Lots of conflicted copies with pdf viewer on iOS

[John M.230]

I use PDF Viewer to edit PDFs. When it uses the iOS method to access Dropbox files, I often get conflicted copies. Any thoughts on why this is? It's very annoying. It seems a bit like a new copy gets created every so often with whatever updates I've made. (I haven't investigated that fully tbh.)

[Walter]

Hi @John M.230; thanks for posting on our Community and happy Monday!

As I'm not quite sure about this, can you clarify if you're referring to the Files app on your iOS device and working on your files from there? 

If that's the case, it's possible that the 3rd party app you use to edit the files in question creates temp files upon each (auto) save action, thus resulting in the conflicted copies you're noticing. 

If it happens for files within shared folders, you can also take a look at this thread where I've gone through the reasons why this might happen more extensively. 

I hope this helps and please keep me posted, John. 

[John M.230]

(I'm restarting this thread from back in July. I never got a notice about the reply. Here follows the original post.)

I use PDF Viewer to edit PDFs. When it uses the iOS method to access Dropbox files, I often get conflicted copies. Any thoughts on why this is? It's very annoying. It seems a bit like a new copy gets created every so often with whatever updates I've made. (I haven't investigated that fully tbh.)

This is still happening for me months later. The PDF Viewer people say it's a DropBox issue.

It's just me accessing the file. I don't open it in two places at once. The app is accessing a file that's in a DropBox folder via the native iOS file browser system (not sure that's the formal name of it).

Sure, I could just move the to a local folder, but that's not terrilby seamless, is it?

[John M.230]

I use PDF Viewer to edit PDFs. When it uses the iOS method to access Dropbox files, I often get conflicted copies. Any thoughts on why this is? It's very annoying. It seems a bit like a new copy gets created every so often with whatever updates I've made. (I haven't investigated that fully tbh.)

[John M.230]

Ok, here's an example. I have the file open in pdf viewer. Then I'm off in a few other apps, looking stuff up and so on. I return to the file some minutes later (much less than an hour), and I get the attached error message and a conflicted copy of the file. The difference in time stamps on the two files is 38 minutes.

to be clear, I don't always get an error message. Sometimes there are just conflicted copies.

[Jay]

Hi @John M.230, does the PDF viewer app allow you to connect directly to the Dropbox service, instead of using the iOS Files app?

Does it occur on any file you use, or just PDFs in certain locations on your account?

[John M.230]

PDf Preview uses the native file browser. I open the Dropbox files from within their app. I don’t go out to Files or something.

I open files from the same DropBox folder most of the time, it it has happened with files in different folders.