New iOS and Android Apps - Bug Reports and Suggestions

[Princess Fiona]

This is what happens
View attachment 54224

Ahh, I see now. Luckily that hasn't (yet) happened to me.

 

[bismarck]

Argh, finding the app pretty much unuseable today! Just keeps refreshing/flickering every half a second on the timeline page so trying to scroll down and/or click on the thread you want is impossible just ending up mashing on to different threads. Think I am about done might just uninstall it as it is frustrating me no end, could be a good thing though as will cut down my time spent reading the forums big time!

Yes! This is so frustrating. Keeps refreshing and jumping back to the top making it impossible to browse.

My usage has dropped off dramatically as I used to use in transit but now can't and can't be bothered opening up the desktop site.

Please please please fix this bug.

 

[pauly7]

Dear Admin, I don't suppose there is any update on the bug that keeps dumping people at the beginning / middle or just in plain random places of threads that you have read?

Case in point - I continually get dumped at post #1 in this thread and I know for sure that is incorrect!!

 

[coles525]

I'm lucky, as I've also got the tapertalk version still installed and working

 

[amaroo]

I'm lucky, as I've also got the tapertalk version still installed and working

Me too:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

Thanks pjm99au http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ios-android-apps-bug-69087-4.html#post1282296

 

[Pushka]

Me too:mrgreen::mrgreen::mrgreen:

Thanks pjm99au http://www.australianfrequentflyer....ios-android-apps-bug-69087-4.html#post1282296

Hopefully I can do this tomorrow. When I get home

 

[admin]

We think the "bug" is that in some situations the App loses its 'login status' so therefore assumes the user is not logged in. This situation will explain many of the problems some members are reporting.

The problem is that it is difficult to replicate this "bug" in a controlled setting. I, for one, very rarely have this problem. I also know that many users don't experience this problem either. But I do realise that many users do.

We are continuing to investigate what we can do about it...

Dear Admin, I don't suppose there is any update on the bug that keeps dumping people at the beginning / middle or just in plain random places of threads that you have read?

Case in point - I continually get dumped at post #1 in this thread and I know for sure that is incorrect!!

 

[anat0l]

We think the "bug" is that in some situations the App loses its 'login status' so therefore assumes the user is not logged in. This situation will explain many of the problems some members are reporting.

The problem is that it is difficult to replicate this "bug" in a controlled setting. I, for one, very rarely have this problem. I also know that many users don't experience this problem either. But I do realise that many users do.

We are continuing to investigate what we can do about it...

If the problem is possibly related to the app forgetting that it is logged in, then there is either a flag or object property (token) which is being reset when it should be kept persistent. Perhaps the tokens have timeouts which are being set too short.

I have no idea if the AFF app developers are using existing APIs, forum APIs built from scratch or a wrapper/interfacing API to simply interrogate the web-based version of AFF in order to power the app. Surely there must be a way to track the login status and why it may reset itself, or at least a way to make the login status somewhat more robust (as there should only be very limited instances in an app situation where the login state should change from "logged in" to "logged out", and that state change is normally achieved through a very deliberate execution path).

The app developers may want to consider dumping stack traces which trigger when the "logged in" status is lost, and then perhaps some facility where a user might be able to transmit that information to the developers.

 

[Pushka]

Hopefully I can do this tomorrow. When I get home

Yay. It is back. Took some sorting as I'd changed computers so had to find the old app on the old pc.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

I'm getting the blank thread bug. You go to open a thread and the screen is blank.
You have to kill the app in iOS and restart it to return functionality. Never had this issue on the previous app.

 

[Pushka]

Old app working perfectly. Just wish I had this for the last four weeks.

 

[Princess Fiona]

Another big problem with the App :
Cannot switch between Apps when trying to post a new post with content.
For example type a new post, reply or start a new thread. Double-click home button to go to Safari etc (can be any App not just safari), copy content and when you return to AFF you are back at the Grey opening screen again with your newly created post deleted.
This is very, very frustrating.
I really think the old App should be made available again to all whilst the new one is being worked on. There are simply too many issues to make it usable for me and as a result I'm not inclined to contribute much.
I fully recognize that I may be no sad loss but collectively if others are having issues the content and activity will decrease and that will be a bad thing for the forum.

