Syncing between devices really unreliable
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I’m getting really irritated by the unreliability of cross device sync in Simplenote, and wondered if anyone else had seen this or had any tips?
For example – I’ll create a note on my phone. I’ll then edit on my desktop PC. Then, when I go back to my phone, the update just isn’t there. Even worse (and to my mind, unforgivably) if I don’t notice and just update the note on my phone, the PC edits are lost unless I notice and manually go into the history to find them. Surely the server should be able to recognise that the update came from a device which was out of date with the server and give some kind of warning?
If I notice that a note is out of date, the only way I’ve found to “force” an update is to manually log out and back in again – that’s a real pain and I can’t see why it’s necessary, but honestly the problem is that devices aren’t syncing automatically and reliably.
I’m using four different devices (desktop, laptop, tablet, phone) and I’ve seen this on all four of them, and definitely lost data as a result of not noticing things were out of sync. Is cross device sync just not reliable in Simplenote and should I look for an alternative app?
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This “works for me” across two iPads and a Win 10 laptop. The problem may have something to do with your specific setup, like maybe unreliable internet access, or outdated app versions.
Could you please identify the OS version and Simplenote app version on each of your devices?
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All the versions are up to date – the tablet and phone are running 2.26 with nothing newer showing on the app store (both Android), and 2.21.0 on desktop (Win 10 pro). All devices have fast reliable internet connections (I’m on fibre) – and the fact that logging out and logging back in causes an update suggests that this can’t be a network issue. The fact that I can actually update the server with a new note without having the latest note synced downwards feels like it has to be some kind of bug to me. Surely even if the client was out of date, the server shouldn’t allow an overwrite from a device which is desynced without a warning?
This doesn’t happen all the time, obviously, but it’s happened often enough that it’s really damaging my confidence in simplenote as a way to store information.
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One thing to check in on that could cause unreliability like you’ve described is to see if you have a ad-blocker, VPN or firewall set up on the device that seems to have the most trouble, which seems to be your PC. Those can be over protective and block our app from communicating with our servers.
Another thing to check would be to see if using the web app on the PC improves things. The web app syncs more directly to our servers, without storing data on your device before syncing like the Windows app does, so if it also has trouble it’s more likely to be something on your network causing the issue than something in the app.
Let us know how it goes!
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Thanks – I’m not sure what’s preventing things from syncing, but my real objection is that the apps and server together seem quite happy to let an app overwrite changes on the server. I would have thought that when an app sends an update, it should include the last revision it received from the server, and if the server sees that the update request is out of date, there should be a warning – not just a silent overwrite server side. (I know it’s possible to recover the overwritten data using history, but that’s only useful if you realise it’s happened… and there are no warnings!)
Using the website instead is a good idea, though, as presumably that can’t get out of sync.
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I would have thought that when an app sends an update, it should include the last revision it received from the server, and if the server sees that the update request is out of date, there should be a warning – not just a silent overwrite server side.
That’s a good suggestion. The problem is, sometimes the server might not know which one is the newer.
For example, editing was made on Device A on date 1. Then, editing on Device B on date 2. However, the edit on Device A was not synced on date 1, but instead, when it opened on date 3. The server would recognize the update was made on date 3 (instead of 1), so it considers the newer one (while it’s not).
We’ll work on improving the sync process, but in the meantime, please do give the web app a try and let us know if that helps with your case!
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Thanks – the server might not know which was newer, but it should know whether updates have been made on the server since the device last synced, and I would expect that to give a warning. In your example, when Device A comes online and tries to sync (on date 3), the server should recognise that (a) Device A hasn’t been synced since date 1, and (b) there was a revision on date 2, which is newer.. I’m guessing that popping up a diff would be overwhelming for most users, but some kind of warning that there were conflicting edits would be useful – at the moment, the revision from date 2 is silently overwritten, which risks data loss (and loss of user trust!).
Sadly, I’ve found the web apps rather unreliable on mobile (using either Firefox or Chrome for Android, both up to date), so at the moment I’m using a combination of manually eyeballing notes and trying to tell if they’re up to date, or logging out and logging back in to force a refresh…
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I’m guessing that popping up a diff would be overwhelming for most users, but some kind of warning that there were conflicting edits would be useful – at the moment, the revision from date 2 is silently overwritten, which risks data loss (and loss of user trust!).
I will share your suggestion with our engineers for consideration. Thanks for sharing that feedback with us, Timjon.
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I have a similar issue and just noticed something interesting.
I’m using Simplenote on my PC and my Android phone, but also in the browser because I wanted to investigate the unreliable syncing.
Mostly I use the app on my PC. In the past days, I updated several notes there, but it never synced to my phone nor the webapp. In the list of notes on the left side there are spinning arrows on the right side, they spin since days and only for the notes I changed. Now comes the interesting part. If I change one of the notes I changed on the PC app just slightly (for example adding a word) in the android app or the webapp, the complete changes are synced in all apps, and the spinning arrow in the PC app goes away.
With notes I created on the PC app that are not yet synced, this is not working of course, I had to create them again on the Web app, than they are also synced to the PC app instantly.
So to me it seems, that the PC app can sync “downstream”, so from the internet, but not into the internet. I have a PiHole in my network, but I disabled it during my test, it made no difference.
Maybe someone with the same reliability issues can test if it behaves similar?
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Hi. If you edit a note in the browser app on the PC, is it synced immediately? The busy wheel in the sidebar should appear briefly after each change.
Is it possible that your PC firewall is preventing the Simplenote PC app from uploading to the server?
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This happens to me if I am on a device where the connection to simplenote servers are blocked, like when I am at work and my device is on the company network. They block certain websites, including Gmail and Simplenote. When I switch my device to a different data network, e.g. cellphone data, immediate sync works again.
If one of your devices is not syncing as expected, try connecting to a different data network, if available.
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If one of your devices is not syncing as expected, try connecting to a different data network, if available.
@eakhine That’s a good suggestion! Thank you!
For others with sync issues, testing it over several different internet connections is always a good idea. The most common cause of this problem is communication difficulties between the app and the web. Test on mobile data, Wi-Fi at home, and Wi-Fi at a place like a cafe or a library where possible.
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Hi
I’m also having issues with syncing. I have been using it on an Android phone and an iPad which has been working fine…until now.
Help said to check the web app first and I was shocked to see the web app would not load anything….perhaps this has something to do with the firewall?
So I went to my iPad and tried to do the import export (it has the latest I think) and I can’t find the functionality which I can see on the Android.
Any suggestions?
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This is not a satisfactory solution.
I have also been experiencing issues with syncing for the last two weeks. I have tried connecting through different networks and using a VPN, but I have only experienced reliable service for one day this week.
And for what it’s worth, responses on a different forum imply that users outside the US are the only ones experiencing sync issues.
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Could anyone having these connection problems try ‘nslookup simperium.com’ and let us know the results? If you cannot access nslookup, try entering ‘simperium.com’ in a browser and see what the result is. It would also help if you could identify your internet provider, in case this is related to a specific company. I suspect that this is a DNS problem, not a server problem, and these results should tell us that.
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@hrazaq. Could you please identify the other forum that implies users outside the US are the one experiencing problems?
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Thank you. This is a nice and quick way to see if one has a connection to sync service/server.
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“try entering ‘simperium.com’ in a browser and see what the result is.”
Thank you. This is a nice and quick way to see if one has a connection to sync service/server.
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Looks like sync isn’t working. I can’t access simperium.com. I’ve tried multiple connections and neither worked.
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