MacOS Sonoma
Hello, is there any news about the iCloud sync problem with macOS Sonoma ?
I wouldn't switch to Dropbox and hope a solution is near to release.
Thanks.
Nicola Zanella
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1 Posted by dtd on 06 Aug, 2024 06:54 AM
No change. Apple has changed how icloud works with sonoma. icloud with moneydance works, but it is slow.
Don't expect that to change in the near future, especially since Apple rarely changes their direction.
2 Posted by Nicola Zanella on 08 Aug, 2024 06:36 AM
If I understand correctly, in response to a legitimate change in the operating system, you expect Apple to ensure backward compatibility instead of adapting MoneyDance. This doesn't seem like an effective approach, and as a user, I find it dangerous for the future and somewhat annoying.
What will happen when Dropbox changes its APIs or makes the service paid? And when Apple decides to mandate a technical upgrade of iOS apps in the App Store? Or if Oracle changes its policies on Java?
Will you expect them to revert to ensure backward compatibility with MoneyDance?
The response you gave me ("iCloud with MoneyDance works, but it is slow.") is completely unacceptable as a user. It would have been better to say: "iCloud is no longer supported, we recommend switching to DropBox."
I am very disappointed.
Nicola.
3 Posted by dtd on 08 Aug, 2024 06:51 AM
first of all, i am a user, providing help. Your response is denigrating, and does not recognize my simple attempt to provide you information.
So *I* am disappointed in your response.
Apple totally changed how iCloud works, specifically in the concepts of very small files. Oh, why am I telling you anything more....
Politeness brings help, denigration just makes people stop responding.
4 Posted by dwg on 08 Aug, 2024 07:18 AM
I'm a fellow Moneydance user.
Dropbox have changed its API in the past and Moneydance made changes in response to this, this was quite a few years back now. It affected Dropbox connection. So The Infinite Kind have shown they are will to change and adapt Moneydance where they can.
What Apple have done is change how it handles files within iCloud.
Moneydance syncing has requirements in how files are handled and these do not match the direction Apple has chosen to take. The result is that although it still works it has a performance impact on Moneydance. The Infinite Kind can only go so far in trying to address this.
Personally I would not care if iCloud syncing was dropped from Moneydance, especially if it is shown to be a less than optimal solution, it is not the first time it has been problematic, but there are Apple users that demand a totally Apple Eco solution, will not consider any alternatives, and it is provided for them.
It could also be argued that any solution that does not support all 5 eco systems that Moneydance uses should not be supported, which would leave iCloud out.
5 Posted by Nicola Zanella on 08 Aug, 2024 12:55 PM
@dtd, please accept my apologies: misled by your username, I mistook your response for one from the support team. I obviously wouldn't have used that tone otherwise.
6 Posted by dtd on 09 Aug, 2024 04:52 AM
Thank you for the apology. I appreciate it.
7 Posted by Timppa on 13 Aug, 2024 10:30 PM
Can I add my disappointment with the iCloud issue?
I have a multitude of other programs I use on a daily basis, in my personal and professional life, which have no issues syncing with iCloud on Sonoma.
Apple is a pain to deal with, believe me I know, I support a fleet of their products. I'm sympathetic to the struggle of trying to keep up with their never ending API changes but Sonoma has been out for almost a year now. Longer if you count the beta. Is there a path to fixing this?
I'd feel better about the "Just use Dropbox" advice given in every thread about the iCloud problem if Moneydance implemented FULL end-to-end encryption. It's not full E2EE though, the file structure, file names, metadata, those are all leaked to Dropbox. iCloud implements true E2EE and I would greatly prefer to use it over Dropbox. I would not even care if the files were encrypted by MD if stored in iCloud. I trust Apple. I pay them a lot of money.
Different but related complaint: The mobile Moneydance app almost feels like abandonware, between the sync'ing issues and various UI glitches I encounter (especially with split transactions). The mobile app is the major differentiator left for me between Moneydance and GnuCash. I wish more attention could be given to fixing some of its shortcomings, including the iCloud sync problem. Remove mobile from the equation and GnuCash is a drop-in replacement for MD. I've used MD since the oughts and did not contemplate leaving until the last year or so. :(
8 Posted by dwg on 13 Aug, 2024 11:04 PM
I’m a fellow Moneydance user.
A prime difference with Moneydance is that it is passing a large number of small incremental updates in order to facilitate updating multiple computers than can be simultaneously being used with the same data, so it is a concurrent multi user solution, this is quite different to the majority of applications that are using something like shared file storage. With most applications just a single file is being passed around at a time and there is no concurrent use or updating occurring.
Any system that implements technologies like on demand file provisioning, that is a methodology commonly used to reduce storage requirements, will have a performance impact on Moneydance as it will be waiting on data to be provided across a network.
As far as mobile devices are concerned, I have made a couple of posts about this. There is a project in progress to expand the capability on mobile devices i.e. those running IOS and Android.
