hello ladykalana, you can manually trigger a synchronisation when you go into the system's settings app > accounts > firefox and tap on "sync now" in the menu there...

I have seen others refer to this option but have not seen it on my devices. When I go to System Settings > Accounts > Firefox, I have a heading "Accounts" followed by my email address and a line showing the time it was last synced, then a second heading "Sync Options" with the item "Configure Sync." That's it. If I click on my email address, it takes me to another screen with the line showing when it was last synced again and I can uncheck a box next to it to turn off sync, then recheck it, which DOES force a sync (though it does not say "Sync Now" there or anywhere). That's a lot of steps to have syncing happen more than once an hour.

How often is syncing supposed to happen? Is it standardized? Must one really turn sync off and on again just update it?

on the System Settings > Accounts > Firefox page there should either be a three dot button at the top that allows you to access the sync now option or you may invoke that with the hardware/onscreen menu key of your device.

sync shouldn't only be happening on a fixed interval but it should also be triggered on certain actions like freshly opening the browser or returning to it after a period of idleness. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Features/Instant_Sync

I was able to locate the "Sync Now" command: I went to System Settings > Accounts > Firefox THEN clicked on my email address, and once it brought up the subpage for my email address I used the hardware menu key to find this option. It was NOT located at System Settings > Accounts > Firefox nor were there any three dot buttons at the top of any screen, which was why I had such a hard time figuring out everyone's directions. Thank you for your help with that.

As for the triggering of sync: - I started a brand new instance of Firefox on my mobile device and took a screenshot of the shared tabs screen. As you can see, even on a fresh start of the app, there has been no new sync for 2-3 hours.

- On the link you gave me, they mention syncs being triggered by bookmark and password changes, but there's no mention of triggering by tab changes. I would think that would be the *most* common need for syncing, so you can trust that when you need to walk away from your desktop, your tabs will be waiting for you on your mobile. Clearly I have not seeing any kind of reasonable updating for tab syncing between my devices.

- To test the syncing of bookmarks as described in the link you sent, I saved a new bookmark on my desktop and watched the icon on my desktop toolbar indicate it was syncing with the servers. Several minutes later in a fresh instance of mobile FF, the bookmark still hasn't shown up. It would appear that the desktop mechanism works promptly on a bookmark change, but there's really no action on the mobile.

- Per the "Feature Overview" in the link you sent, I am currently experiencing the exact undesirable situation (necessity of manual syncing, lack of confidence in sync frequency/automation/seamlessness) that the wiki describes. Is that wiki article intended to show the current state of things with the sync feature, or is it claiming to have resolved it (i.e. the "shipped" and "complete" statuses at the top)?

yes, the wiki should show the status quo of things.

some troubleshooting suggestions that you might want to look into: does it make a difference when you kill the firefox app with a task manager and open it again afterwards? do you use any battery saving tool that might interfere with the timing of account synchronisations on a system level & do other apps synchronize normally? do you have restricted background data in the system settings?

- "does it make a difference when you kill the firefox app with a task manager and open it again afterwards?" No, and when I spoke of a "brand new instance" of FF this is what I meant. I have been doing that every time.

- "do you use any battery saving tool that might interfere with the timing of account synchronisations on a system level & do other apps synchronize normally?" No, I use no battery saving tools at all.

- "do you have restricted background data in the system settings?" Nope.

I just started new instances of FF on both mobile devices and according to the "synced tabs" section in FF, after 7+ hours there has been no sync (see attached). Interestingly, when I go to system settings the time it shows for "last synced" does not jive with that math (local time is currently 9pm) (see attached. But the tabs listed under synced tabs are indeed ones that were open those many hours ago, and have long been closed.

This is about to drive me mad. Surely I'm not the only one with this problem? I've only had my tablet for three days, everything on it is fresh.

hi, i just got another suggestion by a sync dev: try to drag down the list of synced tabs which should trigger a sync and refresh them in some seconds.

That does work. Not really how the feature is supposed to work though; any ideas on how to get full automated functionality?