Lost data due to conflicted sync?
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Hi, I’ve been working on a draft of a long document in simplenote. This morning, I made a couple of small changes from my phone while it was connected to the network. I then boarded a long flight and did a couple hours of offline work on the same document from my computer. It had not been turned on prior to the flight so would not have synced any changes from the phone. After I got home, I turned on my laptop, connected to wifi and it re-synced the document with what I had on my phone. I can recover some of the additions I made from my computer on the plane by scrolling through history, but it seems whatever was at or below the lines I edited on my phone is lost forever. Is there anyway to recover that lost portion? Confirming that there is nothing in my trash folder helpful to this problem either. It was a lot of work I’ll need to re-do so I’d really like to find a solution.
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What you described sounds like expected behavior with how Simplenote handles syncing and note history. When multiple devices have unsynced versions of the same note, changes from one device (like your phone) can overwrite work from another (like your computer) once both devices go online — even if the changes on the second device were made later.
One thing that may help: the version history slider doesn’t always reflect the timeline chronologically. For example, edits made earlier on one device might appear after more recent ones from another, depending on when each version was synced. So if you haven’t already, it’s worth carefully reviewing several history versions — even those that appear “older” — as your missing work may still be there.
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I’ve checked all the history and its not there. I’m disappointed to hear the expected behavior involves overwriting notes when there is a conflicted version especially since your FAQ page opines about how important data integrity is – “The integrity of your notes is our top priority. Any form of data loss is completely unacceptable.” Why do you guys overwrite data instead of just creating a separate conflicted note (like would be normal behavior in a google drive or dropbox) or doing something a bit more elegant with the history?
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Why do you guys overwrite data instead of just creating a separate conflicted note (like would be normal behavior in a google drive or dropbox) or doing something a bit more elegant with the history?
Thanks for the suggestion. We’ll work to improve the sync process to avoid such this case.
To confirm, have you checked the version history on both your phone and your computer? Do they provide the same history or is there a chance you see any differences which may contain the version you’re looking for?
Also, on your computer, are you using the desktop app (and which platform is it)? Have you also checked on the web app at https://app.simplenote.com/ if you haven’t done so?
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Yes, I’ve checked version histories on my phone, computer, and online and they all look the same and contain the same content from what I can tell.
I’m using windows desktop app 2.23.2. And android phone app 2.35(179)
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Thanks for the update! If you’re not seeing the note update on the web app at https://app.simplenote.com as well as on the app installed on your device, and via the note revisions, then the changes made to the note weren’t synced to the Simplenote servers.
In that case, I’m afraid we’re not able to help you recover the lost note. For future notes, we recommend giving the app some time to sync your changes to the servers, especially after you edited a long note. Sometimes a network glitch may disrupt the connection from your device to the Simplenote servers too. You may also want to make sure that you allow the Simplenote app to run in the background so it can access the internet to sync your note changes in the background after you close the app.
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