Automators 32: Shortcuts iOS 13 Release and the Shortcuts Field Guide

[Tony]

I’ve had a quick play with “Find Contacts” and seem to be getting the same issue as you. I’ve even tried searching using the date of birth (ie using the year of birth rather than the current year) and that comes back blank. Filtering on “Birthday is in the next 7 days” also comes back blank (I do have a contact with a recorded birthday in that time frame ).

If you select a contact and then extract the birthday date from the result, it works (giving date of birth as opposed to date of next birthday). It just seems to fail when the birthday option is selected as s filter for the “find contacts” action.

@Stephane

Is there a known bug ? If so, is there a way to tell it to the shortcuts team (on Product Feedback - Apple it is not easy to pick the right category, there is no shortcuts icon)?

Try using the Feedback Assistant to log the issue. Shortcuts is an option in there. Screen capture videos and a link to your Shortcut can also be attached.

Hope this helps.

[Stephane]

Hi Tony

I’m really impressed how nicely and quickly you took the time to respond. Thank you very much!

Regards from Switzerland…

[solid0270]

Thanks for the idea and inspiration!

One observation, the longest X, from the “Wait for X seconds”, seems to be 120 seconds as I was fiddling with the automation the other day.

If I set a smaller waiting time, it will always work. Until 119 seconds it still works but not with any bigger number…

Is it possible to have a longer period of waiting in such automation please? Thanks!

[sylumer]

Repeat it.

For example:

[solid0270]

Thank you sylumer for the idea! I’ve tried embedding it into the original automation from Rosemary, i.e.

Automation trigger: Twitter App Opened
Automation action: The waiting sequence as you suggest -> Open App OmniFocus

Still I cannot survive beyond the 120sec (total waiting time) wall. The entire automation worked till [repeat 2 times 59 sec], and stoped working at [repeat 2 times 60 sec]. Tweaked a bit e.g. [repeat 12 times 10 sec], didn’t work either, but [repeat 11 times 10 sec] did work.

Could it be a reason that the script is running in background? Because I tried running the actions inside Automation page, like on the editing screen as attached, it does work even >120sec. It only stops working when I am outside the Shortcuts App, i.e. in Twitter, it feels like the automation is suspended once Shortcuts is no longer the active front-most App, after a period of time (120sec).

[sylumer]

@solid0270

Could it be a reason that the script is running in background?

If it only occurs when running it like this, and you can reliably reproduce it, then that would be a good deduction.

[solid0270]

I’ve updated the automation today to break the wall of 120sec-waiting-time.

Replacing the built-in “wait” action with a timer, so it runs in background and runs as long as expected.

Downside, I have no longer control on what happens after the timer is due, cannot script it in shortcuts. So instead of automatically switching into another App like Omnifocus, now I only got a warning inside the Twitter App while I’m wasting time beyond certain threshold, a bit weak though, still better than nothing.

Well I know the best solution could be to delete the Twitter App… Anyhow thanks again for the ideas and help!