Simplenote Android app silently stops syncing changes
-
First off thank you for Simplenote, it’s a great program and app, I’ve been using it across half a dozen of my devices for almost a decade.
The issue I’m currently facing, and which I’ve ran into multiple times in the past, is that the Simplenote Android app stops syncing its changes. It will still download changes to notes from other devices, but it will not upload its own changes. It will not upload new notes, nor will it upload changes to pre-existing notes. All of my other devices (including another Android device) are able to sync bidirectionally.
The most troubling aspect of this is that the failure is silent and can easily lead to data loss. (Although at this point it’s happened so much that I’ve become paranoid and reduced my usage of Simplenote due to the risk of data loss.) Aside from the noticing that my changes aren’t present on other devices, the only indication of a problem is if I tap the info icon to see Synced/Modified/Created/Words/Characters info. The Synced date will be remain older than the Modified date on the app. Or, for a new note create on the app, there will be no Synced date listed.
If I make a change to a note that I’ve modified on my phone (but which has not synced due to the bug) and restart the app, the modification from the phone is lost. It is not in the note history either.
Restarting the app does not fix the issue. Restarting my phone does not fix the issue. The only reliable way I’ve found to fix it is by completely deleting all app data, reauthenticating, and letting it re-download all of my notes. Since I have so many notes, this takes a long time and makes the app laggy an unusable while it’s downloading. It also uses a great deal of data to redownload everything. And of course, I have to manually export my unsynced changes before I do this, otherwise they are lost.
Versions:
- Android 16
- Simplenote 2.37
Note, this issue has recurred multiple times over the past 2-3 years. Sometimes it is fixed by waiting (for days), sometimes it is fixed by reinstalling. These are not really acceptable solutions to me for a recurring problem.
-
Hi. We sometimes see internet routing problems where users on some networks have trouble accessing the servers, while most others have no difficulty. Is it possible that the Android device with the problem is connected to a different network (presumably cellular) from the networks used by the other devices?
While you are experiencing this problem, see if you can reach simperium.com from a browser on the Android device. You won’t be able to login there, but should be able to reach the site. That is the cloud service Simplenote uses for syncing. You could also try a traceroute to simperium.com from both the problem device (when it is working) and one that works. See if they follow different paths across the internet.
By the way, you can check that updates have reached the servers by logging in to app.simplenote.com in a browser. That web app accesses the server directly. I do this quite often, with the sort order set to “newest first”, so I can confirm that recent changes have been stored.
-
Today the problem started while on home wifi (same network as most of my other devices). Confirmed that I can access simperium.com on my device on wifi. Just tried turning wifi off and I can also access simperium.com just fine that way. Testing now, the syncing is still broken on the Simplenote Android app, regardless of wifi vs cell.
Just now, I tested on my other Android device (Android 12, Simplenote 2.37) and syncing works perfectly fine there. Just created a note and it appears on all my other devices, including the originally mentioned problematic Android device.
Traceroute to simperium.com looks to be the same between all three devices.
Now in the middle of typing this, the problem seems to have resolved itself (after about four hours). Not sure if anything I did resolved it: toggling wifi on/off, powering on my second Android device, creating and editing a bunch of notes for debugging.
Thanks for the tip on app.simplenote.com in a browser. I’ll check that next time to see if I can gather more information that way. That may be helpful for debugging, but unfortunately I don’t think it’s a solution to the trouble I keep having with the app. Ideally a) the app would alert me if syncing is broken and b) the app wouldn’t lose edits that are made when syncing is broken.
-
Hmmm. I notice that your working Android is running the older Android 12, while the problem one has the current Android 16. You know, Android implementations vary by manufacturer. Is the problem device possibly a Samsung phone or tablet? Also, have you used any settings that might limit an app’s ability to upload data?
Simplenote Support Forums 