Lost notices after new install

michaldybczak · 2024-02-12T20:24:15.576Z

Operating system

Linux

Joplin version

2.13.2

Desktop version info

Joplin 2.13.15 (prod, linux)

ID klienta: d852f89bdc964fbc8f250eb14bff47e2
Wersja synchronizacji: 3
Wersja profilu: 44
Wspierany menadżer kluczy: Nie

Rewizja: 7d2c1c08e

Sync target

Dropbox

Editor

Rich Text Editor

What issue do you have?

Usually I was using Joplin on Manjaro as a snap. However, I was testing some distro based on Ubuntu 22 (probably from deb), and installed joplin there, synced and to my surprise, instead of dozens of notebooks and over 100 of notices, I got 1 notebook from old ones and "All notices" notebook with random 15 notices.

I thought that was a sync error and didn't make much of it. I could use it on another system. I was in the middle of moving system between discs and the snap folder didn't survive but I hoped that the sync will handle the problem. To my huge surprise, again, I had the same situation: 1 old notebook and about 15 random notices in "All notices" notebook.

To be clear, during sync I saw "Created 74" but no of such notices showed up.

I found the info about restoring data from the database, but frankly, I don't understand it. Actually, I do, but I have trouble of following a few parts of the instruction and that makes the whole instruction useless:

Is the database downloaded from Dropbox containing history, or is it created anew based on the first sync? This is important to know, if the database contains the lost data.

Frankly, this is a disaster and if I don't restore it, I will gave up on joplin, as a tool I can't rely on and trust. The security of data (that they won't get lost) is everything. The only backup is my 3-4 year old data on Evernote where I moved from to joplin. This will mean I will lose all notices I had from the last 3-4 years, which is bad, but still better than nothing.

Please, restore my faith and help me restore lost notices. I never thought I have to do backup of joplin database, given the fact that it's also in cloud. Fresh installed joplin shouldn't delete the data in cloud during first sync, so I have no idea what happened. Probably the version of the joplin on the other system was much older, but what it exactly did - no idea.

muzak · 2024-02-12T20:55:31.925Z

This post comes to mind, but I don't know how helpful it is if your snap folder didn't survive:

Joplin wouldn't start, reinstalled it, lost all my notes Support

If you're using the Snap, uninstalling snaps deletes their config files closer to a mobile app than a traditional desktop one. Snap keeps around a backup of the state of the app for every upgrade to allow reverting an upgrade alongside the databases, and also keeps a snapshot on removal. If so, you might be able to identify the snapshot associated with the uninstall, and restore it.

Data security also depends on creating redundant backups of important data. Whether that is done through:

The Simple Backup plugin which creates manual and automatic backups (added as a default plugin in recent pre-releases)
The built-in Export all feature
External programs that backup and move around data
Using multiple clients on multiple devices coupled with above measures
Following similar measures for your important data as a whole

Someone else should be able to help troubleshoot what happened here, as well as answer your data restoration questions. I hope you find a painless solution to your issue.

michaldybczak · 2024-02-12T21:48:11.375Z

Ironically, I do have backup, but somehow, snap folder was not affected. Probably, from various reasons, I have excluded it from backup, if so, this was done years ago.

My feeling is that it will be hard to restore data at this point. My only idea is to use the original, old disc. Like I said, I was moving or rather copying my system into a smaller disc, so I could use the original (big disc) in a new laptop. I haven't moved it to a new laptop yet, so I can swap the small (system copy) one with the old, big one (system original source) disk, where the data should be intact. Unless this is something that happened on original OS and I didn't notice it..

So when I replace discs, I should disable internet, open joplin and do backup or download/export the joplin notices, and then restore them after the sync if it will be needed.

michaldybczak · 2024-02-13T18:42:36.681Z

I did it as I said, meaning: I plugged in the old SSD where I had joplin with all my notices, turned off Internet, opened joplin and exported everything in all possible formats, plus the joplin-desktop in configs.

I was able to restore notices. Unfortunately, this is a highly personal solution, so it won't be helpful to others.

Still, I'm disappointed that it even happened. All I did, was to install joplin on another distro and logged in to sync. Details may reveal why it happened, but such basic and normal action should be correct, and if something is about to be deleted anywhere, joplin should stop it, or ensure that this is action we want to do, or if the sync was not complete somehow, it also should inform us, and stop syncing back.

Or, the sync on Dropbox was somehow bugged from the begining and I didn't know, till I synced on another device? At the moment, when I imported my notices, I see:

Created remote items: 356
Downloaded objects: 400

No idea what those 400 objects are, nothing seems to changed on the app side, but it looks like it exported a lot of notices, which is good.

I also learned, I had to create another backup of notices that is not connected to sync, because as it turnes out, sync could be a devastating action.

system · 2024-03-14T18:43:19.997Z

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