iOS app not syncing PDF highlights / notes to Mac

dwang3
Hi, I have the same question about syncing the highlights and notes from my iPad to Mac.

Description:
1. I am using the built-in PDF reader in the Zotero desktop beta.
2. I can open PDFs successfully both on iPad and MAC.
2. When I make highlights and notes on Mac Zotero, it could be automatically and smoothly synced from Mac to iPad. But if I make highlights and notes on iPad, it does not succeed to sync from iPad to MAC.
3. just like jrit, I have tried to manually click the Sync button on the Mac, but it didn't work either.

Similar question posted by jrit:

https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/92826/ios-app-not-syncing-pdf-highlights-notes-to-mac#latest
  • dstillman
    Can you provide a Debug ID from iOS for adding an annotation and having it not sync?
  • dwang3
    sure, the ID is D1001418739. Please let me know if additional information is required.
  • dwang3
    By the way, I have also met with some issues about syncing items from MAC to iPad.

    Description:
    1. I have added some items into the library on MAC Zotero, but they didn't come up on iOS Zotero.
    2. Most of these items have PDFs attachments and are categorized into a group. (I don't know if this information are relevant to this problem)
    3. There is no alert about this problem on the iPad, such as "This is not available" or anything else. Just "peacefully" doesn't show these items.
  • dstillman
    Can you provide another Debug ID for creating an annotation that doesn't sync, but this time pull down on the items list afterward to force a sync? (It should auto-sync within 5 seconds or so, but it looks like you may have submitted the output before it had a chance to sync.)
  • dwang3
    Sure. the new ID is D1743639200.
  • dstillman
    edited December 7, 2021
    Annotation position is too long
    OK, you're getting a sync error. Are you seeing that in the bottom left of the library view?

    We'll address this, but just so we know, is this a PDF that you generated yourself, or did you download it from somewhere? Is the page that you're annotating on particularly long? Did you merge multiple annotations?
  • dwang3
    Thanks!

    Here are some responses:
    1. I didn't see the "sync error" notification in the bottom left. Instead, it showed "finished sync (1 issue)".
    2. All PDFs are downloaded from websites like taylor&francis, library genesis, or just downloaded automatically when I used DOI to create an item.
    3. Some PDFs have many pages but some are not. For example, the page in debug ID D1743639200 is just A4 sized with 13 pages.
    4. yes, sometimes I will use multiple ways to make annotations. But the most of time, I only used the "pencil" on the most left, just as on the page in debug ID D1743639200.
  • chrisyeh96
    I am also seeing the message "Error: Annotation position is too long for attachment NYZM66WC." I saw this error message after merging multiple inking annotations on my iPad.
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