Exporting Arc Data

[OWG]

Hi team!

I have 7 years of data in Arc. I recently enabled monthly exports, and noticed that Arc had started exporting data into the Files app on my phone. After getting through the first 40 months, it has now stopped. It hasn’t exported a new file in almost two weeks.

I’ve tried leaving the app open and running overnight, I’ve tried turning the feature off, restarting, and then turning it on again. Nothing has appeared to work.

Is there a way to force exports? Does the app only export under certain conditions?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you.

[matt]

Hi @OWG!

I just checked the code, and the auto exports aren’t one of the tasks that Arc will attempt to run manually in the foreground if it’s overdue. (Arc will do that for the iCloud Drive Backups task, to make sure it doesn’t get out of date.)

@OWG

Does the app only export under certain conditions?

The way it works on iOS is apps register scheduled background tasks with iOS, saying when they would ideally like to task to start (eg now, in an hour, tonight at midnight, etc), and whether the task requires power and/or network to run. Arc schedules the auto exports to run every 12 hours, and requiring power (ie phone plugged in to charger).

iOS then decides when it wants to run those tasks. Typically it won’t run them when requested, nor at the requested frequency, but hopefully not too far off. But if it decides that the task uses up too much time, or doesn’t do everything exactly how it likes, then it will start the task less frequently, much later than requested, let it run for only shorter periods of time, or not run it at all. That’s almost certainly what’s happening in this case.

The month file auto exports are unfortunately the most energy intensive tasks, taking the most time, and thus the most likely to anger iOS and get deprioritised, potentially the point of not getting started at all.

@OWG

Is there a way to force exports?

You can do manual exports of monthly files, from the Export menu on Timeline view. Switch to the monthly view, then open the Export menu, and you can export the currently visible month from there. That way you can fill in any missing gaps.

Because the month file auto exports are so prone to angering iOS, I typically recommend not using them, and using the day file auto exports instead. Those require much less work, due to only having to save a day of data when one item changes, instead of having to update the full month file.

I also intend to replace the month files option with a week files one, to hopefully work around the “iOS got angry” situation. But for now, yeah, you can do manual exports from timeline view to fill in gaps, and/or switch to day file auto exports. Sorry about that!