Odd sync issue

personalizedrefriger · 2023-11-17T19:41:07.678Z

I'm not sure what could be causing this, but here are some things to check:

Make sure that the date/time on the Mac and iPhone are both close to correct. An incorrect date/time has been known to cause sync issues in the past.
Click on "All notes" on the iPhone. Are any of the otherwise missing notes visible?
Go to Configuration > scroll down to Tools > Click on Sync status. How many notes/folders/resources are shown as being synced?

personalizedrefriger · 2023-11-17T19:44:30.584Z

If the above doesn't help, you might also try the beta version of Joplin on iOS — it's possible that the sync issues are related to a bug that has been fixed in the beta version. (The beta version may have new bugs/regressions though).

The beta version also allows sharing logs, which might be helpful in debugging this issue.

gododdin · 2023-11-17T20:59:54.131Z

Thanks for your help with this.

Date and time on mac and phone are identical
No missing notes in 'all notes'.
Sync status shows Note: 455/455 Folder 5/5 Resource 25/25
It's as if it can't see the other 1500 or so notes...
I will try the beta version tomorrow.

personalizedrefriger · 2023-11-17T21:02:38.717Z

I haven't managed to reproduce this yet, but some users have reported problems with syncing notebooks that have certain Emojis in their titles (issue). Could this be related?

gododdin · 2023-11-18T18:29:28.863Z

I deleted the emojis on the Mac and synced again. Progress! This time all the files synced to the phone but now all in one flat list (no sorting into notebooks). This is an improvement but obviously far from ideal. Thanks again.

personalizedrefriger · 2023-11-18T19:06:17.944Z

I'm looking into the issue now.

From the testing I've done so far, it seems related to initial sync — notebooks with emojis that existed before doing an the first sync don't sync at all. Notebooks imported after an initial sync seem to sync as expected (even if I export a notebook that wasn't syncing correctly, then re-import it).

This is just based on a few minutes of testing, though! (I only had one notebook with emojis before the initial sync).

Hopefully this will be fixed soon!

gododdin · 2023-11-18T19:22:17.495Z

I've downloaded TestFlight. Can I get an invitation to Beta test Joplin so I can install the latest? Thanks

personalizedrefriger · 2023-11-18T19:31:15.915Z

Here's the invitation: forum post

I'm able to reproduce this with the latest Android build though, so I don't think the TestFlight release will help. (At least not until the issue is fixed, which will hopefully be soon!)

This might help:

Do an initial sync on iOS (get it to a state where things aren't working correctly, but it says everything is synced)
On the Mac, export one of the notebooks that isn't syncing as JEX
Re-import the notebook on the Mac (so there's two copies).
Sync again

The imported copy of the notebook might sync (see issue comment).

Edit: From the Mac, the following may help:

disabling note history (settings > note history), then
going to "Syncrhonization" > "Advanced" > clicking "Re-upload local data", and finally
reinstalling the iOS app

This will take a long time, so I don't currently recommend it.

gododdin · 2023-11-18T21:22:19.595Z

Exported a notebook as JEX and re-imported. Synced again, no change.

Disabled note history, clicked "Re-upload local data" and re-synced, reinstalled iOS app. Back to syncing about 500 again! Should I try disabling Note History in iOS as well? (EDIT - tried that - didn't work, although it did download about 900 notes???)

Sorry to be a pain - this is driving me crazy!

laurent · 2023-11-19T10:25:28.559Z

A post was split to a new topic: Sync issue

laurent · 2023-11-19T10:26:35.487Z

I don't know if this is related but there was an issue in Joplin Cloud which means it wouldn't sync all notes right away, and you'd have to click Synchronise again to get all the changes. This is now fixed so it might be worth giving it another try

gododdin · 2023-11-19T11:03:04.138Z

Hi Laurent - I have synchronised several/many times with no change in the result. Something I just discovered that may be relevant. Although I have deleted and reinstalled Joplin on my phone, when I go to Settings/Encryption Config I see that encryption is: disabled and master password: loaded (as it is on the Mac) there are 3 encryption 'Master keys' saved which I seem unable to delete. Could these be the cause of the problem and if so how can I get rid of them? Thanks for your patience!

personalizedrefriger · 2023-11-20T04:01:49.298Z

It shouldn't be related to the master keys (though enabling encryption could be another thing to try!).

Master keys are used for end-to-end encryption. If they're disabled, they shouldn't be used to encrypt notes.

If you're using the TestFlight version of Joplin, you have the option to share a log. To do this, go to Configuration > Tools > Logs > three dots at the upper right corner > share.

Alternatively, you could try a different sync target (e.g. Dropbox or OneDrive). If sync works with a different sync target, this tells us that this is likely a bug in Joplin Cloud. If not, it's likely a bug in Joplin Desktop or Joplin Mobile. (Dropbox and OneDrive sync will be much slower than sync with Joplin Cloud).

Thank you for helping us fix this!

gododdin · 2023-11-20T18:10:21.716Z

Hi again - I have bad news and good news! The bad news - I switched backups to Dropbox and unfortunately the same (or similar) error occurred. The good news - but when I switched to the Beta (TestFlight) version the sync worked perfectly! So now I will go back to Joplin Cloud and see if it works there too and report back. I seem to have duplicates of some notes, but that's not a big problem. Thanks for your help with this. As a complete non programmer, I suspect this has something to do with iOS 17 not deleting the Joplin version properly (ie clearing all data and settings) when the app is deleted. But take that with a large pinch of salt!

gododdin · 2023-11-20T19:28:48.639Z

Switched to Joplin Cloud and now things are not right again - I really thought we had it that time!
EDIT: I deleted and re installed Joplin (TestFlight) and this time the sync worked! Happy man!

personalizedrefriger · 2023-11-21T19:19:30.003Z

I'm glad it worked!

guy-rouillier · 2023-11-24T06:23:54.698Z

One thing you need to be aware of is the encryption keys. I wouldn't consider using public storage (I use DropBox) without encryption. Seems like just asking to have your data stolen.

If you use encryption, which I highly recommend, then you need to ensure that each client you connect uses the same encryption key as the others. Somehow, when setting up one of my clients (I believe Linux - I started with Windows and Android, and got those two working together without issue) ended up creating it's own encryption key. That turned out to be a complete mess. You obviously want all clients using the same set of data, so notes are shared across all of them. But in my case, the 3rd client used a different key, so it couldn't share notes with the other two clients. I finally managed to disable that different key, and resync all my notes with the common key.

crtkugrrvjy · 2023-11-27T07:20:02.330Z

When this happened, did sync fail (for some notes) on all other devices? I have a sync issue which is repeatedly crashing Joplin Android on two different phones, but I'm able to sync between two Windows installs just fine.

gododdin · 2023-11-27T08:57:00.756Z

Hi - I'm afraid I only have two devices (Mac and iPhone) so can't really help with your question. Sorry

system · 2023-12-27T08:57:26.568Z

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