File Transfer Constipation

[Gondwana]

I've been monitoring the performance of my companion-to-watch image file transfers. They usually take 30-60 seconds, but sometimes nothing happens for many minutes. When I give up waiting and enqueue another file, all of the queued files come through in quick succession. Has anyone else noticed this?

[Gondwana]

In case this helps anyone in future, here's a redacted version of the notes I submitted to the reviewers with the latest revision of my app:

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I think the problem you reported is a result of the inconsistency of file transfers. After the previous rejection, I conducted numerous tests to monitor file transfer performance: usually, transfers take less that one minute, but sometimes nothing happens depite waiting for 5+ minutes. During such extended pauses, sending through a second file seems to reawaken the transfer process, and all queued images come through in relatively quick succession thereafter.

To attempt to improve the reliability of file transfers, version 1.0.3 now monitors the progress of uploads. If the watch does not acknowledge receipt of a new slide within one minute, the companion queues a zero-length file to reawaken the file transfer process. It repeats this until the slide is successfully received. Since implementing this change, I have not observed file transfers taking longer than a few minutes.

In addition, the status field in the companion settings page now indicates when slides have been successfully received by the watch. This should help users to monitor the progress of transfers.

To maximise the ability of the companion to monitor progress and enqueue zero-length files, it now requests the 'run in background' permission.

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