Collect sync/update runs forever, but update has already succeeded

Support
1

1. What is the issue? Please be detailed.
Collect 2026.3.3 but I am sure I have observed this previously, not sure when it started.

If I open a project, go to start new form, then hit the sync button, the pulsing blue bar will run seemingly forever (until I get sick of waiting). Current test as I write this post, even with screen lock/sleep and wake, it's still pulsing away. I let it go for 1h10m then exited and reopened start new form and it was complete with timestamp matching when I started it.

However, if I hit sync, wait a short while (<1min is enough for these entity updates), tap back (<) to interrupt the sync and then start new form, I will see that the sync has already succeeded as 'updated on' shows a timestamp at / just after the time I hit sync.

The sync is definitely doing something and not just displaying the progress animation, as attempting to open the form results in the 'Form can't be used' dialogue'.

I am seeing this continually at the moment with a project where the only thing that is updated is one entity list, so the form definitions do not change. The sync time is expected to be very short with only one small list being updated.

2. What steps can we take to reproduce this issue?
update an entity list in a project, hit sync, see if the sync proceeds for a very long time / indefinitely

2

That doesn't sound like a state we've observed before. If possible, please direct message me a QR code to your project so we can try to reproduce.

3

@ahblake did some extra sleuthing and let me know that this happens specifically for a Collect project that has been on device for a very long time and been updated periodically. This means there's likely something about having many older versions of a form that is causing updates to hang. We're going to dig deeper into this and see if we can reproduce.

In the mean time, we would like to hear about anyone else experiencing this.