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The app is stuck syncing
By the end of this article you’ll be able to tell the three ways a sync gets stuck apart, and fix each without losing anything on the phone.
Symptoms
- The bar has said Syncing… for many minutes, and You → Sync Now is greyed out.
- The bar says Up to date, but Last synced … is hours old and the pending count won’t move.
- A first sign-in on a new phone shows Syncing…, drops back, starts again, and never reaches Up to date.
Likely causes
- A sync that never came back. Now and then a request goes out and no answer ever returns — a network that dropped mid-request, a Wi-Fi network waiting for a sign-in page. The app has no clock on a sync, so it waits, and every later sync joins the same wait. Nothing was lost: the phone only records a sync once it has fully arrived.
- The office can’t be reached, but the phone thinks it’s online. When a request never reaches the office at all, the app treats it as no signal — not as an error. With the phone’s radio up, the bar keeps saying Up to date and the app simply tries again on its usual rhythm. The tell is Last synced getting older.
- A big first download on a weak signal. The first sync brings everything down in chunks and applies them only once all have arrived. If the connection drops part-way, the next attempt starts from the first chunk again.
What to do
- Syncing… for more than a few minutes with Sync Now greyed? Close the app fully — swipe it away from the phone’s app switcher — and open it again. The sync starts fresh. Whatever you’d done on the phone is still there and goes up with it.
- Up to date with a stale Last synced and pending work? Open the back-office website in the phone’s browser. If it won’t load, the problem is between you and the office — a Wi-Fi sign-in page, or a network that blocks the app. Switch to mobile data or another network and tap Sync Now.
- First sync that keeps restarting? Find solid Wi-Fi and leave the app open, in front, with the screen on until the bar reads Up to date. A minute in the background and the app locks itself, and a locked app doesn’t sync.
- Sync error instead? That’s the office answering with a problem, not silence — Sync problems: what to check before calling support covers it.
- Still stuck after a fresh start on a good connection? Write to support@waxstak.com with what the bar says, the Last synced time, the pending count and the time you tried.
Good to know
- Don’t sign out or reinstall to unstick a sync — either clears the phone, unsent work included. A fresh start of the app is enough, and safe.
- While the app is locked behind the lock screen it doesn’t sync; the next one runs when you unlock.
- The app syncs while it’s in front of you — when you open it, come back to it, regain a signal, pull down on Work, and every five minutes in between. Put it away and within a minute it locks and waits for you.
- With no signal, the bar says Offline even if a sync was still in flight when the signal went; it resumes on its own.