Closing the app with unsynchronized could cause data loss
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Please help me understand the deeper meaning behind this message? I know I’m offline and I made a change to a note. If at that point I know if I throw the laptop away that will be lost but what is the real risk of data loss if the laptop does eventually go back online?
I experienced this message in the windows app, I know I was offline at the time. I routinely bounce between the windows app and the iphone app. I’ve experimented a bit with offline changes and I’m not seeing anything strange, even if I make changes in both devices offline the changes just pile on top of each other when connectivity is restored which is what I want.
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Hi @scottjalbert 👋
The Simplenote app requires active internet access to sync your notes to the server to be accessible on other devices. If the notes are not synced when you’re offline, it will attempt to sync your data again whenever your device has an internet connection.
However, if you close the app or the OS kills the process that runs the app before it has the chance to sync, there might be a chance that the unsynced data will be lost.
On some occasions, your other device with the older content of the note might overwrite the data and cause what we thought was data loss. A sample sequence of events could be like this:
- You changed a note on Device A at 00:00, but the note didn’t get synced to Simplenote servers, probably due to an internet connection issue.
- You then made another change on the same note on Device B at around 00:30 and the note was synced to the Simplenote servers.
- When you access Device A with an active internet connection, the changes you made at 00:00 will be synced to the server and overwrite the changes made on Device B.
In this case, the data was never lost, but it was in the earlier version of the note history. If you check the note history, the slider will show the record of 00:00 being the latest change, followed by 00:30.
I hope this clarifies. Please let us know if there’s anything else we can help you with!
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“When you access Device A with an active internet connection, the changes you made at 00:00 will be synced to the server and overwrite the changes made on Device B.”
Under what circumstances would that happen? That is exactly what I want to NEVER happen.
In my testing this sort of situation seems to ADD the changes made earlier offline to the more recent updates made from another device, which seems like the correct behavior to me even if it does jumble things up a bit if two things were on the same line for example.
My testing was all additive, I was adding data in both devices and not deleting anything. The offline device just added the section I added offline to the updated note. That’s 90% of my personal use case so as long as that’s what is expected I should be OK.
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To prevent unforeseen sync issues including the one I mention, we recommend:
- Ensure your device allows the app to access cellular data when it doesn’t connect to WiFi.
- If the device is on WiFi, make sure there are no VPN/proxy/security app settings that might block the app’s access to the Simplenote server (please refer to this guide for more details).
- Depending on the device you’re using, some OS restrict app’s background activity. You’ll want to check if Simplenote is one of those apps that is restricted. Otherwise, you’ll want to make sure the notes are synced (by double-checking on the web app at https://app.simplenote.com) before closing the app.
- Avoid opening the note on two different devices. For example, we do not recommend editing the note on the mobile app while having the same note opening on the desktop.
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I must admit this isn’t a reassuring conversation. I was hoping to find answers about assured saving to disk and conflict resolution upon connectivity restore. Instead you are hitting me with:
“Avoid opening the note on two different devices. For example, we do not recommend editing the note on the mobile app while having the same note opening on the desktop.”
The message I encountered offered a way to export the note to a file before closing the app. IMO that should be automatic and then prompt for review on connectivity return and differences detected between last sync local copy and what’s online.
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The message I encountered offered a way to export the note to a file before closing the app.
The app indeed has a warning when it detected the changes you made on that specific device wasn’t synced.
As for the recommendation on not opening the note on more than one device, it is to prevent the note content from getting overwritten by an older version, as explained in the scenario in my previous comment here.
IMO that should be automatic and then prompt for review on connectivity return and differences detected between last sync local copy and what’s online.
This is a very good point. While we do have the note revision/history feature where you can view and restore the note content, it would be great that the app detected this automatically and suggest a review before “committing” the change.
I’ve shared your suggestion to the team for consideration to improve the syncing mechanism in the app. Thanks again for your valuable input!
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I have had SN on my PC, laptop, tablet and mobile phone for quite some time and it has always worked splendidly without errors. However, in the past few days, the error, “Closing the app with unsynchronized notes could cause data loss” has been nagging me. Moreover, though the changes I made have already been reflected on both devices, I keep getting this nag. :-( My Wi Fi is rock solid, so that is not the issue. What is the cure for this.
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On the PC app I need to switch between several notes to trigger the sync for the one I’m working on. Then it’s safe to close the app, and I don’t get the warning after doing that.
On mobile I need to make sure I exit the note and go back to the list to trigger sync.
After learning these habits I’ve mostly not had any problems. Rarely I’ll blow something away with unsynced changes and then making a edit on another device. That recovery process has been copy what I added on the other device and then use the history viewer to recover whatever got lost between device sync problems. Then paste in whatever that last update was.
I would very much prefer a merging of unsyncronized items. Sure it will be a jumble sometimes but just don’t wipe out data, let me sort it out. I understand Simplenote does not want to hammer the sync server but the real problem here seems to be conflict resolution.
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OK, I was just hit with this and no amount of switching between notes got it to sync. Then I log in here and see this; https://forums.simplenote.com/forums/topic/simplenote-servers-performance-issues-august-2023/
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I would like to explore how it is possible that a days worth of notes (Monday) being taken in windows app and then NOT receiving the message “Closing the app with unsynchronized could cause data loss” on exit could result in that days worth of notes being overwritten by the previous weeks revisions, wiping out all of Mondays notes.
I know I didn’t open Simplenote on mobile devices but the only excuse I can think of is it might have been running in background. Even if that’s the reason there was a pretty basic failure in that it didn’t check for a new record before overwriting newer Monday information with a note last revised last week.
Mondays notes being available in the history viewer tells me somewhere, somehow, conflict resolution just isn’t working.
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I would like to explore how it is possible that a days worth of notes (Monday) being taken in windows app and then NOT receiving the message “Closing the app with unsynchronized could cause data loss” on exit could result in that days worth of notes being overwritten by the previous weeks revisions, wiping out all of Mondays notes.
Am I understanding correctly that the note revision shows the previous weeks revision as the latest version of the note, while the Monday revision was shown as an older history?
In the meantime, I’ve reached out to you in email via the email address of your WordPress.com account to gather more details for investigations. Please respond to the email and we’ll follow up with you from there. Thank you!
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Hei,
Question if the inclusion of Infrared Technology will make the Sync System better across Devices by creating something like the Space-Time Fabric_something Purple?
Also, there is a significant difference between the Data on my Application & the Online Site. There is no Manual Sync Option, can you help me with this?
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Hi @aivaijhon!
If the notes from https://app.simplenote.com/ are all correct and up to date, you can safely log out and log back in to the Simplenote app on all your devices. When you log in again, all of the notes that are stored on the Simplenote service will be re-synced and that should resolve any syncing issues going forward.
Simplenote Support Forums 