 

[amaroo]

Old app working perfectly. Just wish I had this for the last four weeks.

Hope it's still going strong for our next European holiday over Xmas (HKG, Italy, Norway, Paris, CX J and F :mrgreen ... otherwise I doubt I'll bother doing a TR.

 

[cambriamarsh]

Another big problem with the App :
Cannot switch between Apps when trying to post a new post with content.
For example type a new post, reply or start a new thread. Double-click home button to go to Safari etc (can be any App not just safari), copy content and when you return to AFF you are back at the Grey opening screen again with your newly created post deleted.
This is very, very frustrating.
I really think the old App should be made available again to all whilst the new one is being worked on. There are simply too many issues to make it usable for me and as a result I'm not inclined to contribute much.
I fully recognize that I may be no sad loss but collectively if others are having issues the content and activity will decrease and that will be a bad thing for the forum.

Dear PF, you're probably a power user in terms of contribution and usage. Much as I understand why AFF replaced the app, there are clearly too many unexpected issues with it. I'm still using the old app and won't change until the new one is stable and functioning reasonably well.

I add my support to the call to re-liven the old app while the problems are resolved. If that's not possible an explanation to the paying customers should be made. This is their business that is being damaged.

Cheers

 

[Cynicor]

I at some point deleted the old app files from my computer. Can someone who knows how to find the app files on a windows comp please email me? I get every error mentioned in here way too frequently and deleted the app about a month ago. Now I use the tapatalk one on my ipad occasionally, but that's about it. If I can get the old app, I can sync it back to my phone and have something usable until a working app comes out.

 

[Pushka]

Hope it's still going strong for our next European holiday over Xmas (HKG, Italy, Norway, Paris, CX J and F :mrgreen ... otherwise I doubt I'll bother doing a TR.

It is way too much bother, believe me. I had already started so felt I should continue but in hindsight I should have called it quits.

 

[anat0l]

I'm getting the blank thread bug. You go to open a thread and the screen is blank.
You have to kill the app in iOS and restart it to return functionality. Never had this issue on the previous app.

I get a similar thing with the Android one, and it is a fault I have described previously.

I don't know about completely blank, but the thread appears to try and load (get the spinning dots), but never does.

No issues with connectivity, and seems to only fault this way after viewing one thread successfully. After that, you need to quit the app and start again (and then only to be able to view one thread).

Another big problem with the App :
Cannot switch between Apps when trying to post a new post with content.
For example type a new post, reply or start a new thread. Double-click home button to go to Safari etc (can be any App not just safari), copy content and when you return to AFF you are back at the Grey opening screen again with your newly created post deleted.
This is very, very frustrating.

This is an odd one to test at times, because as far as I know, the way that smartphones maintain their memory stacks is that if too much is open, there is a priority to which apps in the background get closed, and it is not necessarily FIFO (i.e. the oldest app gets killed first). That said, if your situation happens all the time, even if you had just restarted your phone, then there is probably something quite wrong about how the AFF app was written in terms of retaining its memory / state when being switched away from.

I really think the old App should be made available again to all whilst the new one is being worked on. There are simply too many issues to make it usable for me and as a result I'm not inclined to contribute much.
I fully recognize that I may be no sad loss but collectively if others are having issues the content and activity will decrease and that will be a bad thing for the forum.

This is what I don't get. The "new app" had been released for beta testing before it was put to the markets. In fact, you were a beta tester. No, let's be clear, I'm not blaming you at all for this situation.

So there was already some testing by users before release, that was part of it being "worked on". Some of the errors which we are claiming are quite fundamental now would have surely been normal testing activities for the beta testers. So what the hell went on during the beta testing phase? Did any of the beta testers file feedback (especially critical feedback) to the AFF team / developers, and did the developers take into account and make changes based on the beta testing?

