Offline mode and connectivity
Agathos Books needs an internet connection for most things, but the app handles brief connection drops gracefully and lets you keep browsing pages you’ve already loaded.
What Works Offline
Section titled “What Works Offline”If you’ve been using the app and your connection drops, you can still:
- Revisit pages you’ve already loaded — Recently viewed screens stay available in the app
- See cached book details and covers — Books and libraries you’ve recently opened remain readable
- Browse reading history — Completed-reading entries you’ve already loaded stay visible
- Queue some actions — Favorites, reading progress, and many settings changes are held in memory and sent automatically when you reconnect
When you’re offline, you’ll see a red Offline badge near the bottom-right of the screen. Tap it to see what’s still possible, how many actions are waiting to sync, and a note that write operations need connectivity.
What Doesn’t Work Offline
Section titled “What Doesn’t Work Offline”Anything that needs fresh data from our servers won’t work until you reconnect:
- Searching for books — Search hits a live database
- Scanning to add books — ISBN lookup and adding scanned books require the network (the camera may still read a barcode, but the scan won’t be saved)
- Loan and waitlist actions — Requesting, approving, declining, pickup, return, and related lending steps are disabled offline so nothing sends with stale state
- Join requests and admin approvals — Approving members or books, and similar admin decisions, are disabled offline
- Sending email invitations — Resending or canceling invitations, and the invite wizard, are disabled offline
- Signing in — If you’re not already signed in, you’ll see a full-screen offline state. It retries automatically when you’re back online; you can also tap Try Again
Queued vs blocked
Section titled “Queued vs blocked”| Behavior | Examples |
|---|---|
| Queued (completes on reconnect while the app stays open) | Favoriting, reading progress, many collection and settings edits |
| Blocked (buttons disabled until online) | Loan lifecycle, waitlist borrow/join from a book page, join-request and book-approval actions, invitation resend/cancel/send |
Queued actions live in memory only. Closing the browser tab or force-quitting the app before you reconnect may drop them.
How to Recover
Section titled “How to Recover”In most cases, you don’t need to do anything — the app reconnects automatically and refetches fresh data.
- Wait a few seconds — A brief network blip usually resolves on its own
- Check your connection — Try loading another website or app
- Switch networks — Toggle between Wi‑Fi and cellular data
- Retry or refresh — On an error state, use Retry. On the web, a hard refresh also helps (see below)
When you come back online, a green Back Online badge appears briefly (about three seconds) and any queued actions send automatically.
Reviewing or Canceling Queued Actions
Section titled “Reviewing or Canceling Queued Actions”If you’ve tapped buttons while offline, those actions wait until you reconnect. To manage them:
- Tap the Offline badge or the pending-count badge (for example, 2 actions pending)
- Review what’s waiting — the panel explains they’ll complete automatically when you reconnect
- Tap Cancel pending actions, then Confirm, if you’d rather discard them than send them
[Screenshot: offline-mode-and-connectivity-offline-badge — the floating Offline badge with the expanded detail panel showing pending actions]
Native App vs Web
Section titled “Native App vs Web”iOS, Android, and the web app share the same offline detection and the same rules for queuing vs blocking actions.
They do not use identical caching:
- Web and PWA (“Add to Home Screen”) use a service worker plus in-memory cache. Loaded pages and recent API data can be shown offline while the tab stays open.
- Native apps skip the service worker and persist loaded data with on-device storage, so a cold start after being offline often shows your recent libraries and books sooner.
Native apps may also get connectivity updates from the OS a bit sooner in the background, but day-to-day behavior matches the web app.
Last Resort: Force-Refresh or Clear Cache
Section titled “Last Resort: Force-Refresh or Clear Cache”If the app feels stuck — pages won’t load even though your connection is fine, or you keep seeing stale data — try a hard refresh:
Web browser:
- Hold Shift and click the browser’s refresh button (or Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + R)
- If that doesn’t help, open your browser settings and clear the site’s cache for
agathosbooks.com
iPhone/iPad app:
- Close Agathos Books fully (swipe up and flick it away from the app switcher)
- Reopen the app
- If the issue persists, delete and reinstall the app (your account data is safe — it’s stored on our servers)
Android app:
- Open Settings → Apps → Agathos Books
- Tap Storage → Clear cache (do not tap Clear data — that signs you out)
- Reopen the app
Reinstalling or clearing data signs you out but doesn’t delete anything from your account. You’ll be back to normal after signing in again.
- A briefly red Offline badge is normal during subway rides, elevators, and weak-signal moments — the app catches up automatically
- If you scan barcodes while offline, they won’t be added. Stay online (or reconnect and keep the scanner open) until each scan finishes processing
Related Articles
Section titled “Related Articles”Still Need Help?
Section titled “Still Need Help?”If the app stays broken after reconnecting and refreshing, contact support with your device, browser, and what you were doing when it stopped working.