I have a todo that was in a notebook and the todo has just disappeared. I cannot find it in the trash nor by searching for any fragments of it. I do have synchronization to dropbox turned on as of a few days ago but no desktop version synced yet. There was nothing to indicate the todo was in the process of deleting - it's just gone from the notebook and the other notes from that notebook are still there. I have been actively working on the missing todo for the past two weeks.
The only thing I can think of that could have caused this glitch is an issue I have noticed where sometimes when I use the share function from the browser (ecosia 145.0.7632.45.25) there are errors - sometimes the link(s) fail to share at all, sometimes the link(s) result in a note in the wrong notebook appearing again later when I go back to the app - as in, I share the links as a note in notebook 1, but later I open the app and it opens another copy of the shared links note in either notebook 1 or notebook 2 etc. I noticed this happening several times today and I deleted the duplicate notes - they all show up in trash but the todo is just gone.
I dont think I set up a separate backup as I thought that was what Cloud sync was for. I did make a copy of the synced folder in Dropbox as soon as I noticed the missing todo, and I thought I turned off sync (settings, disable the sync interval) but the app has shown it synced several times since.
More info - there seems to be some sort of bug because I went and deliberately deleted two notes today from the android app. Not only was there no delete confirmation message, they were not in the trash. The trash is set to delete after 90 days, and does have other notes I deleted previously still in there. So .... what's going on?
Regarding this, it is a common misconception that sync is the same as backup, but this is a not the case. If a file is deleted, whether intentionally or unintentionally, sync will propogate the deletion to all devices and may not be able to be recovered. Therefore cloud sync does not make creating backups redundant.
The key difference is when you have a backup, if one copy of a file changes, the other is unaffected. If you have a file on your phone synced to a file on Dropbox, if the file is deleted in one location, it will get deleted on the other via the sync. So it's still not the same as a backup. I'd recommend reading about the 3-2-1 backup rule, but even having 1 single location containing a true (recent) backup is going to significantly reduce risk of data loss compared to relying on sync alone. I personally use Joplin on a single Android device most of the time, and I set a reminder to make a jex backup once a month, which I manually upload to Google Drive in a password protected 7z file.
In Joplin, go to configuration > tools > log, press the 3 dots menu and share it with an application which will allow you to save the log, so you can upload it here. If if want allow you to upload the log on a forum post, zip the file first.
Re: backup yes I get the need for one and as I said I thought I had made one. I meant with the sync to Dropbox given that there should be some recoverable file history I think there, is there anything I can do to figure out what happened to this todo? But I assume you're waiting on the log for that.
And what is going on with todos/notes that arent giving a delete confirmation or appearing now in trash? This makes me reluctant to continue with the app at all until this can get figured out.
Yes there probably is file history on Dropbox and there certainly is a recycle bin there. But the data stored on Dropbox is Joplin app data, so can't be loaded back into Joplin directly via the UI if restored / replaced with older versions. There are ways that you can load the data back in, but I'd need to see if the data was actually deleted or not to work out if that would help. If you could try to send a log over ASAP (before relevant deleted items get deleted from the Dropbox recycle bin), then I could guide you through restoring data from the Dropbox recycle bin if I think that's necessary
And what is going on with todos/notes that arent giving a delete confirmation or appearing now in trash?
There isn't a delete confirmation, however it should go to the trash when deleted. If deleted from the trash, then there is a delete confirmation there. I have no idea why this might be happening without seeing the logs
got the log and confirmed it's readable. but I didn't understand this sentence of yours: "If if want allow you to upload the log on a forum post, zip the file first."
Anyway, thanks for all the patient help! hopefully we will figure this out as the latest test notes were definitely not in the trash after I deleted them, and I didn't delete them from the trash but from a notebook. The todo I have no idea what happened as it just vanished without a trace (except hopefully somewhere in dropbox).
@Ldko Are you able to post the log on this thread? I meant if the forum does not allow you to upload the log, try zipping it before uploading. If that still doesn't work, upload it to any file sharing site and post the link here
Based on when I posted originally, the log might cover the original disappeared todo as it goes back to May 21, but if not, it should cover the two notes I deleted deliberately that also don't appear in trash. I'm a little fuzzy now on the timeline as my dropbox dates (when I created the duplicate version to try to preserve if possible any previous versions) say the folder was created May 15 but internal files were actually created May 22, which seems more likely based on what I was doing that week in terms of actively using the todo before it blinked out of existence.
