There's bits of information here and there across the forum, but to be honest no comprehensive guide for dealing with the various problem scenarios that sync can give.
But a couple of helpful guides which I've seen referenced are:
If your app is not synchronising properly or something got corrupted and you want to start over, follow this guide.
First, make a backup
In all cases, the most reliable way to fix synchronisation is to start from a recent JEX backup of your notes. Having such backup also ensure you don't lose anything while you're trying to fix synchronisation.
If one of your applications is in a good state and has all the data, you can create this JEX backup file from File => Export all => JEX
Otherwise, you…
# Full Joplin restore
A Joplin Export (JEX) file created by the Backup plugin can be used to perform a full restore of all notebooks, notes and attachments. This should be carefully undertaken as a mistake could cause the notes in the clients and on the sync server to be duplicated. To avoid duplication it also requires that any clients attached to the server are cleared of their note data and are then re-synced after the restore. For those with large note collections and numerous, large files attached to the notes, this could take a long time for each client. Essentially undertaking a full restore is a disaster recovery exercise. If you wish to just re-upload your notes to the server or re-download your notes from the server please please refer to the Joplin settings for Synchronisation under "Show Advanced Settings".
> When Joplin imports a JEX backup file **it treats every notebook and note within that backup as a new item**. All the items in the backup will get new unique reference numbers (however links between notes will be maintained). If the client the backup is being restored to already contains all or some of the notebooks and notes in the backup they will be duplicated.
>
> A JEX backup file **does not** contain any note history. It contains the notebooks, notes and attachments as they were at the time the backup was made.
The following options for a restore are described here:
- [Full Restore - Without fully resetting the Joplin clients](#full-restore---without-fully-resetting-the-joplin-clients)
- [Full Restore - Fully resetting the Joplin clients](#full-restore---fully-resetting-the-joplin-clients)
## Full Restore - Without fully resetting the Joplin clients
With this method the existing link to the synchronisation cloud storage server will be preserved and used. If End to End Encryption (E2EE) has been enabled the settings will be preserved and used. Any customisation and installed plugins will be retained.
- Identify the Joplin desktop client that has the best Internet connection as this will be the primary machine for the restore.
- Place a copy of the Joplin backup file on that machine.
- Open the Joplin client on the primary machine and delete all notes and notebooks.
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