Duplicated notes en masse

Support
1

Operating system

macOS

Joplin version

3.1.4

Desktop version info

Joplin 3.1.24 (prod, darwin)

Client ID: d238670b529f4b479e91fd4bf8044ea2
Sync Version: 3
Profile Version: 47
Keychain Supported: Yes

Revision: d581264

ABC Sheet Music Plugin: 1.0.3
Backup: 1.4.2
BibTeX: 0.5.0
Create and go to tags and @notebooks: 1.3.7
Embed Search: 2.0.0
Emoji: 1.0.4
Hotfolder: 1.1.0
Insert Date: 1.0.1
Note Tabs: 1.4.0

What issue do you have?

So, this is weird: I can't reproduce it, nor can I work out what triggered it. This morning when I looked at Joplin I found that one of my notebooks (with the highly original name Misc.) had gone from having about a hundred notes to having 2069!

All of these new notes have titles that are the IDs of other notes and they duplicate the contents (mostly) of those notes. In some cases the resources in those notes are displayed, in other cases not. In all cases, the content of the note, if any, is followed by what looks like a database record (example appended below). That data appears to describe the copied note. In the examples I've checked, the original note, unchanged, still exists in the notebook where it belongs.

Any clues how that might have happened? It looks as though I can delete these duplicate notes en masse, should I?

Mystified,
Jon

Example:

  • the title of this note is: 0ae99e1b80e446cea53f94aa259edd02

  • note properties of this duplicate (all of the duplicates were created at the same time):
    ID
    555e564969934410a3e9a4b2bea22098
    Updated
    2025-01-13 10:16 AM
    Created
    2025-01-13 10:16 AM
    URL
    Location
    Note History
    Previous versions of this note
    Markup
    Markdown

  • in this case, the resources of the original note are displayed, and at the bottom is appended the following data which appears to be data associated with the original note as well:

id: 0ae99e1b80e446cea53f94aa259edd02
parent_id: dad9b2bccc7c474a90d32ebe085dbf9b
created_time: 2016-02-21T23:30:57.000Z
updated_time: 2023-09-03T04:35:13.269Z
is_conflict: 0
latitude: 0.00000000
longitude: 0.00000000
altitude: 0.0000
author: Jon Crump
source_url:
is_todo: 0
todo_due: 0
todo_completed: 0
source: evernote.desktop.mac
source_application: net.cozic.joplin-desktop
application_data:
order: -62167054022000
user_created_time: 2016-02-21T23:30:57.000Z
user_updated_time: 2022-08-19T16:40:38.113Z
encryption_cipher_text:
encryption_applied: 0
markup_language: 1
is_shared: 0
share_id:
conflict_original_id:
master_key_id:
user_data:
deleted_time: 0
type_: 1

2

If you get the Joplin log file and upload that here, it may shed some light on the source of the duplicates.

Also, what sync target are you using, and do you use Joplin on other devices?

3

I use Joplin on my MacBook Pro and an IPhoneSE, and occasionally on a linux laptop. My sync target is a WebDAV setup on my web server, and it has seemed entirely reliable until now.

The log file (log.txt) is gargantuan (nearly 100MB), so I've not uploaded the whole thing. The copied files appear to have been created 2025-01-13 10:16 AM. So I excerpted the lines covering this span: 2025-01-13 10:16:30 to 2025-01-13 10:35:08 and I've uploaded that section. The rest of the log would seem not relevant, but I don't really know how to read it, so I don't know.

The relevant section would appear to be from line 798 of the uploaded file (joplinLog.txt (568.2 KB)) where the Synchroniser reports: Sync: createRemote: remote does not exist, and local is new and has never been synced:

I'm just groping around in the dark here and don't really know what I'm looking at. Any advice from the assembled wise here?

Jon

4

Just a tip, but if you pack the log to a zip file, it will likely take much less space and you should be able to upload the whole thing here.

5

First of all, it's clear from the log that all these additional notes are created through the Mac client, and are not originating from the sync target. That is evident by all the occurrences of this:
Synchronizer: Sync: createRemote: remote does not exist, and local is new and has never been synced: Note:

The other thing I can see is that the Joplin rest api is being invoked by something, which is causing all the new notes to be created, this is evident from all the occurrences of this:
routes/notes: Request

I suspect this is an issue with one of the plugins which you have installed, as you wouldn't get automatic rest calls to the note api in an installation without user installed plugins. You could try uploading the entire log via a zip as mentioned (or at least starting from a couple of days before the issue, if that doesn't work), and maybe this might shed some light as to which plugin is causing the issue.

6

Thanks @tomasz86, here's the zipped file: log.txt.zip (5.7 MB)

And thanks too Mr. Jo @mrjo118 for being so helpful. What you suggest is plausible, but the plugins that I'm using are of pretty long standing and they've never done this before. Do let me know if examination of the full log file suggests anything concrete.

sincerely,
Jon

7

I can't see anything that suggests where the rest calls come from except for an instance which has reference to the web clipper where it is reading an image. Were you using the web clipper around the time it happened, or at least have it enabled currently?

If not an issue with a plugin, it potentially may be some issue with the web clipper either when you use it or have it enabled

8

Thanks for having a look. I too have pored over the log to no avail. I've gone ahead and deleted all of these duplicated messages and that seems to have had no adverse effect. So, none the wiser, I carry on. I'll report if there's any new insight or recurrence of the problem. -J

1 Like
9

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.