Reminders not displaying (was: Quick reschedule doesn’t set / remove start date)

Support
#1

What I did: Created a quick task assigned to today. Quick rescheduled to tomorrow.

What happened: GoodTask shows the task as having a start date of Today, and due date of Tomorrow.

What I expected: No start date set, only due date.

Things that might be helpful to know (Agenda version, OS and model, etc): iOS 15.5 latest agenda

@mekentosj hypothesized in Agenda not showing some reminders that differing start dates might cause problems. So if that’s the case, Agenda should set the start date to be equivalent to the due date when quick rescheduling. Of course, I don’t know what’s going on under the hood and if this even makes sense!

I have noticed inconsistencies in Agenda displaying reminders. It will show some reminders but not others - even reminders in the same list. They show up in Reminders correctly, but not in Agenda. (First reported here: Agenda not showing some reminders) I’m not sure why that is. I did notice these reminders having a start date in GoodTask. When I removed all the start dates, Agenda displayed them all. I don’t know if it was because of start dates, or if editing the tasks caused them to force a sync.

I am very close to giving up on Reminders integration entirely. I have tons of trouble with it - and so I just can’t trust it. @drewmccormack and/or @mekentosj have previously stated that reminders don’t have a consistent ID - that changing a reminder can actually change it’s underlying ID. I really don’t understand how Apple could have such a bizarre implementation - but if that’s true, then it’s no surprise I would have so much trouble with it.

Please consider integrating with a reliable task manager. Things, OmniFocus, Todoist, I don’t care: anything that works reliably. I know people will complain if you don’t pick their favorite one, but something is better than nothing.

Right now Reminders integration is worse than nothing in my experience. When it works, it’s awesome! But it stops working, and is untrustworthy, and that’s a fatal flaw for any kind of productivity system.

Final point: there are multiple businesses out there that have made it their purpose to handle task management effectively. Reminders is an itsy bitsy teeny weeny little feature in Apple’s gargantuan ecosystem. I believe it would be in Agenda’s users’ best interest to collaborate with an organization that makes their task management product a foundational aspect of their business.

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#2

Well that was fun: I deleted a reminder in Agenda, and 3 of my 4 tomorrow reminders disappeared in Agenda’s side bar. They all remained in Reminders though! I edited a task in Reminders and two appeared in Agenda again.

Currently, Agenda on my iPad and iPhone show two different sets of reminders on the sidebar: despite both having “all lists” toggled off and back on multiple times, me keeping everything in one list to minimize variables, and Reminders app on both devices appearing correct (which is a bit of surprise because usually Agenda is good and Reminders is inconsistent!)

#3

Well there is some issue with Agenda I guess.

This morning, two out of five reminders appeared on the sidebar. All five appear in Reminders and GoodTask as expected. They’re all on the same list, and have no start date defined.

I downloaded Fantastical because I know it has Reminders integration. It also showed all five reminders.

I switched back to Agenda, and it showed FOUR reminders! Two just appeared, after viewing them in Fantastical. One still not displaying. I didn’t change any data - I just viewed it in Fantastical.

I suppose this is the quintessential Heisenbug :confused:

#4

I edited a reminder in Reminders, and it disappeared from Agenda - along with two others! Madness. All reminders appear correctly in Reminders / Fantastical / GoodTask.

And after viewing them in the other apps, two reappeared in Agenda! :clown_face:

I am open to suggestions on how to diagnose this. I don’t have a clearly repeatable scenario, other than whenever I make changes or view reminders in different apps, Agenda picks a different set of reminders to display.

#6

Apple’s reminders integration is a nightmare unfortunately. First there is the issue of inconsistencies between Mac and iOS (for instance Apple seems to finally have repaired where on Mac a full day event would end at midnight, on iOS it returns it as ending one second before midnight). Then there’s the super odd behaviour of repeating reminders. Add inconsistent moments of sync, fields that some apps show (like start date) but not the reminders app. And you start to get the idea of the mess they’ve made. We’ll have to do another deep dive to see how we can further make it reliable but it’s one of many things on the list I’m afraid.

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#7

Alright then. I will officially nix reminders. Thanks for the info.

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