Notes Get Erased & Replaced with Different Note

[streetwriters]

This is the same issue as 114, but it's gotten worse. The app has now replaced 4 of my notes with duplicated notes.

I can confirm that this happens when I'm in a notebook or color note view and then click on a note entry, and click on another and back.

The first one I clicked on gets duplicated over the 2nd one I clicked.

The undo button is greyed out on the 2nd note which has been replaced by the 1st note content and creation date. The 2nd note title remains unchanged from its original one.

I hope this can be fixed asap, this is a critical bug and I hope my precious notes can be recovered too.

Can you please let me know:

1. How can I restore my notes? I have backups but when I try to restore them it saying its missing an attachment hash?
2. Can I restore a single note from a backup?
3. How can I stop this bug from happening again?

Device information:
App version: 1.6.7-3a28f45-desktop
OS: OS X 10.15.7
Browser: Electron 15.0.0

[ammarahm-ed]

Hey I apologize for the inconvenience and lost notes. I tried to reproduce the issue on the desktop app and the web app. But I was unable to. But I am investigating this. This is happening probably due to a race condition.

How can I restore my notes? I have backups but when I try to restore them it saying its missing an attachment hash?

The problem with backups not restoring has been confirmed and will be fixed asap. Track here #118.

Can I restore a single note from a backup?

It's not possible to restore specific stuff from a backup.

How can I stop this bug from happening again?

We are investigating the problem and will fix this so it doesn't happen again.

[franekp]

I tried to reproduce the issue on the desktop app and the web app. But I was unable to. But I am investigating this.

Maybe you didn't try hard enough. It just happened to me after a few days of usage. Why wouldn't it come out in automated testing? Surely you know about Selenium and that you can use it to try thousands of random combinations of create note / edit / switch to another. Please invest the required effort, surely by hand it might be hard to reproduce - it's a race condition after all.

Your app is really amazing and is the best note-taking app I have ever tried. But if I can't trust it, it's doesn't matter!
Why would anyone buy a product that randomly deletes user data?

Best regards,
Franek

[franekp]

And the in-app bug-report also didn't work for me, that's why I am writing it here. Screenshot below:

[thecodrr]

@franekp I'll write a stress test to reproduce this and report my findings.

[franekp]

Thanks a lot! I hope it goes well :)

Sorry for the somewhat harsh tone of my last message, but this is a very severe problem and it seemed to me that you might be prioritizing other bells-and-whistles instead of this crucial fix.

[thecodrr]

it seemed to me that you might be prioritizing other bells-and-whistles instead of this crucial fix.

Bug fixing is our highest priority right now (which evident in how often we are pushing releases).

I hope it goes well :)

I wrote a stress test that creates 100 notes and switches between them very fast. I ran it on all the 3 major browsers (Firefox, Chrome & Safari). The issue could not be reproduced. Now either the issue has been fixed or there's another way to reproduce it.

Which version did you last get it on?

[franekp]

Oh, this is quite hard to say. Didn't really track when I reload the web page. The bug happened today and I can't say when I reloaded the page the last time before it appeared. Possibilities: today, yesterday, the day before yesterday.

The version that is on the screenshot, 1.6.8-f6e81f8-web, is after I have reloaded the page after the issue has occurred.

I'd try to also mix switching with syncing and editing. I think you should be able to tell from the code changes whether they could have fixed it or not. Maybe you can do a stress-test with a version from before a few days and then you will be sure whether it has been fixed or just the stress-test does not reproduce it.

[thecodrr]

@franekp can you try upgrading to v1.6.10 and see if the issue persists. There were some massive changes in how note content is handled and the editor so perhaps it got fixed.

I'll move back to v1.6.8 and before to stress test and reproduce the bug.

[franekp]

@thecodrr Ok, I discovered that reloading the web page does not upgrade app version. How do I upgrade then?

[thecodrr]

The app automatically updates after a couple a days. However, if you want to force an upgrade you can do a hard refresh. Shift + F5 should do the job on most browsers.

[franekp]

Ok, I did Ctrl+F5, now I have 1.6.10.

Now when I open a note, it is stuck on "Loading editor, please wait...". Screenshot:

[franekp]

Ok, this problem is because uBlock origin stopped the "analytics" request, which prevented the editor from loading. This is another bug, you may open another issue for that.

Turning off uBlock origin on this tab has resolved the issue.

[thecodrr]

uBlock is stopping the editor bundle from downloading. It's a false positive. There's no analytics request sent on editor load.

I'll try and repro this on my end.

[franekp]

There were some massive changes in how note content is handled and the editor so perhaps it got fixed.

Alright, I'll give it another try then and see whether the issue happens again over the next few days.

[thecodrr]

@franekp Did you face the issue again?

[thecodrr]

Closing since no similar bug has been reported by anyone recently.