Version - 2.5.10
OS - Linux (App Image)
Sync target - File system (Another disk).
Yesterday, Joplin said the Sync had a issue and asked me to to disable 'fail safe'.
Today, I disabled 'Fail safe' and when I came back to my notes, there were literally NONE!
Everything was gone. I thought it would be saved somewhere in the sync target, but NO.
I don't see any such files in my sync target and all my notes are gone. IDK where it is,
Will I be able to recover it ? If yes, please guide me through the process and let me know what exactly happened here ?
I suspect you might be quoting this incorrectly (the wording is along the lines of "...100% of your data is about to be deleted".
The fail safe is there to protect your data in case something goes wrong - for example if your sync target for whatever reason were to be deleted entirely a Joplin client will think that you have deleted all your data and tries to match it; the fail safe is there literally to protect you against that situation. By disabling it you permitted Joplin to delete all your local data.
This post might also be helpful as an extension to the previous info. I really hope you had some backups.
Yea, that's what it said. I don't remember the error message.
I still do not understand what just happened to it.
Pls refer to this picture. For all the time, I synced my notes to the sync target every 5 mins. But now all the files in that sync location is not what I expected.
So, Can you please explain what I just did and why did Joplin ask me to disable fail safe.
And, Is there any way to recover my notes ?
Thanks.
I went to the .config and I found a file named database.sqlite.
I really hope, I will be able to recover my notes from there.
Let me know if it's possible or redirect me to a post (that has the solution).
Joplin saw an empty sync target, warned you it was empty and was about to delete 100% of your data but the fail safe stopped it (because this is an uncommon event likely caused by either user error or a change in config, missing data etc) yet you disabled it dispite the warning telling you what it was going to do. The fail-safe exists to protect your data but you disabled it.
I don't think we can know what happened to your sync target, did you connect another device to it recently? Did you mess with any of the files within it? Has your OS automatically cleared the files within it somehow?
You might want to post your logs if they still exist - https://joplinapp.org/debugging/#desktop-application
The information is in the thread that @CalebJohn linked and in my own post above
Did you take any backups of your profile directory or any JEX backups?
Thank you so much for your response.
Now, As directed in the post, I went to -> .config -> Joplin-desktop folder.
The below pic has all the contents of that folder.
(btw, note history was disabled).
In this folder, will I be able to recover my notes from 'database.sqlite' or this is where all my local data was erased ?
If yes, then according to the sync my notes must be present in the 'Sync target' right ?
(The pic of the sync target is attached above).
What am I supposed to do ? Is there any way I could recover all my notes ? Hopefully there is a way out.
A sync'd joplin instance stores its notes in two places:
The local client - this is all stored in the .config/joplin-desktop dir
All your actual notes, tags, metadata, note revisions etc. etc. are stored within that sqlite databse.
The rest of the dir contains your note resources, some settings, log files and plugins.
The sync target - this is stored wherever your sync target is set to (in your case a local folder).
This contains your sync "database" of .md files containing note data, meta data, deltas etc. used to make sure the various clients are in sync with eachother (importantly it doesn't simply "read" from the sync target - each client uses the sync data to make changes in its own local database (the sqlite database mentioned before)).
In your case it seems like your sync data was deleted (how? I have no idea unless you did anything on the OS like move it or alter any items within it) and those changes (i.e. deleting all your notes) have been propogated to your desktop client which it then warned you about before you disabled the fail safe and allowed it to delete all your local data.
So without seeing the database in question I can only assume that all your actual note data has been lost in both the sync target and your local database.
Either way you should take a copy of your profile directory now just in case there is anything within it you can salvage by following the guide I posted before (unless you already have in which case you might be out of luck).
Seeing as you set up a sync target, surely that means you have another client connected that might have still have data? You should save that profile too and see if that has anything within it too (hoping you didn't also disable the fail safe there too).
This really does show how important a backup is, I can't shill the "simple backup" plugin enough.
