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[Weaver]

Shortcuts in iOS 15 is nowhere near fit for release; it just falls over when I try to run some of my slightly more complex programs, ones that involve subroutine calling. (Proven by inserting good old fashioned printfs.) The subroutines in question run fine when called from a trivial test prog that simply passes the right input argus and then displays the return value, so there’s nothing going wrong in the subroutine itself; it’s in the call or return mechanisms when run within a more complex outer program that the fault lies. I’ve reported it to Apple using the new (and very telling) per-shortcut ‘report concern’ UI control.

I would like to downgrade to iOS 14 but I get the feeling that this is impossible, especially without a Mac or Wintel box to run the iTunes program (is that what it’s called?).

[gt94sss2]

I believe Apple have stopped signing copies of iOS 14 - so if you've upgraded to 15, you can't downgrade

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/10/08/apple-stops-signing-ios-15/

[Weaver]

Some Shortcuts programs work ok, the simpler ones. I’m wondering if the ones that are failing are only those that call other routines, or possibly those that do comms. Some of my programs access a modem across the LAN, using local 192.168.x.y addresses, and some of those fail, but I can’t say for certain that they fail at the point where they initiate http operations.

I get an unhelpful, non-specific error message after a long delay - "there has been a problem", or something. I wonder if that error message means that a crash was detected in the Shortcuts engine? I get this in two of my most important programs - all to do with monitoring modems and the state of the DSL links. The failure seems, as best I can see, to be at a point where it calls a subroutine in order to consult a (fixed) ‘database’ and find out how many modems there are, what they’re called, where they are/how to address them. The ‘database’ is just hard-coded into a ‘network state info declaration’ subroutine, which is intended to be modified whenever things change.

[Weaver]

Thank god. iPadOS 15.1 contains a bugfixed Shortcuts engine - works for the first time.

[meritez]

That's good news, I updated last night

[Weaver]

Has anyone been having wifi problems with 15.0.x ? The networking seems to freeze sometimes and to fix it I have to turn the wifi interface off/on. I’m hoping that is a bug in iPadOS 15.0.x, which seems possible because my wife, who is on iPadOS 14 (since I warned her off 15) has reported no such problems. Hoping there’s a difference in 15.1.


One further gripe about the iPadOS 15.x (including 15.1) Shortcuts engine: its speed. A routine that previously took approx 7-20 secs, very roughly, now takes more than 40 s. What on earth are they doing ?

Indeed, I would hang my head in shame if I had written such code. (Well, I never would have let such a thing happen, being overly speed-obsessed my whole career.)

Is there a way that I can report that as a bug?

[Weaver]

The editor is still incredibly unstable, even in 15.1: hangs for ages, extremely dodgy behaviour concerning inserting and deleting elements. Deleting of actions often simply refuses to happen and insertions frequently go into the wrong place. Clicks seem to be ignored often. A total utter mess. They should never have released anything this autumn, waiting for a dot-x-dot-zero minor release.


On a positive note for once, a word of praise. The new tiny icons showing on the left of action lines in the editor when clicked on reveal wondrous new menus containing useful verbs. Collapse/expand if statements and repeat statements so you can see the whole program without horrible scrolling up and down for miles - wonderful. I also love the "duplicate" verb, which takes the current action, and drops in a copy of it next door, which you can then edit and move to its rightful new place. There are many other useful verbs; can’t remember them all.