Collect sync only updated entity lists and not form definition

Support
1

1. What is the issue? Please be detailed.
This hit two devices yesterday in separate location, and while easily resolved I wanted to mention it in case it happens again, or to understand that this is the expected behaviour.

  1. Form was updated with a modified calculation that drew on an entity list
  2. Entity list was updated to allow modified calculation to work, but using the old definition with the updated entity would error
  3. Devices were both on the default auto update 15min
  4. After 'Start new form' both devices showed the blue pulsing sync, and the 'Updated on timestamp' message showed a time that was after the definition update (both had been working with previous definition/entity status in testing an hour before it was published/updated)
  5. Form errored, looking at the form version identified that the definition had not updated with the auto update.
  6. Forcing manual update retrieved the new definition and form behaved as expected.

For some reason it looks like Collect ran an auto update, did update the entity lists, but didn't update the form definition.

Collect 2026.1.2
versions:
caa03ad7600c31c61480dc04e5f4a7b0c44c5c90 (v2025.4.4)
725fea94bc8c0131415d5e69cd57f1a72714d74b client (v2025.4.4)
d05e1993552b97040707a3ad912d312af87c0a0b server (v2025.4.2)

2. What steps can we take to reproduce this issue?
Not replicated yet

3. What have you tried to fix the issue?
Fixed with a forced sync

2

I think it might have happened when a form was opened during the auto update. I’ll verify the case.

1 Like
3

Did those devices have other forms that also had those Entity Lists attached? I believe that currently when we update a list we update the "Updated at" timestamp for all forms that have that list attached. Does that sound right, @seadowg? Or can you think of another explanation for this behavior?

When form attachments other than Entity Lists fail to download, the whole form update rolls back. But because Entity Lists are shared between forms, I don't think those updates ever cause a form update rollback. Maybe that's the case even for lists only used by one form. Do you have other big attachments on this form?

In general, there's some tension around what level an Entity List exists at. In many ways it belongs to the forms it's attached to. But in many others it exists independently as siblings of forms. We treat them a bit differently depending on the context.

4

yup

not a huge/large amount, ~30 jpg/png/pdfs.

1 Like
5

Yes that is correct.