anytype will add some improvements that allow me to migrate away again.
I did also pay for a Catalyst license and supported Obsidian at least a bit. I do enjoy both apps overall in case that wasn’t clear.
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