Yikes! All of my notes have disappeared. How to recover them?!

[grantnlee]

Operating system

macOS

Joplin version

3.0.15

Desktop version info

Joplin 3.0.15 (prod, darwin)

Client ID: c04666dd7b1141d8bc281f67cee56c1c
Sync Version: 3
Profile Version: 47
Keychain Supported: No

Revision: 598677b

Backup: 1.4.1

Sync target

Dropbox

What issue do you have?

I have lost nearly all of my notes and folders.... How can I safely recover them?

I have several dozen notes that I have created over the past month which are important to my work. I just opened Joplin and find that almost all of them are gone. Two remain - the very last one that I had created, and some random one from a week ago.

I have had sync working with Dropbox. And also was syncing to my Android cell phone. I realize now that the Android app does not automatically sync, so that is very stale. I did have my desktop app syncing to Dropbox. When I look at Dropbox, I see the app folder with dozens of md files that look like notes, with filenames such as: 6f32e6ddf2d14ef0845f2a70b684fda0.md This gives me some hope that my files are all there on Dropbox.

=> Suggestions on how best to carefully recover everything?

Many thanks,
Jay

[laurent]

@grantnlee

Backup: 1.4.1

Normally you have the Backup plugin running - so have a look in ~/JoplinBackup to see if there's a recent backup.

But were the notes really deleted or just moved to the Conflicts notebook (in which case they would still be there)? Any chance you could check the log and see why was everything deleted? You can open in ~/.config/joplin-desktop/log.txt. Then if you search for "DeleteAction", what does it say?

[grantnlee]

So there is a single file in the backup folder, JoplinBackup/default/allnotebooks.jex but that file was created last night at around the time I discovered this. I don't think that I installed any plugins. So I do not think I have any backups.

I did find a log.txt file. The last DeleteAction was back on Setp 11th, so not seeming to be related to my notes disappearing. Here's that log:

2024-09-11 22:54:24: DeleteAction: reduxSharedMiddleware: Delete provisional note: titles: [""]; Item IDs: ["4ea2b246529a4042ab8f9110da61f755"]

My last entries were a sync operation at 8:39 this morning:

2024-09-23 08:39:01: Running background sync on timer...
2024-09-23 08:39:01: Preparing scheduled sync
2024-09-23 08:39:01: Starting scheduled sync
2024-09-23 08:39:01: Synchronizer: Sync: starting: Starting synchronisation to target 7... supportsAccurateTimestamp = false; supportsMultiPut = false} [1727095141584]
2024-09-23 08:39:01: Synchronizer: Indexing resources...
2024-09-23 08:39:01: ResourceService::indexNoteResources: Start
2024-09-23 08:39:01: ResourceService::indexNoteResources: Completed
2024-09-23 08:39:02: Synchronizer: Sync target remote info: {"version":3,"e2ee":{"value":false,"updatedTime":0},"activeMasterKeyId":{"value":"","updatedTime":0},"masterKeys":,"ppk":{"value":null,"updatedTime":0},"appMinVersion":"3.0.0"}
2024-09-23 08:39:02: Synchronizer: Sync target is already setup - checking it...
2024-09-23 08:39:02: Synchronizer: Sync target local info: {"version":3,"e2ee":{"value":false,"updatedTime":0},"activeMasterKeyId":{"value":"","updatedTime":0},"masterKeys":,"ppk":{"value":null,"updatedTime":0},"appMinVersion":"3.0.0"}
2024-09-23 08:39:04: Synchronizer: TaskQueue.stop: syncDownload: waiting for tasks to complete: 0
2024-09-23 08:39:04: Synchronizer: TaskQueue.stop: syncDownload: Done, waited for 0
2024-09-23 08:39:05: Synchronizer: supportsDeltaWithItems =
2024-09-23 08:39:05: Synchronizer: Sync: fetchingTotal: Fetching delta items from sync target
2024-09-23 08:39:05: Synchronizer: Sync: finished: Synchronisation finished [1727095141584]
2024-09-23 08:39:05: Synchronizer: Operations completed:
2024-09-23 08:39:05: Synchronizer: fetchingTotal: -
2024-09-23 08:39:05: Synchronizer: Total folders: 38
2024-09-23 08:39:05: Synchronizer: Total notes: 87
2024-09-23 08:39:05: Synchronizer: Total resources: 17
2024-09-23 08:39:05: checkDisabledSyncItemsNotification: No errors: Hiding notification
2024-09-23 08:39:05: useFormNote: Sync has finished and note has never been changed - reloading it
2024-09-23 08:39:06: DecryptionWorker: cannot start because no master key is currently loaded.
2024-09-23 08:39:11: SearchEngine: Updating FTS table...
2024-09-23 08:39:11: Updating items_normalized from {"updated_time":0,"id":""}
2024-09-23 08:39:11: SearchEngine: Updated FTS table in 2ms. Inserted: 0. Deleted: 0

[personalizedrefriger]

To confirm, is there a Conflicts folder in the sidebar?
Does the Conflicts folder contain any of the missing notes? (Possibly related issue: Don't create a conflict when remote note has been deleted and local has been modified).

[grantnlee]

Okay, crisis averted. You last screenshot triggered some exploratory actions on my part. I did not have any of my Notebooks, only 2 Notes and not Conflicts folder...

My "Sidebar" was hidden. No idea how. But that screen configuration meant I had no way of seeing my Notebooks nor Notes within making it look and felt like all Notes and Notebooks were gone. (They are not gone.)

I discovered the menu item to revert to the default configuration and that brought back the Sidebar. I had no idea there was a screen configuration change.

I suspect somehow I hit the hotkey combination accidentally when doing other work on my laptop which created the issue. But not certain.

Thanks for your support. It was that final screenshot with triggered looking in the right place. My day just got a lot brighter. TY.