Lost 2 years of data after updating app
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I am a Simplenote user and have always appreciated its simplicity and ease of use. I even recommended it to my mother, she uses it daily for everything from quick notes to journaling and storing all kinds of important work/life information.
We’ve been using an older version of Android app. I don’t recall the version but it was from before the import/export feature was introduced.
Recently I logged in to the web app and found that it only shows notes up to July 2022. All newer notes and changes made on the Android app haven’t been synced. I checked the internet connection, waited for a long time, and tried typing something to trigger a sync, but nothing worked.
I suspect that this older version might have stopped syncing at some point, so I updated the app hoping that it would resolve the sync. I expected the updated app will detect the local notes and upload them to the server, however it didn’t do this but instead instantly displayed a login screen. After logging in, it overrode the device with the outdated server data, completely wiping out all notes and changes made since 2022!
Info:
- We have stable internet connection every day and our network can access simplenote.com without problems. In fact syncing works fine on the updated version.
- We only used Simplenote on 1 Android device since 2022. We did use it across multiple devices before that and syncing worked correctly at the time.
- We only used 1 account and pretty sure it’s correct.
- Currently both app.simplenote.com and the updated Android app only show notes up to July 2022. The missing notes are not in the Trash or history.
I searched the forum and found numerous similar reports:
https://forums.simplenote.com/forums/topic/all-notes-since-june-2022-have-dissapeared/
https://forums.simplenote.com/forums/topic/lost-a-year-of-notes-after-moving-to-a-new-phone/
https://forums.simplenote.com/forums/topic/i-lost-all-my-notes-on-my-android-phone/
https://forums.simplenote.com/forums/topic/lost-all-notes-since-2022-after-updating-app/
https://forums.simplenote.com/forums/topic/lost-2-yrs-of-data/
It seems the older version silently stopped syncing around 2022, and:
- There were no display of sync status in the app’s UI. The account still showed as logged in, with no sync error messages or displays of the last sync time; no warning about any necessary updates. I never realized the notes weren’t synced until I logged into the web app.
- It’s understandable that older versions might stop working at some point. But why did the update decide to discard all local data WITHOUT WARNING and overwrite it with outdated notes? The old version didn’t have the export function so I couldn’t even back up hundreds of notes before updating (which ironically is one of the reasons I updated because I want to use the export to keep a safer backup, not realizing it would lead to a disaster)
Even after 2 yesars people are still experiencing this issue. If the data truly wasn’t synced, does it mean it’s gone forever? My mother’s device isn’t rooted so we can’t access /data/data. I’d really like to request a feature to detect and recover local data from older versions in the newer version.
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Today I tested updating the Simplenote app on my own Android device, which I haven’t used for quite some time. It was version 2.1x (newer than my mother’s) which had the “Export” option but no “Import”. Again when the update is completed it immediately logged me out and required me to re-login. Fortunately my previous notes were synchronized normally so I didn’t lose anything.
However given that the app may silently delay or lose syncing occasionally or permanently at some point, and it doesn’t seem to wanna be responsible for local data, it’s not difficult to imagine how forcing a logout on app update could lead to data loss. Some users are right that you should warn of the risk in big letters somewhere that updating the app could result in data loss.
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Hi. Does this mean that you’ve solved your data loss problem?
Also, note that the web app offers both Import and Export (under Settings, Tools), provided the data has been synced. However, Import does not recognize duplicates, even when notes have the same title, so don’t import content that’s already there.
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Hello, no! The problem is not solved.
In the main post, it was my mother who lost data from her account on her device: she had a lot of notes and the app had lost sync since July 2022. When I updated the app on her device a few days ago, the app forced a logout and re-login, causing all non-synced data since July 2022 to be lost.In my first reply under the post, I updated the app on my own device (with my own account and a different app version) to test if the update behaved the same for me. The result turned out the same: it caused a forced logout and re-login. It was just a test, and anyway all my notes are quite old from around 2020, they were properly synced by then, so I didn’t loss anything on my own account. (But I assume that IF I ever had any non-synced data, the forced re-login would also result in data loss.)
Back to my mother’s account, no, her data is still lost and hasn’t been found anywhere yet.
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Sorry for the confusion, the whole main post was talking about my mother’s data. When I say “we”, it means her device / her single account / her data.
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@shigure4433, have you had her login to our web app to see if the data is present there?
https://app.simplenote.com/login/
Also, could she have ended up logging in to a different account after the app update? Has she tried logging in to the web app using a different email address to see if the data may be present in another account?
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@mikerockwell Hello. I helped my mother set up the app and her account (including the email) on her device. I’m the one who manages the app and her account; she’s the actual user who writes notes using this 1 account on her device. She has never messed with the settings or account herself.
It was me who did the operations mentioned in the main post: checking her account and notes on her device and <u>app.simplenote.com</u>, updating the app, witnessing the notes disappear from the app first hand, etc. The info in the main post should answer the questions:
- We have stable internet connection every day and our network can access simplenote.com without problems. In fact syncing works fine on the updated version.
- We only used Simplenote on 1 Android device since 2022. We did use it across multiple devices before that and syncing worked correctly at the time.
- We only used 1 account and pretty sure it’s correct (before and after updating app). There’s no other different accounts or emails.
- Currently both app.simplenote.com and the updated Android app only show notes up to July 2022. The missing notes are not in the Trash or history.
Sorry if I make the situation sound complicated. Perhaps “my mother” doesn’t matter in this context. It’s fine to communicate with me directly since it was I who did the operations all the time when the issue happened.
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So far I haven’t received any help on how to recover the lost data or any explanation as to why this happened. I read through all the posts on the forum and can only conclude that losing local data like this is equivalent to permanent death, and Simplenote has no plans to implement improved handling or safeguards of local data on the app side when such sync issues occur.
I’ve recommended that my mother switch to a different app that has better error indication, so at least users can at least be aware of sync failures immediately; and the app won’t decide to discard your data during an update. It’s frustrating as it’s difficult to find an app with just the right features we need like Simplenote did.
Any solutions on how to recover the data are still welcome. The lost notes are very important and we still want to get them back.
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@shigure4433 We know the frustration and impact this data loss has caused. We understand how important these notes are to you and your mother, and it’s disheartening to hear that this experience has affected your trust in Simplenote. We appreciate you taking the time to share these details and do the research to help shed light on the issue—it’s really valuable feedback.
We’ll be sharing this directly with our development team to look into potential improvements for safeguarding data and providing better error indications in cases where sync issues occur. While we can’t guarantee an immediate solution, we want you to know that we’re listening and taking this seriously.
In the meantime, if there are any further insights or details our team can provide, we’ll reach out right away. Thank you again for your patience, and please feel free to let us know if there’s anything else we can do to help.
Simplenote Support Forums 