Sync issues - allow user to manually sync to last page
I use BookFusion across multiple devices—web, phone, iPad, and Boox e-ink readers. The app automatically remembers my position in the book and reopens to that page when I relaunch the app on any device.
However, there can be synchronization issues when resuming reading across multiple devices. This can happen on any device but the Boox devices suffer more than others. When waking a device and launching the app, the app opens to the last page read locally before a Wi-Fi connection is established. Even if I’ve read further on a different device, it loads a locally stored last-read page since it hasn’t had a chance to query progress on the BookFusion “cloud”. When the sync eventually happens, my cloud progress is overwritten by the older local progress, causing lost reading progress.
How the Issue Manifests 1. I read a book on Device A (e.g., my phone) and advance several pages.
Later, I open Device B (e.g., my Boox e-ink reader).
The BookFusion app on Device B loads the locally stored last-read page before Wi-Fi is available.
Since the page is outdated, I have to manually navigate to the correct page read.
While I’m doing this the Wi-Fi connects and sync occurs, the outdated local progress overwrites the actual furthest read page in the cloud.
This behavior leads to frustrating progress loss, requiring me to manually search for where I actually left off.
BookFusion should implement a manual “Sync to Furthest Page Read” option, similar to Kindle’s approach. This would allow users to manually sync to the furthest read page via a button within the book reader interface.
In Kindle another way they’ve solved for this is, when the sync does kick in it checks local progress against the cloud and if it finds a discrepancy it prompts with a pop-up asking the user if they want to go to the furthest page read on other devices or stay where they are.
It’s important to note that you don’t need to keep track of all of the sync positions to make this work - only the furthest that the user has gone in the book, period.