Through the Moneydance 2023 and 2024 releases the core Moneydance software is progressively being rewritten in a language that is support on these Operating Systems, much of the testing that has been done so far is to ensure there is no regression as the various modules of the software have been ported. This rewrite should facilitate a far more capable application on these devices and closer to a full version of Moneydance on devices like tablets. How far it will go on smartphones is still an unknown.
There is no timeline on this work there is still much to be done.
9 Posted by Timppa on 13 Aug, 2024 11:24 PM
That's a lot of text to say "structural problem"
All I want is the ability to sync transactions between TWO devices, my cell and PC, in a reasonable amount of time, without surrendering my privacy in the process. I'm not managing the accounting team for a major corporation. It's a PERSONAL Finance Manager.
I could give you my own wall of text about experiences with applications that work in concurrent multi-user environments, via iCloud, without the problems currently vexing Moneydance. What's the point though?
To repeat: All I want is the ability to sync between my phone and PC in a reasonable amount of time without surrendering my privacy in the process. The Dropbox solution does not protect my privacy. Not when so much data is leaked via file structure and file names. I dislike everything about it.
I almost "fired" Moneydance in favor of GnuCash last year, because of a laundry list of limitations/frustrations that have slowly built up over the years. I stayed because Sean personally worked with me to get past the worst of them and assured me the rest would be fixed. Most of them were, he's a man of his word, right up until Sonoma "broke" sync'ing again.
I've patiently waited for almost a year and there's no end in sight. :(
Support Staff 10 Posted by Sean Reilly on 14 Aug, 2024 09:13 AM
Hi Timppa,
To address your points, starting with end-to-end encryption: Moneydance uses end-to-end encryption for all of the data that is synced with the exception of 1) The name of the file, and 2) The timestamp of last modification. These are the only pieces of information which are not end-to-end encrypted. This information is necessary to see when setting up syncing on another device, so that you can tell which data set to open. Other than these two pieces of information, everything is end-to-end encrypted. The protection provided by iCloud and Dropbox is in addition to that - the file names and timestamps are protected by access to your Dropbox or iCloud account.
Regarding iCloud Drive already being end-to-end encrypted, it isn't by default. Apple stores encryption keys on their servers and the contents of files in your iCloud Drive can be accessed by Apple, or by authorities that can compel Apple to provide the data. This doesn't apply to the end-to-end encrypted data that Moneydance reads and writes when syncing - nobody at Apple or Dropbox can access that unless they have your sync passphrase. You can choose to enable "Advanced Data Protection for iCloud" to turn on end-to-end encryption for iCloud Drive data, but that does not seem to be the default, and for most people is not ideal because it's an increased risk to losing your data completely if one or more of your devices are lost or destroyed.
The other issue is performance of iCloud Drive syncing. I'm sorry to say that there's not much we can do on our side about this, but if someone is having ongoing problems with iCloud Drive syncing then I'd be happy to join them in a screen sharing session and we can go over the iCloud settings to try and optimise it for them. The Apple API that we have to work with is very limited and I've investigated this thoroughly (including long conversations with an Apple developer) and not found any way that we can improve the performance short of going to work at Apple and prioritising iCloud Drive syncing speed. The issue with Sonoma is especially frustrating because the speed at which files in iCloud Drive are made available on a new or upgraded computer is totally out of our hands. Apple is understandably more concerned with syncing Pages, Numbers, or other monolithic documents rather than Moneydance's fine-grained CRDT style syncing with additional end-to-end encryption.
Finally, I totally agree that our mobile app for iOS is very dated and lacking substantial updates. We are working on it, but still unfortunately can't provide an ETA. If you have specific issues with it then please let me know (in another thread) and I'd be happy to make individual fixes or corrections.
Thanks,
Sean
--
Sean Reilly
Developer, The Infinite Kind
https://infinitekind.com
11 Posted by Timppa on 15 Aug, 2024 09:57 PM
Sean
I simply don't regard it as true E2EE with the amount of data that's being leaked. Not only is it leaking the fact that it's financial data, it's leaking the names of attachments, which depending on the naming convention used by the end-user means they're potentially surrendering a _HUGE_ amount of privacy.
You say it's protected by "access to your Dropbox or iCloud account", no, it's not, because Dropbox has no equivalent to Apple's Advanced Data Protection. Dropbox can access your data and freely confesses to doing so for a variety of reasons: https://help.dropbox.com/security/file-access
I support an in-house CRDT system every single day in my professional life that operates via iCloud. We're a Mac shop and leverage that ecosystem extensively. I'll freely confess that I am not a developer, so I have no idea what our team has done differently, but I know we were rolling Sonoma out to production within three months of the release with minimal problems (none attributed to iCloud)
Happy to spin up a thread about the various frustrating glitches I encounter in the iOS app.
FWIW, I appreciate your reply.