Work without signal

A dead-signal site doesn't have to stop your day. Job status changes, site and incident photos, and daily-report co-signatures can wait for a signal. Form-fill image and signature fields use the form's own upload handling instead.

What waits for you

Changing a job's status (if you can) updates on your screen straightaway and sends itself once you have signal again, even if you have none at all right now. Adding a site or incident photo, or a daily-report co-signature, behaves the same way: with no signal it shows "Saved. It'll upload automatically when you're back online." and is saved on the device for a later upload attempt, so it isn't lost.

A job photo can still be waiting after you get signal again if you are no longer clocked in to that job. The notice tells you how many photos are waiting and says Clock in to this job to upload these photos. Open the job and clock in; the photos stay on the device until a later sync can send them.

In the released Android app, Take photo opens your device's camera and returns the photo to the job. If Android has to restart ONYX1 while the camera is open, return to a job and use Attach recovered photo when it appears. After you select Add photos, a no-signal photo stays queued on the device for a later upload attempt if the page closes. In a browser on a phone, Take photo still opens your phone's own camera; on a computer it may open a file picker instead.

If a queued photo or signature is refused

Some permanent refusals cannot be fixed by retrying the same bytes. ONYX1 saves the refusal details before removing that queued item, so it does not block later uploads, then shows the person whose device queued it a notice once. It names the reason from the server response, gives a job or incident link when there is one, and can be dismissed. A different person signing in on the same device does not see it. The image or signature bytes are not kept after the refusal, so take the photo again, attach a smaller copy, or draw the signature again as the notice says.

The usual reasons are: 413 means the upload is over the 10 MB photo limit; 422 with an AI-generation code means the image carries a generation marker; 404 with a missing-target code means the job, incident or report no longer exists; and 400 depends on the response code, such as an unreadable file or a disallowed type. A signature's 400 size code uses the separate 1 MB signature limit. A signature can also be refused because its report version could not be verified or the report has already been reviewed.

Image and signature fields inside a form-fill report are out of scope for this notice. They are uploaded directly by the form, stay in the form when they fail, and show the form's own error, such as "Couldn't upload" or "Upload timed out. Check your signal." Use that field's Retry or Save signature control while online.

What needs a signal

Clocking in or out, posting a progress update, and filling in or submitting a site report's questions all need a signal at the moment you do them. Form-fill image and signature fields also need a live upload: if one fails, it stays in the form with its own retry message. With no signal, wait until you have a signal and try again.

Creating a job needs a signal too. With none, Create job says "You’re offline. Connect to create this job." The job is not created and nothing is queued. Everything you entered, including photos and safety documents, stays in the form, so select Create job again once you have a signal. See Create a job.

The Offline label

On your phone, the top bar shows Offline when you have no signal, adds a queued count once something is waiting to send (Offline · 2 queued, for example), or shows Syncing with a count while it goes up. It disappears once everything is sent and you're back online.

Signing out with work still queued

Signing out tries to send everything queued first. If some of it hasn't gone yet, you're asked how many changes haven't been sent and whether to sign out anyway. Your queued work can only finish sending while you stay signed in on that device, so on a shared tablet, wait for the Offline label to clear before you sign out.

The "You're offline" page

If a page can't load at all with no signal, ONYX1 shows a plain "You're offline" screen instead. If any photos or signatures are already queued on the device, it also says how many of each, for example "3 photos taken on this device are safely waiting and will upload automatically once you're back online." Select Try again once you have a signal.

If you see a notice about old queued work

A device that queued work before ONYX1 could record who queued it can't send that work at all: nobody can safely send it under your name instead. A notice names how much and asks whether to delete it. Select Not now to deal with it later, or Delete them and confirm if you're sure nothing in it is still needed. This is rare, and only ever affects work queued a long time ago.