Hello! Arc has recorded no data and added nothing new to the timeline (aside from photos) for the past 26 hours or so. I have restarted the app and the phone but it hasn’t worked. Locations services show arc as accessing the location.
Any ideas?
Hi Miles!
If you haven’t already, I recommend upgrading to iOS 14, in case you’re experiencing the iOS 13 bad location data bug.
If you’re already on iOS 14, then the things to look out for are:
- Make sure you’re not ever swiping the app closed. Swiping the app closed will always stop recording, until you either manually restart the app or iOS restarts it automatically. You can’t rely on iOS restarting the app automatically, because it might only do that after several hours, or not at all. So swiping the app closed is definitely a bad thing to do.
Aside: It’s a good idea to not swipe any apps closed at all. Swiping apps closed will on average reduce your phone’s battery life each day, and make your apps run less efficiently and less reliably.
- Make sure Arc has all the permission it’s requested. The permissions Arc needs are:
- Location Services permissions to be set to “Allow Location access: Always”, and “Precise Location: Yes”. (Look in your phone’s Settings -> Privacy -> Location Services).
- “Background App Refresh” set to On / Yes. (Look in Settings -> General -> Background App Refresh".
- Notifications need to be set to “Allow Notifications”. (Look in Settings -> Notifications -> Arc)
Let me know how you get on!
Cheers,
Matt
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Hi Matt,
Thanks for the response. This is a really great project you’re working on. Can’t wait to see what the future holds. The tracking information is a great insight into ones life, but such a hard choice as to who to trust with such data, your app offers a great option that requires no trust. Perfect.
I can answer in the affirmative to each of those questions. It seemed to just spend a total of about 40 hours not recording anything - although working in every other respect. Then it just started recording again, so it somehow corrected itself.
It’s did this once before a few months ago during the iOS 14 beta, but I just assumed it was because of the beta.
I have no idea how to reproduce the situation but I’ll keep an eye and if it starts again I’ll reopen this thread.
Keep up the good work!
Miles.
Thanks for the kind words and the update Miles!
Hard to guess what it would be then. If Arc was indeed alive during that time, then the only way that it would file to record anything is if the phone didn’t send updated location data to Arc. While Arc is alive it checks your location at least once a minute, to see if you’ve left where you were or not.
So what’s more likely is that Arc had been stopped by iOS for some reason, and hadn’t been automatically restarted. It’s possible that after a whole bunch of hours iOS did restart Arc, but by then Arc had already missed a bunch of stuff.
If Arc is stopped by iOS and not automatically restarted fast enough, Arc will send you a notification to let you know. That notification is the last line of defence. So if you see one of those notifications then it typically means that all of Arc’s lines of defence against termination / for getting automatically restarted have been denied or failed, and you’ll need to restart the app yourself.
Aside: Those last resort notifications are a “dead man’s switch”, in that the notification is submitted while Arc is still alive, but with a delivery time X minutes/hours into the future. Then if Arc is still alive at that time, Arc will cancel the notification and submit a new one, again dated some time into the future. If Arc is killed, then it won’t be alive to reset the notification date, and the notification will be delivered.
Yes I have received these notifications before. In this case, I would hazard a guess that I somehow miss the notification, perhaps I had a lot when I opened my phone. I don’t always check them all, as I rely more on app badges for my most important notifications (messages and emails).
Is there a way to add a badge notification to Arc as well?
Also, I have changed the settings within notifications to make the banner persistent, this may help if I miss it again.
Yeah, it’s very easy to miss notifications sometimes! And these Arc ones are bad to miss, because they’re that last line of defence. So I added a badge notification also, back in maybe around Arc 3.0 or 3.1. So you should also see a little red “1” on the app icon if it’s been terminated and the dead man’s switch notification has fired.
Though the update that added the badges didn’t request badges permission, so for people who already had Arc installed, they wouldn’t see the badges until manually going into notification settings and turning on the badges permission. So it’s worth double checking to see if you’ve got that turned on too!
Ahhh, yes. I didn’t realise it wasn’t switched on. I have had Arc installed for quite some time - probably missed the update notes back when you added badges. Thanks! That helps.
Hi!
I love the app and the way it records the places I’ve been. I find it very nice to have that info, specially during trips!
I’ve been having the same problem with my app. And during the Las test weeks, I’ve also seen the “arc stopped working message” more often than before.
When the app does record, sometimes it also misses the transport part even though they are visits I do on a daily/weekly basis.
I have also now realized that I do not see the badges in my app when I get the error messages. I have already looked into the settings and I get no option to select badges in the notification section for Arc. It only allows me to select the banners. I have the latest iOS installed in my iPhone 11 Pro.
Is there anything else I can do?
Thanks!
Hi @nayane! I think you’re probably already doing all that you can, as long as you have notifications turned on, and do see the “Arc has been stopped” notifications.
I’m hoping to have a new update out this coming week, which reduces the chances of Arc getting terminated (or crashing). Though I don’t have any definitive answer yet as to why terminations have been happening more often since Arc 3.4.0. The mystery remains. But I am chipping away at it!
Hi Matt,
One thing I’ve noticed over the months is that Arc stops most often when it’s plugged into a USB cable and charging e.g. when it’s in the car. I don’t recall it ever stopping when it’s in my pocket (which covers the rest of the day)
My first outing in the mornings is to drive my daughter to school, and Arc stops at roughly the same location a few kms from home. It may even happen more often if Arc was the active app, so maybe it’s when the phone goes to sleep; I will have to check that.
Cheers
Gordon
Hi Gordon!
That makes sense, in that when Arc is plugged in to power there’s more potential things it might be doing. Arc will only do its various background processing tasks when plugged in to power.
That said, none of those tasks are allowed to start when Arc is actively recording, so none should be happening while you’re driving, for example.
In the past I have had suspicions that the combination of Arc plus CarPlay might worsen things. Though I’ve no direct evidence of that, and there’s no certain reasons why that might be the case.
I don’t believe navigation apps (eg Google Maps or Apple Maps, while in navigation mode) worsen things. I use Google Maps directions on my main phone every time I go anywhere, and have never had a problem. Though I cycle everywhere, so Arc is running on battery during those trips. Perhaps the combination of being plugged in to power, plus navigation app, but possibly CarPlay, creates some sort of situation where iOS is much more likely to terminate apps. But yeah, there’s no strong evidence for any of this yet - just speculation.