Delay to download form

User Support
1

Hello Kobo team, we are experiencing a recurring issue on Android tablets used by surveyors. When downloading a form to start a new submission, KoBoCollect takes an unusually long time (around 15 minutes) to download the latest version of the form, even when the form was previously used on the device.
This delay happens:
When forms are updated (new version deployed)
Even with stable internet connections
On multiple tablets (not a single device)

Kindly we are requesting guidance to understand better:
What are the main technical reasons for slow form downloads on tablets?
Are there recommended KoBoCollect settings or Android device settings to improve performance?

2

Slow downloads are often a result of either a large number of forms on the account - the Download form button will try to fetch the list of all of them - or when a specific form perhaps had a large number of media attachments and/or large external datasets files associated with it. Do either apply in this case?

Is this form connected/linked to another form as a dynamic data attachment? If so, if your other form has a lot of submission, then these will all basically get pulled down as an external dataset; that can also take a while. You can reduce this by only fetching a subset of these shared fields, but by default it will fetch every submission and every field.