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Problems with iOS 8 Document Picker

We’re using the iOS 8 Document Picker in our App to import files from Dropbox.

Picking a file for the first time works as expected. However, we have discovered problems with the handling of updated files.

If the file has been modified on Dropbox later on, we see problematic behavior:

On some devices we always get the initially downloaded version of the file but not the updated one.

On other devices the document picker seems to crash after selecting the file and the “didPickDocumentAtURL” never gets called.

We’ve tested the Dropbox document picker implementation also with other vendors’ apps and have seen the same behavior as described above. Other document picker implementations (e.g. iCloud, Google Drive) work as expected.

Is there any way to get a reliable Document Picker behavior for Dropbox?

Thanks.

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Comments

Mariedb

Hey there!

Does the app you're importing files to share files by sending URL's? If this is the case, then Dropbox should not appear as an option. Does Dropbox appear as an option to import files? Could you tell me other apps you have seen this behavior with? Are you on version 3.8.1 of Dropbox?

Thanks!

Mariedb

Dropbox is registered as an iOS 8 "Document Picker", with the following modes, if you can/want to use that:

UIDocumentPickerModeImport

UIDocumentPickerModeExportToService

You also must enable iCloud document support before you can use the document picker.

Ylva W.

We’re using UIDocumentPickerModeImport to import files from Dropbox. The version of the Dropbox app is 3.8.1.

The Google Drive app also offers an option to import files with the Document Picker, so you can use it to reproduce the behavior:

Pick a file from Dropbox into the Google Drive app.
Modify the file in Dropbox (ex. Windows client).
Look at the file in the Dropbox app and you will see the updated version.
Pick this file into Google Drive again. You will get the initial and not the updated version or the document picker will crash.

Mariedb

Hey there!

Thanks very much for the additional information!

I tested this on my side with Google Drive. I did not run into the issue you describe. However, it does take a little time for the changes to update in Dropbox so that when I open a file I can see the changes. Once I see the changes (I open the file in the Dropbox app), I'm then able to import the file again to Google Drive.

However, this will be a new version of the file as you would have to do the import again.

I hope that makes sense? Let me know if I'm missing something!

Ylva W.

Hello!

We can reproduce the problematic behavior on 4 different devices with 3 different Dropbox accounts.

In order to better show our problem, I’ve created a screencast. As you can see there, we still get the initial version of the document after the second import.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/xhd8oz0f3k5ydk0/DocumentPicker.mov?dl=0

We also have one device where the document picker simply disappears after selecting a modified file. In this case we get an ‘Unknown’ crash report in the device logs. But except of a list of running processes there no information like a stack trace in the crash log.

Is there any additional information that would help you analyze the issue?

Thanks.

Mariedb

Hey there!

Thanks so much for this - really super useful. And thank you so much for taking the time to send this over.

I will pass this along to our team.

If you're not able to get a stack trace in the crash log, would you be able to send through a screenshot of the document picker not appearing for certain apps?

Again, thanks very much for your help with this!

Bruce

Hi there!

Wanted to follow up - there should have been a fix for this issue in the latest version (3.9) of our app. Let us know if you're still seeing this behavior! Thanks for surfacing the issue to us.

Ylva W.

Hi there!

Thanks, the main Problem is gone.

The second problem, where the Document Picker crashes, seems to be more iOS than Dropbox related. If you import a huge file (> 90 MB) then all the Document Pickers we’ve tested crash, except iCloud.

Bruce

Great to hear! For the large file crash, we're working on a fix to better handle those cases. It might not be in the next release, but perhaps the one after