Let's not forget that part of beta testing is also to examine the interface design, not just to make sure it works, but obviously something which is kind of ugly but works is better than something which looks pretty but doesn't function.

I'm not really sure to what extent this will actually affect contributions to AFF. It'll certainly decrease, I guess, because people just can't post from anywhere they want to (and have to either use the mobile site or use a computer), but to a detrimental impact on the forum? I think not really. If you left AFF (and I'm not saying you should), that might be something else, but IMO probably would be an overreaction.

Now say Queensland Health and the SAP introduction? That's different, and had immediate, wide-reaching detrimental impacts. People should have been flogged harder to overcome those problems, let alone why they were not ironed out to a more satisfactory degree before the go-live.

I at some point deleted the old app files from my computer. Can someone who knows how to find the app files on a windows comp please email me? I get every error mentioned in here way too frequently and deleted the app about a month ago. Now I use the tapatalk one on my ipad occasionally, but that's about it. If I can get the old app, I can sync it back to my phone and have something usable until a working app comes out.

With Apple (iOS), I think iTunes normally stores or backs up all app package files to your local computer. If you can find the .ipa file for AFF (maybe AustFreqFly.ipa or something like that), then you could probably sync that to your iPhone and it'll be installed.

Guess the problem might be that if you still have it on your iPad, the .ipa for the iPad may not be compatible with the one on an iPhone. I'd like to think that's unlikely (since their functionality doesn't differ - only the rendering which is / should be size-general anyway), but if the case then you won't be able to simply sync the .ipa to your iPhone, since it won't install. Then, you'll have to find an iPhone user who still has the old app.

I don't know the exact procedure since I've never done this before (and I'd probably try this kind of solution "by feel"). Maybe someone here with experience can let you know.

 

[Pushka]

I have the original app which I found on my old pc. I upgraded my pc just before July 30 and had only synced my phone with my new pc. The file is 24 mb. It is located in music/itune/mobile/app or similar and as long as you haven't synced your phone with the new app installed it should be there.

To go back to the old app I deleted the new app. Then from my old PC I found the old app and copied it via an external drive into the itunes folder on my new PC. Then synced the app with the phone plugged in.

 

[Princess Fiona]

).



This is an odd one to test at times, because as far as I know, the way that smartphones maintain their memory stacks is that if too much is open, there is a priority to which apps in the background get closed, and it is not necessarily FIFO (i.e. the oldest app gets killed first). That said, if your situation happens all the time, even if you had just restarted your phone, then there is probably something quite wrong about how the AFF app was written in terms of retaining its memory / state when being switched away from.



This is what I don't get. The "new app" had been released for beta testing before it was put to the markets. In fact, you were a beta tester. No, let's be clear, I'm not blaming you at all for this situation.

So there was already some testing by users before release, that was part of it being "worked on". Some of the errors which we are claiming are quite fundamental now would have surely been normal testing activities for the beta testers. So what the hell went on during the beta testing phase? Did any of the beta testers file feedback (especially critical feedback) to the AFF team / developers, and did the developers take into account and make changes based on the beta .

I'm not really sure to what extent this will actually affect contributions to AFF. It'll certainly decrease, I guess, because people just can't post from anywhere they want to (and have to either use the mobile site or use a computer), but to a detrimental impact on the forum? I think not really. If you left AFF (and I'm not saying you should), that might be something else, but IMO probably would be an overreaction.

.

1. Yes this happens from a re-start of the phone.
2. Many of the issues were reported in the beta testing by more than one user.
3. I think I've misrepresented what I was trying to say.
No I'm not leaving AFF and I doubt anyone else is over the App.
Am I posting and commenting less?
Absolutely !
Am I alone in this ?
Who knows but I doubt it.
Is this App detrimental to the forum ?
I would say 100% detrimental, particularly to those who are Gold or above users.

 

[Deleted member]

Ahh, I see now. Luckily that hasn't (yet) happened to me.

Happens to me all the time