function no longer working on mobile

Question

I have a function that uses the onEdit trigger. It was working great both on PC and mobile yesterday, but today it no longer works on mobile but still functions on my PC. Not sure what is going on.

function onEdit(e){
if(e.range.getA1Notation() == 'D13'){
  var spreadsheet = SpreadsheetApp.getActive();
  spreadsheet.getRange('H5').activate();
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Maintenance Request'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('2:2').activate();
  spreadsheet.getActiveSheet().insertRowsBefore(spreadsheet.getActiveRange().getRow(), 1);
  spreadsheet.getActiveRange().offset(0, 0, 1, spreadsheet.getActiveRange().getNumColumns()).activate();
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Entry Form'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('D5').activate();
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Maintenance Request'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('A2').activate();
  spreadsheet.getRange('\'Entry Form\'!D5').copyTo(spreadsheet.getActiveRange(), SpreadsheetApp.CopyPasteType.PASTE_VALUES, false);
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Entry Form'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('D9').activate();
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Maintenance Request'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('B2').activate();
  spreadsheet.getRange('\'Entry Form\'!D9').copyTo(spreadsheet.getActiveRange(), SpreadsheetApp.CopyPasteType.PASTE_VALUES, false);
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Entry Form'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('D11').activate();
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Maintenance Request'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('C2').activate();
  spreadsheet.getRange('\'Entry Form\'!D11').copyTo(spreadsheet.getActiveRange(), SpreadsheetApp.CopyPasteType.PASTE_VALUES, false);
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Entry Form'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('D13').activate();
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Maintenance Request'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('D2').activate();
  spreadsheet.getRange('\'Entry Form\'!D13').copyTo(spreadsheet.getActiveRange(), SpreadsheetApp.CopyPasteType.PASTE_VALUES, false);
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Entry Form'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('D7').activate();
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Maintenance Request'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRange('E2').activate();
  spreadsheet.getRange('\'Entry Form\'!D7').copyTo(spreadsheet.getActiveRange(), SpreadsheetApp.CopyPasteType.PASTE_VALUES, false);
  spreadsheet.setActiveSheet(spreadsheet.getSheetByName('Entry Form'), true);
  spreadsheet.getRangeList(['D5', 'D9', 'D11', 'D13']).activate()
  .clear({contentsOnly: true, skipFilteredRows: true});
}

}

Answer 1

TL;DR:

• It might be a performance-related problem derivated from using the Google Sheets macro recorder or communication with Google servers.
• You must study the Google Apps Script troubleshooting documentation.

General

onEdit is not a "tag"; it's a reserved function name for functions to be called by a simple trigger. As a result, it's commonly known as a "simple trigger".

Performance

onEdit and other Google Apps Script features work on a "best effort" basis. This means they are not always triggered due to Google Sheets / Apps Script limitations. I.E., For editing many cells in quick succession, onEdit might not be triggered for each edited cell.

On the other hand, simple triggers had a maximum execution time of 30 seconds; the code looks inefficient as it includes many unnecessary statements for a onEdit simple trigger. These statements are usually included by the Google Sheets macro recorder because it records the user actions, which, most of the time, are inefficient compared to what the code could do.

Client - Server (device / cloud) communication

Google Sheets app for mobile devices is optimized to work offline, but Google Apps Script doesn't work offline. Suppose you need that your onEdit simple trigger works on a mobile device. In that case, you should ensure that it has a reliable Internet connection so that the communication between the spreadsheet in your device and the Google Apps Script engine be efficient. Remember that onEdit has a 30 seconds execution time limit; having a poor Internet connection or using a network very busy might make that execution longer and, in the worst case, make it fail due to exceeding the maximum execution time.

Troubleshooting

Google Apps Script has execution logs. Review the executions to learn if there is an error message logged. For example, the execution logs might tell you if their call to onEdit has exceeded the execution time limit or if there were many calls to this simple trigger, which explains why some calls not be realized, among other things.

Also, you might need to use debugging techniques like adding console.log(message) statements to the simple trigger. Again, this requires having some basic programming skills and JavaScript knowledge besides understanding the debugging and logging features of Google Apps Script.

Epilogue

Experience using Excel and VBA might help. Please remember that web applications are "light weight" compared to similar native apps for Windows, Mac, and other desktop platforms, but at the same time offer some unique advantages as data is stored in the Cloud and some parts of the software are running on powerful data centers rather than on the user device.

There are already several answers here and in Stack Overflow that explain how to make more efficient code created using the Google Sheets macro recorder and why the typically generated code shown in questions is inefficient.

Spoiler: The code in this question has a lot of activate() and read and write operations; they are reading and writing one cell at a time. The fix makes the code read and write multiple cells simultaneously, called batch operations. There is an article about this on Google Apps Script microsite in Google Developers: Best Practices.

It might be possible to use Google Sheets macro recorder to generate efficient code, but this requires one to be familiar with keyboard shortcuts and other Google Sheets features and understand what user actions are not recorded. I have found that writing a script is more efficient; at the end of the day, each person should find what works best for them.