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Hello. Please help. I have a Mac book pro and an iPhone. I have the full version of diver log on each. I cannot get my iPhone and Mac to see each other to sync. They are both on the same network.

When I goto wifi on the phone app and click sync with Mac I don't get any device to sync to.

Any ideas much appreciated.

Many thanks

Jim

Hi Jim,

I suspect the issue is that one or both of your iPhone or Mac are connected to a "guest" network. Most modern routers have a guest network SSID (i.e. named network connection) that only allows connected devices to communicate with the internet and not with other devices on the same network (almost all hotel and coffee shop networks only offer this type of connection for security reasons). You need to be connected to the "main" network on a router to allow your Mac to see your iPhone the you tap the "Enable Sync" button on the WifI Sync page.

If you are on a suitable network, you might try restarting your iPhone (and Mac for good measure). It is also a good idea to try unplugging your WiFi router for a few seconds to reset it. The iPhone tends to come and go from a given router multiple times per day and this can cause the internal tables in the router to get confused about how to reach the iPhone. Restarting your devices will reset these internal tables.

Finally, we offer a number of methods to synchronize between the Mac and the iPhone with Dive Log and DiveLogDT (note that you referenced "Diver Log" which is not actually one of our products, but I assume that was a typo). I would recommend you try the AirSync method as that does not require an active WiFi connection (you do still need to be near a WiFi router but it is a connectionless way to sync that uses a combination of WiFi and Bluetooth). The other method you can use "Cloud Sync". This works with services like iCloud Drive by uploading your logbook to the cloud and syncing from there. This works around any local connection issues. On the iPhone in Drive Log you want to use the "Export -> Export active Logbook" and/or "Import -> Import Dive Log logbook" items to get started and then once you've done your first sync you can proceed using the "Synchronize Dive Log Logbook -> Synchronize Dive Log logbook" option (note that the "iOS iCloud Synchronization" only works between iOS devices and will not work with the Mac).

I hope that helps. Please let us know if you need additional assistance.

Cheers,

Greg

Jumping on this thread. It's been a while since I've synched.

1. air synch worked beautifully between MacOS DiveLogDT (v 4.8.3; Sonoma, 14.5) and iOS DiveLog (v3.7.7; iPhone 11 Pro, iOS 17.4.1)

2. wifi did not after 3 attempts. each time the DiveLogDT interface effectively locked up – couldn't click anything. Had to quit and relaunch. Ideas why? I double-checked, both on the exact same wifi network. Mac also connected via ethernet to same LAN. Why is port specified? Port forwarding shouldn't be needed on a LAN, right?
3. Still so confused about iCloud sync. Is it possible between iOS and Mac now? I wonder if the below answer is out of date, because I thought I read other threads that say it works MacOS<->iOS.

support wrote: ↑Thu Jul 27, 2023 7:10 am I suspect the issue is that one or both of your iPhone or Mac are connected to a "guest" network.
...
(note that the "iOS iCloud Synchronization" only works between iOS devices and will not work with the Mac).

Hi,

Glad to hear that AirSync worked for you. It does seem to generally be reliable in most cases.

Yes, it is possible to "cloud" sync between Dive Log on iOS and DiveLogDT on macOS. The specific comment that you highlighted is referring to "iOS iCloud Synchronization". As the name implies, this is only supported on iOS (this is because of the security system in iOS that does not allow this technology to work with DiveLogDT on Mac or Diving Log 6.0 on Windows). However, "cloud sync" works fine. This is represented on the iOS with the "Synchronize Dive Log Logbook -> Synchronize Dive Log logbook", "Export -> Export active Logbook" and "Import -> Import Dive Log logbook" options and in DiveLogDT via the "Cloud" option under "SYNCHRONIZE" in the sidebar. In this case, you are directed to specifically identify a logbook file in "the cloud" (can be iCloud, Google, Dropbox, etc.) which is how Apple addresses the security issues. I realize the names are confusing. The "iOS iCloud Synchronization" is actually based on a legacy Apple approach to iCloud that we maintain for people that still have logbooks stored that way (and it has some nice advantages if you are just synchronizing between iOS Dive Log instances).

Wi-Fi sync is always tricky because of the nature of direct network connections. I'm not sure exactly why your iPhone/Mac connection is not working, but it could be resolved by restarting your router (it could be a routing table issue and restarting your router will reset the routing table). However, it could also be an issue with either your Mac or iPhone (restarting both might help). All network connections do have a "port" associated with them (the IP address is your device's address on the LAN and the Port is the specific target on your device that is listening for connections. In this case the port is usually resolved by the Bonjour protocol (which is used to discover the remote host and configure the connection). You might also know Bonjour by its non-marketing name "mDNS". I say usually because we do have a mechanism to allow you to manually specify the IP Address and Port number to use (the iOS side displays the port number it is listening on if you tap the little "i" in the lower corner of this sync screen if you do need to enter it manually). This is useful if you can not use Bonjour/mDNS to establish a connection which can be the case if you can't be on the same subnetwork (i.e. SSID). Bonjour/mDNS uses multicast which requires you to be on the same subnetwork for the packets to be seen by the remote host.

I'm not 100% sure what you mean by "port forwarding", but I suspect you are referring to the way that NAT (Network Address Translation) allows your router to pass packets between hosts on the WAN and your LAN. Port Forwarding is not used when two devices communicate directly on the same LAN.

AirSync largely replaces the need for Wi-Fi sync (again this is a legacy technology that we maintain for a few apps that require it) as it is a local connection that does not require the internet (like cloud syncing does) but does not need an active Wi-Fi connection to a router (it uses a combination of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to establish a direct peer-to-peer connection). So I would stick with AirSync when you can as that will work in more situation that the Wi-Fi Sync can work.

I hope that helps provide some background and clarification on the situation.

Cheers,

Greg