LDS Tools issues continue

I have 2 items to post:
1 - Since downloading version1.0.6 (on my ipod touch ver 4.2.1 )everytime I update the data it loads another copy of the callings list. Then I have to use the clear all data function which looses all my custom changes and photos. Then I do the download again and all is okey until the next time. The main membership list is okey(except for my comment 2 below) and so is the calendar. Any ideas? ? ? ?

2 - When downloading the membership info to my ipod touch, along with 2 friends today using a new iphone and an Android phone we all get different info on the same ward list. Parts of families are gone on different platforms. In other words what shows on the lds.org site and our handheld devices is different. Overall all four devices are okey except variations like a missing spouse, child or etc between the platforms. Whats going on?

Do your friends all belong to the same Ward? Different logins have different rights based on calling. Especially for information on other wards.

I know there are some issues with the sync logic on the iPhone version, which are being worked. See the JIRA issue tracking.

But I am unaware of similar data problems with the Android version, although it has fewer features. If there are problems, they are probably independent of the iPhone problems because the two platforms share nothing except the web services. Could you be more specific about cases: Which data shows up on the website but not on the Android?

RussellHltn wrote:Do your friends all belong to the same Ward? Different logins have different rights based on calling. Especially for information on other wards.

We are all in the same ward. We are ward leaders of the YM, HP and I see no reason why the problems we are having have anything to do with lder access.

For example we were looking up a family during a PEC mtg on our hand helds. One showed a husband and wiife, one the wife only and the other with only husband. None of us had the children showing. We tried chging the grp by function and no changes in who showed up. Later in the afternoon two of us with ipods chked again and both only had the wife. Once I got home and on my computer I cked again, on the computer both husband and wife were there but on the ipod on a fresh download only the wife.

recroft wrote:For example we were looking up a family during a PEC mtg on our hand helds. One showed a husband and wiife, one the wife only and the other with only husband. None of us had the children showing. We tried chging the grp by function and no changes in who showed up. Later in the afternoon two of us with ipods chked again and both only had the wife. Once I got home and on my computer I cked again, on the computer both husband and wife were there but on the ipod on a fresh download only the wife.

Are all these cases of the same family?

By any chance, is there a part-member family involved?

During the meeting, which device was showing both husband and wife?

I'd still like to see each user try their own login to the lds.org/directory page. We still haven't eliminated the possibility that it's something tied to the login permissions.

The fact you saw something different on your device then what you saw (I assume) on the NEW directory page suggests that it's not the login, but it would wise to cross-check.

RussellHltn wrote:I'd still like to see each user try their own login to the lds.org/directory page. We still haven't eliminated the possibility that it's something tied to the login permissions.

I can't think of anything intra-ward that would be affected on the website or its web services by permissions in the directory -- nothing that could explain these symptoms for auxiliary leaders. LDS Tools is mostly a rank-and-file app in its current incarnation, and I don't think different auxiliary leaders have any special permissions or restrictions.

This is not an isolated report as far as iPhones and iPods go. There is just such an issue, unrelated to permissions, that iPhone developers are sweating to isolate and fix. As of today the root cause is suspected to involve part-member families, although there is no certainty that other families are not also side-affected. That is why I am trying to elicit more facts to refine the debugging hypothesis.

However, I still am puzzled by the generalized implication of the Android app, which is a completely different critter.

RossEvans wrote:I can't think of anything intra-ward that would be affected on the website or its web services by permissions in the directory -- nothing that could explain these symptoms for auxiliary leaders. LDS Tools is mostly a rank-and-file app in its current incarnation, and I don't think different auxiliary leaders have any special permissions or restrictions.

You may well be right, but I thought there was some difference in the data set exposed to you (and the APIs) based on your calling. It would be nice to eliminate some areas before spending a lot of time in another.

RussellHltn wrote:You may well be right, but I thought there was some difference in the data set exposed to you (and the APIs) based on your calling. It would be nice to eliminate some areas before spending a lot of time in another.

The possibility of a privilege issue is pretty much ruled out by the facts we have. You were right to ask the question in the first place, but none of the users in recroft's response is logically a leader with any significant privileges even though they report inconsistent behavior. The only place I can think of that leader privilege comes into play in either the directory or web services so far is that top leaders such as bishops can see contact data suppressed by the members from general publication. Just the fact that recroft reports seeing the data on the website but reports missing members on LDS Tools rules out a privilege issue, because the privilege applies at the server-side download rather than within the app. (That can be empirically verified by the user by following the steps documented by jasonhyer at the top of this thread.)

So these symptoms are not consistent with a privilege issue, but they are consistent with multiple other reports of some members being missing from families in the iPhone LDS Tools display, or even displayed in the wrong families. That is the bug that is being worked by the LDS Tools iPhone team.

At this point, without more detail, I discount the secondhand report about the Android app. The hearsay symptoms are easily explainable by pilot error -- if, for example the user had "Include Children" or "Include Spouse" unchecked in the app's Settings and just browsed the headers.

A significant incidence of pilot error is to be expected in LDS Tools because neither the iPhone app nor the Android app yet provides a clean user interface to browse by household then see a complete household-detail display. The core logic is built around browsing by member, with some confusing add-ons to try to emulate the experience of browsing by household. The user interfaces on the two platforms are different, but neither matches the clean user experience of the website. Ideally, I think, the user interface should provide the option to browse first by household or by member the way desktop MLS does. (The Android version of Ward Tools is the best handheld design I have seen in that respect.) But LDS tools isn't there yet. Its design began by emulating iStake, which suffered from the lack of household-oriented browsing.

and since 1.0.5 came out, I haven't been able to even download any data for my LDS Tools.

