Forced new install and loss of links to data; jex failure

Support
1

Operating system

Windows

Joplin version

3.2.12

What issue do you have?

I am currently moving from an old Windows 10 computer (Dell XPS 13) to a new machine (ASUS Zenbook) running Windows 11. I have been running Joplin for about 3 years using it as a document management tool. There are around 18K items in the resources area of .config. I was hoping just to create an up to date .jex file and copy it over and import it to Joplin. In the middle of this, Microsoft [performed a forced new installation of Windows 10 without permission (presumably to strong arm me into using Windows 11). It has reinstalled Joplin and I am able to run it but without being able to access the pre-existing data. I just get an empty,new version of Joplin (the same for other apps). The data still exists and I have copied the files from resources to a HDD as last ditch backup.
I have tried reinstalling the most recent (not very recent) .jex file I have. It showed a size of 2MB and just put the word 'Resources' into Joplin and stopped. I have tried an earlier .jex file which found a corrupted record and crashed.

I'm only interested in reinstalling the data into Joplin on the old machine as a means to transfer it. What is happening and what should I do next? Is there a way to import the data directly into the new maechine or will I lose the notebooks structure?

Thanks for your help,
Bruce Robinson

2

Here are two things to try:

  1. Extract the notes directly from the JEX file.
    • .jex files are .tar files with a different extension. Changing the file extension to .tar may allow opening the file and inspecting the data directly.
  2. Restoring the backup of C:\Users\YourUserName\.config\joplin-desktop to the same location.
    • If using the non-portable version of Joplin, Joplin's database, settings, and note attachments are stored in the .config\joplin-desktop directory. Restoring this directory from a backup, then starting Joplin, may allow recovering notes.
3

Thanks, Henry. Your second suggestion seems to have worked fine. The files are there as are the notebook structure and

tags.

A sigh of relief.

Bruce

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