Offline: App not always visible on mobile app

[rpdom]

hi,

we developed an app with offline capabilites which runs since several months productive.

after we deployed a new version (which was deployed as a new/seperate app), we observed that although the app was run several times in online mode (on an android & iphone), once you switched to offline mode, the app was for some clients not anymore visible on the powerapps start screen.

I could reproduce this behaviour on my phone (android) but i couldnt recognize the reason / requirment for an app to show up in offline mode (i know that i have to run the app once in online mode).

Once you manage the app to show up in offline mode, it stays visible forever.

Does anyone know the requirments for an app to show up in offline mode, despite to have run once in online mode?

Thanks a lot for helping!

Best regards

[poweractivate · Accepted solution]

@rpdom 

It should work if it was online once for that specific user. Reason it must be online once, is if the app was saved or published, Power Apps cannot have any other way to know of the status of the app unless it was connected to get the info. So for example if you create a new app, and the Client was offline before you published the app, how else can Power Apps Native Mobile App know this App even exists unless it is connected once online to get this app?

To clarify, this logically must apply to each user and each mobile device. If Mobile Device A used by User A is online and has the offline part recognized,, this will not automatically apply to Mobile Device B and User B just because Mobile Device A and User A has it, it will only apply to Mobile Device B and User B once they are online one time as well, same with any other Users or Devices until they are also online once -  which we believe is what you are also saying here., but we wanted to double check on this to make sure of it.  

After that though, assuming we are understanding what you mean, it seems you still have the issue even after the user has been online once and already ran the app once, it vanishes on the offline mode anyway instead of staying over there. We cannot reproduce the issue you are facing, and you should not be having the issue, so please have a try on the below and see if any of the following clears up the issue:

As some troubleshooting steps, can you check if the following steps work?

If one does not work, please try each other step after that in that same order and as specified:

1) try to unshare and reshare the app with the user(s) facing the issue 

2) Clear Application Data for the Power Apps Native App on the target users experiencing the issue, then see if it works. If not, then try to repeat #1 right after that and see if it works then.

3) Uninstall and Reinstall the Power Apps Native app once from target device (this will make sure it is in latest version, and it may also help with some other potential internal issues too). Then immediately try the steps that you did, to reproduce the issue again without any other steps. If the issue can be reproduced again, then right after this, repeat this step #3, and then #2 and #1 above and see if that variant works and if you must do #3, #2, and #1 in sequence together to resolve the issue. If this worked, see if next time it works without ever having to do #3, #2, or #1 at all for that app.

4) Try to go to the Power App with the issue in Power Apps Editor, remove all data sources, make new Power App using Save As, then, try going to make.powerapps.com --> Data -> Connections, remove all existing connections, then close and open the new app's Power Apps Editor - then re-add the data sources back in, Save, and Publish, and Share it. Do all the steps here in this order. Then test it. Does this help? If this did not help, then try once to repeat #3, #2, and #1 above as well right after - and see if for some reason, that works. If it does, try repeat this sequence once or twice more of #4, #3, #2, #1, until you do not need to do #4, #3, #2, or #1 again on any target mobile device or the App ti resolve it.

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Ideally you would not need to clear the data on target device or keep uninstalling or reinstalling the native mobile app every single time another change is made to the app - if this works and is the only way to keep resolving it is to clear data on the target device or reinstall and uninstall all the time, then it may mean the underlying issue was not resolved. After doing that sequence one time, or just a few times now in the beginning but hopefully not any more after that, it should not reappear again the issue - because those steps are intended to automatically resolve possible internal errors on the target device, that somehow appeared even on the specific Power App you have there, etc.

If for some reason all of the above has  no effect -with not even one part of it resolving, it may also be something about the Formulas or about the features you are using in the App, if so, then more detail may be needed from you about the specific App. It also could be ultimately something else as well other than the Formula, features, or other than any of the above, but we recommend you start first with those steps above.