We have developed both a Desktop dashboard and Mobile application for a client using retool. The dashboard allows them to add data and create inspection forms for their staff to then fill out on their mobile application if they've been assigned the form.
We've had issues with the mobile application crashing upon filling out inputs, we've taken steps to mitigate this such as a overall save button and saving inputs in a variable until they select the save button (this is because the form spreads across multiple pages and within each other, i.e. a Unit > Area > Item (each has inputs) > Subitems (each has inputs)).
We also recently did an overhaul of the queries in order to reduce the amount of data being pulled in (to ensure only items etc the user needed for their assigned inspection(s) were fetched), this seemingly fixed any crashing issues we and the client were having during testing. However, those last query changes seemed to take 24 hours to flow into the mobile app (it only stopped crahing after those 24 hours).
We did extensive testing of this to ensure it wasn't crashing as it previously was, including increasing the amount of inspections a user had to increase the data being pulled in to their app, we couldn't get the app to crash nor could our client.
However, on Tuesday we made some changes to the Desktop dashboard to update a query as it was deleting an incorrect item and also to remove a field (this included deleting the database column). The client then reported crashing issues straight after this changes and 24 hours later still reported these issues.
Is there a reason why changes to a Desktop app which uses the same Retool database or changes to the database (removing a column that wasn't used to display/update in the app) would cause sudden crashing in the app when trying to save data in the mobile application?
For some other information we are using the release/version features for the mobile application but currently not for the desktop application.
TLDR: Why do changes to a Desktop's queries or the retool database (removing a column unused in the Mobile app) cause the Mobile application to start crashing?
Hi @SS95 Thank you for reaching out! If the mobile application and desktop application are two separate Retool apps, making changes in one shouldn't have any impact on the other.
Have you been able to reproduce the Mobile app crashing in edit mode? If so, could you share a screen recording? Are there any error messages?
Thank you for the reply, we are experiencing crashing in the editor only when we apply lots of inspections to the admin account (causing high amounts of data needing to be loaded). I've uploaded a screen recording of this here: Watch Screen Recording 2024-04-02 at 09.11.16 | Streamable and attached a screenshot of DevTools below.
Thanks for this update! I saw that your team reached out internally as well. Apologies for the delay, and thank you for bumping this issue.
I looked through the logs that we have on our side for your organization, but I'm not seeing any errors jumping out I saw that your team reported app crashing issues a few months ago & we logged this as a bug for our team to investigate. It looks like that bug hasn't been marked as fixed yet, which makes me think this new crashing behavior could be related still. Outside of that bug report, I don't see similar reports of apps crashing, so we'll need to do more research on our side. It sounds like you've done a lot of work already to help mitigate crashes, so it would be helpful to get an updated json export of the app & a har file so that we can take a look at exactly what you're seeing in your network requests when this happens. If you can send a new screen recording link or change the expiration, that would be helpful as well for circulating internally.
Looking at the browser console errors, it's interesting that we're logging the offline cache exceeded the quota It shouldn't be causing a crash, but we do currently limit the Retool Mobile cache up to 100MB of data. If offline mode exceeds this limit, Retool Mobile excludes the last used entries.
I saw that your team mentioned the current office hours times aren't accessible. Thanks for the feedback. We're hoping to expand our office hours availability later this year In the meantime, if you'd prefer to gather this data (i.e the export, recording, har file, etc) over a zoom call, I could meet sometime between 8-10:30 am PST if that would be a better timeframe.
Joe sent me the recording & files that you sent him (thank you for sending over to him!) We both reviewed them.
I still haven't been able to reproduce the crashing yet, but the amount of Javascript in the app seems like it could lead to the crashing behavior described. Scripts like the one mapping over properties on success of getInspectionAreas could be running very slowly with larger datasets, and using variables adds another layer of complexity. However, it doesn't necessarily tell us why it would have changed after working, unless the amount of data increased, and the timeline of the change doesn't correlate with any updates that the Retool team shipped The performance tools indicate that the app has a high amount of components. Could any of the components be moved to a separate app?
One other angle that could be helpful for us to research is: what specific devices have you observed the crashing on? For end users, do you know what device & what version of the Retool app they have? For editors, this improved editor experience should have shipped to your account this week - have you seen the crashing happening in the past couple of days?
I saw that your team reported app crashing issues a few months ago & we logged this as a bug for our team to investigate. It looks like that bug hasn't been marked as fixed yet, which makes me think this new crashing behavior could be related still. Outside of that bug report, I don't see similar reports of apps crashing, so we'll need to do more research on our side. It sounds like you've done a lot of work already to help mitigate crashes, so it would be helpful to get an updated json export of the app & a 
In the meantime, if you'd prefer to gather this data (i.e the export, recording, har file, etc) over a zoom call, I could meet sometime between 8-10:30 am PST if that would be a better timeframe.