After the desktop update we released on October 24 (version 3.0.149), Rize stopped recording time on some Macs and Windows PCs until the app was quit and reopened. It affected about 3% of our users. Your dashboard may have shown Syncing or Refresh your dashboard for hours. If you lost time because of this, we're really sorry. This one is on us, and we take full responsibility.
We're sorry
Rize is a time tracker. Recording your time accurately is the one thing you count on us for, and for some of you we didn't do it. Some of you bill clients and run payroll from these hours, and a gap like this costs you real time and money to fix.
We own this. It wasn't your network or your computer. We shipped a change that made tracking stop, and we didn't catch it before it reached you. We're sorry, and we're changing how we release the desktop app so it doesn't happen again.
What you need to do
- Restart Rize. It updates to 3.0.183 on its own.
- Still on an older version? Download the latest from app.rize.io/downloads and install it over the top. Your settings and history stay put.
- Missing time from the last week? Add it from My Timesheet, or reply to our email and we'll help.
What happened
The desktop app checks in with our servers regularly to sync your settings, rules and timeline. In 3.0.149 we added a time limit to those check-ins so the app could never hang waiting on one. But when a single check-in ran past that limit, for example right after your computer woke up and before Wi-Fi was back, the app skipped recording your activity and tried the check-in again. If check-ins kept missing the limit, it kept skipping, until you restarted it.
Almost everyone moved to 3.0.149 at once, so the problem reached many of you on the same day.
What we fixed in 3.0.183
- A slow or failed check-in no longer stops tracking. Rize keeps recording your activity and catches up on syncing in the background.
- Activity recorded while you're offline is saved on your computer and uploaded when the connection comes back.
- Fixes to how the app recovers after sleep and on startup.
How we're making sure this doesn't happen again
- A new updater. Our current updater can only send a new version to everyone at once. We're moving to a new updater that lets us control who gets which version.
- Gradual rollouts. New desktop versions will go to 1% of users first, then 5%, then 10%, and only then to everyone. If something looks wrong at any step, we stop before it reaches most of you.
- Better diagnostics. We're adding more detailed logging to the desktop app so we can spot and fix problems like this much faster.
The technical details
For those who want them:
- Every 15 seconds the tracker runs one tick: sync, then read the active app, then record the event. The sync step runs five requests together (tracker settings, planner, identity, tracking rules and a timeline refresh), and the tick only moved on if all five succeeded.
- 3.0.149 added a 60-second deadline to each server request, replacing retries that could run for many minutes. A request that missed the deadline failed the whole sync, so the tick ended before it read the active app, and nothing was recorded.
- The app only remembered a sync as done once all five requests succeeded. After a failure it treated the sync as overdue and ran it again on the next tick, so one slow connection could keep every tick failing.
- 3.0.183 runs the five requests independently. A failed one is logged and retried on its normal schedule, and the tick always goes on to record your activity.
If Rize still isn't tracking for you after updating, write to us at support@rize.io and we'll dig in right away.