I keep getting "you are not authorized to access this data", still trying to figure out who else IS authorized or if someone messed up the coding related to my unit when the 1.0.5 update came out.

In any case, I sure wish someone would figure it out, and get this little app up to Ward Tools standards, because I hate having to export, convert and update in three steps.

just updated to 1.0.7 and am now getting the error message (at about 76%): "There is a problem with your LDS Account. Please contact our Global Service Desk… etc…"

have submitted feedback.

Updated to 1.0.7 this morning and cannot load the callings. It times out at 72% with an error that there is a problem with my LDS account. I tried clearing my data and rebooting my iPad, but the error persists.

Okay, I was able to resolve the problem by uninstalling/reinstalling the LDS Tools app. I recommend a reboot between the uninstall and reinstall.

uninstalled, rebooted, reinstalled, and still no luck.

Did you download a fresh copy direct from the ITunes store, rather than using the copy on your computer?

yep - fresh copy from app store.

Same problem here.

can someone make 1.0.6 available for download - while they try and sort the problems with 1.0.7? Having NO access at all is proving to be a real pain!

dannykos wrote:can someone make 1.0.6 available for download - while they try and sort the problems with 1.0.7? Having NO access at all is proving to be a real pain!

I don't think that's even possible with any app on the iPhone platform. AFAIK, you can only get whatever version iTunes releases to you after Apple does its own final review of what developers build and submit.

FYI, v 1.0.8, which is intended to fix some of the access problems, has been "in review" at Apple for almost a day now. So there is some light at the end of the tunnel.

**sigh** 1.0.7 downloaded - after a delete and reboot, and still getting exactly the same problem as on 1.0.6… going to have to go back to paper and pen I fear

dannykos wrote:**sigh** 1.0.7 downloaded - after a delete and reboot, and still getting exactly the same problem as on 1.0.6… going to have to go back to paper and pen I fear

1.0.8 is supposed to be available now.

WOOHOO!! 1.0.8 sorts it thanks to the team.

My husband I were recently were made our ward website administrators and some strange things have come to our attention. For instance, mine and my husband's pictures, which were upload via desktop computer show always show up on the ward directory and some notebooks, but not others. So there is a strange quirk in there for iProducts somewhere. Additionally, images uploaded via notebooks are not showing up anywhere, but on the notebook they were uploaded on - as has been previously observed.

Many of my ward members have indicated that they have uploaded their images, but the only images which are visible to everyone on the website from a desktop computer are both mine and my husband's.

One of my friends recently uploaded his family pictures from a desktop computer and he can see them from his profile, but I cannot see them from mine.

I believe this problem is an overall permissions problem and not just limited to iPad/iPhone/iTouch. I think it must have happened with an update sometime after me and my husband uploaded out images, but that was so long ago that does not help narrow the window for when the permissions problem happened.

Victoria Runyon
Snowflake, AZ

Photos must be approved by ward clerk before they are visible to the rest of the ward

My husband I were recently were made our ward website administrators and some strange things have come to our attention. For instance, mine and my husband's pictures, which were upload via desktop computer show always show up on the ward directory and some notebooks, but not others. So there is a strange quirk in there for iProducts somewhere. Additionally, images uploaded via notebooks are not showing up anywhere, but on the notebook they were uploaded on - as has been previously observed.

Many of my ward members have indicated that they have uploaded their images, but the only images which are visible to everyone on the website from a desktop computer are both mine and my husband's.

One of my friends recently uploaded his family pictures from a desktop computer and he can see them from his profile, but I cannot see them from mine.

I believe this problem is an overall permissions problem and not just limited to iPad/iPhone/iTouch. I think it must have happened with an update sometime after me and my husband uploaded out images, but that was so long ago that does not help narrow the window for when the permissions problem happened.

Victoria Runyon
Snowflake, AZ

KenRichins wrote:Photos must be approved by ward clerk before they are visible to the rest of the ward

Not only can ward clerks but the other ward administrators can approve photos. The ward website administrator is a directory administrator that can approve photos. There are two reasons a ward website administrator does not have administrator rights. The first is they have not been entered into MLS with the standard position of "Website Administrator" and not a custom positions such as "Ward Website Administrator". The second is the time delay from the when the position is entered in MLS and transmitted. It can take a day or two for the permissions to take effect.

Thank you for the help. I will talk to Bishop and get our permissions altered. He assigned us the task of getting all of our ward pictures uploaded on our ward website. This will help tremendously! Thanks again!

Victoria Runyon

thatvickigirl wrote:Thank you for the help. I will talk to Bishop and get our permissions altered. He assigned us the task of getting all of our ward pictures uploaded on our ward website. This will help tremendously! Thanks again!

Victoria Runyon

Just have the ward clerk put you in the standard website administrator position instead of the custom one that you are currently in.

I'm using the May 2012 version of LDS Tools on my iphone.

When I open the application to seek information from the Stake organization and then close the application after finding the information I was seeking. I am never able to open the application again. I must delete the application and reload it to my iphone again from itunes.

However, if I am seeking information from a Ward organiztion and then close the application all is well and I can reopen the application again.

In addition, I fined that if I select to call a telephone # listed in LDS Tools data that once my iphone transfers out to make the call, the LDS Tools app closes and I am again unable to reopen it. I must delete it from the iphone and reload it again.