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[Bug]: Can't open large budget on mobile browser #2618
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Reference: github-starred/actual#2618
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Originally created by @tuxgirl on GitHub (Nov 13, 2025).
Verified issue does not already exist?
What happened?
Hi!
I have a self-hosted instance of Actual Budget running inside podman. I imported my ynab data into it, which goes back to 2012. I am able to load and work with this budget without issue on computers, but when I try to load it on my phone, it gets stuck on the "Loading" screen. One time, I let it continue to load as long as it wanted, and it eventually made it to the budget screen after about 8-10 minutes, but it had a sync error, and was missing data.
I have tried multiple mobile browsers (Chrome and Vivaldi). I have also tried using both desktop and mobile modes in the mobile browsers.
I did create a completely empty budget from my computer, and that budget was able to open on the mobile browser.
This has been happening for a couple months since I first switched to using Actual, so across multiple versions of Actual. Currently, I'm using 25.10.0.
When I try to load the budget, podman logs shows:
2025-11-13T20:13:17.421Z info: GET 304 /sync/list-user-files
2025-11-13T20:13:17.425Z info: GET 304 /account/needs-bootstrap
2025-11-13T20:13:17.454Z info: GET 304 /account/validate
I wasn't able to find any other logs, even after exec-ing into the container, but if there is one that I was missing, please let me know!
I did do an export of my current budget. The zipped version was 6.43 MB, and the extracted sqlite db was 34.3 MB. My theory is that for some reason the mobile browser is not able to download and work with a database of that size?
Is there a way to have the client not need the full history? Or, is there a way to "archive" the history, but not have it in regular use? Or, if there's no way to hold onto that history, can I truncate the history a few months back without messing up the current data?
Thank you!
Summary:
Problem: Not loading in the budget file, but only on mobile browsers. Works correctly on desktop browsers. One time, it did load the budget file completely, but it was not complete.
How can we reproduce the issue?
Have a really really really old/large budget file, and try to open it on mobile (for the first time, at least..)
Where are you hosting Actual?
Other
What browsers are you seeing the problem on?
Chrome
Operating System
Mobile Device
@user12257 commented on GitHub (Nov 14, 2025):
I have the same issue with vanadium on mobile, just endlessly loading. On Desktop in Firefox it works fine.
@youngcw commented on GitHub (Nov 14, 2025):
Try resetting your sync ID on the file from a desktop. That will get rid of some of the unneeded data on the file and make the file smaller.
@user12257 commented on GitHub (Nov 16, 2025):
For me, that did the trick, after clearing my browser data on my phone.
@tuxgirl commented on GitHub (Nov 18, 2025):
I tried to reset the sync id, but it doesn't seem to work. Now, no matter which computer I try to use actual from, it tells me I need to upload the file, and when I try to upload the file it throws an internal error.
I tried to create a new budget from my most recent backup, but when I load that, it just says that the file is not a cloud file and needs to be registered. When I click the register button, it spins for a couple seconds, then reloads with the same error saying it's not a cloud file.
My server is online, and in my local network. I can see the list of budgets, but can't seem to use any of them. When I tried to connect to my old budget with a new browser, it threw an internal error.
I don't know how to recover from this. Is it possible for me to do something manually with the budget directly on the host machine?
@niffelheimba commented on GitHub (Dec 5, 2025):
Just wanna add on and say I'm experiencing a similar issue: flawless on desktop, but the website fails to load several times directly on Safari on my iPhone, and when it does load and I manage to add it as a PWA, it fails to sync and load any recent transactions.
I'm accessing through a tailscale exit node, which sends all my traffic to my router and back to a reverse proxy (traefik).
At first I thought it was a configuration issue because this started happening when I moved from a first level subdomain on cloudflare to removing any public DNS entry and making it a second level domain that was LAN only -- multiple people in my family wanted to run SimpleFIN, so this was my only option.
But just wanted to share my experience after seeing this related issue and a few others.