Lost entries

RyanTurner

Timo,
I purchased the pro version after a week and some of my entries were synced. I guess I didn't realize that the entries I made after that weren't syncing and are now gone after I closed the app. I keep syncing with my icloud account, but they are not showing up. Is there any way I can recover what's been lost? Thank you.
-Ryan

timo

Thanks for the purchase and sorry for the problem.
Could you please provide more info, like the ones that are asked for when creating a ticket (operating system, app version)?
Did the trial version stop or did you buy the app before it ran out? When the trial version runs out, the Sync is automatically disabled and you need to reenable it.
Can you also explain the problem in more detail? Right now I don't really understand what you are seeing. Please describe as detailed as possible. You wrote entries, closed the app, then reopened the app and the entries were gone?

RyanTurner

timo
Yes, thank you for your response. I was using the app for the first 7 days and had it synced to my icloud account. The made some diary entries for 9 days worth of time before the trial period ended. Those entries are still saved. When I purchased the full app I guess I didn't realize that the auto sync was disabled, however I though I had manually synced it to my icloud a few times. I am using the app on both my iphone and macbook and thought I was syncing the devices both to icould. I have been using the app for about 2 weeks now and lost about 20 days worth of entries because I guess they didn't sync when I closed the app on either my phone or computer. Is the data stored somewhere else, or would I have to rewrite my entries?
-Ryan

timo

Unfortunately you still didn't mention the app versions and I still don't understand how you lost those entries. The data is stored locally on your device, it doesn't just disappear. If the entries were there on a device before, they still should be there (unless you manually deleted individual entries or reset the database or reinstalled the app).
It is not required for the app to sync in order for the entries to be saved to the local database.
In order for me to help you need to provide more information (like what I asked for above) as well as describe in detail what data was on what device and when this changed and WHEN you think you lost entries and on what device. Did you enable the Sync on both devices and did you select iCloud sync on both devices? When did you enable the sync on each device? When did you buy the Pro version on each device? What data is now present on each device? The 20 days that you say you lost, were they previously on both devices or only on one? ...

RyanTurner

The app version I am using on my macbook is 2.9.37 and the version on my iphone is the same version. When I downloaded the app I made a few bullet points on what I wanted to write about (a few days in November, and half of December and January). Then I took a vacation for Christmas and wrote on all the days I was gone. I later went back and expanded on the days that I made bullet points for. About a week ago is when I purchased the full app. I never manually deleted any entries and thought I was syncing the entries I made after I wrote. Most of the time I was using my macbook, and some of the time I using my iphone to make entries. I was able to see the entries I made on both my macbook and iphone. Today is when I noticed that the entries I made for the vacation I took and the bullet points are still there. But the 20 days I expanded on are gone (except the bullet points). I got on today and synced my phone and my computer and that's when I noticed that my entries were not there anymore. I'm trying to figure out if when I synced my macbook and iphone separately if that cause the entries to revert back and be lost. Does that help?

RyanTurner

I was syncing both my macbook and iphone separately so I'd be able to know which days i already wrote about and so I didn't lose my place. I think what happened is that I was primarily using my computer to make entries even though I wasn't connected to internet. I used my phone one of the days to write and synced it to my icloud account. Then when I synced my computer app to the icloud, it synced to when I didnt have those entries written from my phone. Does that make sense? Should it matter which one is synced first, or which app has the entries typed out? Hopefully that made sense.

timo

Thanks for the info. My guess is that you added content to the 20 entries with the bullet points on one device and then continued to use the app on both devices, without the sync being active. When you re-enabled the sync, Diarium has to deal with two individual databases (one from iOS and one from macOS) and merge them. Currently, the merging process (which happens on a "sync download", meaning the app downloads the remote database from iCloud) keeps the entire remote database, then grabs the last 7 entries (by entry date, not by modification date) from the local database and merges them to the remote database (which becomes the new local database).
This is a problem that only can happen when the sync is disabled and no sync is happening right before/after editing the journal. The problem in your case also was that you edited older entries which were then not considered in the merging process. I am afraid there is no way to recover this data - sorry.

I will look into the merging logic in more detail in the upcoming days and see if there is any possible problem when removing the "7 entry" limitation to further reduce the possibility of data loss.
I will also try to make it more clear to users that syncing will be disabled after the trial version runs out.
Sorry again for this problem and the loss of data - this shouldn't happen and I will work on fixing this.

RyanTurner

Thank you! I really appreciate your help and clarification. It’s not the end of the world, but at least now I know what I know and can move forward. Should I sync each time I make an entry on either platform or should I be ok if auto sync is on now?

timo

Thanks for understanding. You should normally not have to sync manually, because the app automatically syncs when you open/close/maximize/minimize the app. But it can't hurt to check if the little checkmark in the sync icon is present (which signals that the app is "in sync" with the database on your iCloud). If it is not, then manually clicking the button is recommended.

RyanTurner

Ahhh I see!! Thanks again!

timo

I had a closer look at the merge logic and it seems like Diarium actually already merges all entries (not just the last 7), however it does only check for content changes in the last 7. In your case, there still were those older entries, in both "remote" and "local" database during the merge and Diarium didn't select the correct (longer) ones based on the text content length.