@Ldko Thank you for sending the log. I had a thorough look through it, and there isn't anything in the log to indicate any notes have been deleted between May 21st (evening) to 5th June. There are specific log entries created when permanently deleting a note manually, or when a note is deleted by the sync, or propagated to the sync target, but none of these entries occur for note type sync items. I did notice some log entries suggesting that you changed the sync target to none at some point, and also disabled sync on a mobile connection, which I guess was to prevent risk of further data loss.
I have a theory for what might be happening though. There is a setting which hides todos which are completed. Maybe you intentionally or unintentionally completed a todo, and the todo was hidden because show completed todos is disabled? When the setting is disabled, a todo might not disappear immediately when marked as completed, but switching to another notebook and then returning to the original notebook would make it disappear. Note that completed todos which are deleted though, should still show in the recycle bin, even when show completed todos is disabled.
Please check that the show completed todos setting is ticked, then see whether your missing todo appears in the appropriate notebook after toggling this setting:
Regarding the todos not showing in the trash when deliberately deleted, did you delete the todos individually, or you deleted the notebook containing them? If you deleted a notebook, the notebook will not show in the main view when you open the trash but will show in the sidebar instead. Possibly you have the trash collapsed and do not not see the notebooks within it?:
So, that's confusing that the log doesn't show items deleted, as I 100% deleted two notes that did not go to the trash.
I did have "show completed todos" already toggled on; again, searching for words within items didn't surface a completed todo or anything in trash or moved to another notebook.
As for the deleted notes vs notebooks, no dice there either. I believe I deleted notes (not notebooks), but neither notes nor notebooks show up in the trash (it was already expanded). Again, other notes and notebooks both show up in trash.
FYI, deleting a note is considered an update, not a deletion, unless permanently deleted.
It may be possible that the parent notebook got cleared on the todos. In this case, it wont show in any notebook, but will show in the 'All notes' notebook. Maybe have a look through the whole list manually and see if you can find it there?
No it's not in the all notes list. Again searched for multiple words that were in the contents - some in completed checkboxed items within the overall todo and some words that were not in completed checkboxes - and no notes or todos are found.
Can you reproduce the issue consistently, or this was just a random occurrence which you cannot reproduce? Unfortunately I don't think there's anything else I can do to help unless you can find a way to consistently reproduce the problem, then post some detailed steps, or ideally post a video. I use Joplin with Dropbox myself, usually just on a single Android device, and I have never experienced this issue.
The only other possible thing I can think of is that the note was moved to the conflicts notebook, as some users do not know what it is when it appears and they dismiss it. Do you have a notebook like this at the top of the sidebar, and if so, have you checked in there?:
No I don't have a conflicts folder. No, I can't reproduce the issue as I didn't do anything deliberate in the first place and in any case when I did delete some other notes that also then disappeared (and didn't go to trash), those actions didn't show up in the log anyway.
So you don't think there's any way to restore the todo from Dropbox?
I thought your original message did say something about ways to restore from a Dropbox sync if the sync wasn't written over.
I did say that, but there's no indication that the note was deleted on the server. It's may be possible that the note was deleted locally without logging anything, but server deletions are always logged. So if it was deleted locally, the particular todo must have never been uploaded to Dropbox in the first place before it was deleted, probably because you disabled syncing on mobile data.
All I can suggest is to look at the local sqlite database if the data exists anywhere, if you're technical minded enough to understand how to do that. To get the sqlite db, go to configuration > import and export > export profile. Then use a sqlite db client to open the .sqlite file in the output from the export. If the note exists anywhere, you would likely find the lost content in either the title or body field of the Revisions table.
I disabled syncing on mobile only after the todo disappeared (because I definitely though mistakenly thought I was preventing an incorrect backup from overwriting one that had the todo). It was definitely enabled for several days before while I worked through the individual checklist items I had within the overall todo.
I'll see if I can figure out the sqlite db, thanks.
