So it turns out that my last email (below) was not entirely correct...

It turns out that uploading ANY files to any website from an iPhone or iPad is buggy.  This has been a known bug in iPhones/iPads for years, and Apple has still not addressed the problem.  It has provoked many discussions on online forums, such as this one:  https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/bv5vu0/psa_basic_html_file_uploads_are_broken_in_ios/

All the discussions say a similar thing:  If you wait more than 30 seconds between selecting the file on your iPhone/iPad and clicking the "Send" button to send the file, then an EMPTY file will likely be received by the website.  There's no easy workaround.

So please advise all your members that (a) submit assessment MP3s (riser tapes), and (b) do this from an iPhone or iPad:  When submitting a recording, fill in all the details about the recording (who it's being sent to, your own self-assessment notes, etc) BEFORE selecting the file from your device.  As soon as the file is selected, press the "Send" button IMMEDIATELY.

I hope this helps.

Mark.

Dear HarmonySite administrator,

Please be aware of an issue with uploading files to your HarmonySite from an iPhone/iPad.  In actual fact, this is nothing to do with HarmonySite - the same issue applies to uploading files to ANY website from an iPhone/iPad...

When selecting the file from your iPhone/iPad that you want uploaded, if the file resides within Dropbox then it will probably NOT be uploaded correctly.  The file will SEEM to be uploaded, but the copy of the file that ultimately gets stored in your HarmonySite may have ZERO SIZE (in other words, an empty file).  Files NOT in Dropbox (in other words, just regular files on your iPhone/iPad) will get uploaded fine.

This is particularly relevant to the "Assessments" system, where your members upload "riser tapes" (typically MP3 files) to be assessed for performance readiness.

Please see an example below...

1.  On the "submit assessment" page, click the "Choose File" button...

2.  Then click "Browse"...

3.  Then click "Dropbox"...

Any file you select from that point forward will likely be received by HarmonySite as an empty file.

Files "On My iPhone" should be fine.  I can't comment on files from "iCloud Drive" or "Google Drive".  We haven't done any testing on those.  But iCloud and Google Drive work in a similar way to Dropbox, so the issue may well be present with those too.

This is actually a bug in the iPhone software (or perhaps in the Dropbox app on iPhones).  Files that reside in Dropbox are never actually downloaded from Dropbox to your iPhone until you click on them to open them.  Until that point, the file is just a "placeholder" (an empty file, showing the file's name and date), not the full file.  When you click on that file to open it, it gets downloaded from Dropbox at that point.  Uploading the file to a website (such as HarmonySite) SHOULD count as "opening" the file.  But somehow that's not happening.  As I said, a bug.

The only workaround I can think of is to manually copy the file from the Dropbox folder to a separate folder "On My iPhone" BEFORE attempting to upload it to the website.

Thank you to Support Ninja Caitlin for doing testing to isolate this issue.

Please let your members know about this.

In harmony,

Mark Virtue

HarmonySite

Australia

+61 2 8005 4277

Skype name:  mvirtue

mark@harmonysite.com

www.harmonysite.com