Synching produces a mess of duplicate text.

FredericGray

Diarium version: 3.088
OS + version: 17.6.1
Device model: iPad, iPhone, Windows laptop

Within the last few days when I use more than one device and synch them, a lot of text gets duplicated. It looks like each version of some text appears on all three devices. This is very annoying and when I try to clean it up it just gets worse, rendering the app difficuly to use on multiple devices. Now I can;t even clean t up as each attempt just makes it worse.

Here is an example:

To Do
Submit papers for CertainTeed
Send email to Travis [08:41]
Finish Investment paper and give it to her printed and on flash drive
Spend UHC bucks
Take return to UPS
Go to ALDI for tea and such, then Dollar Tree
Submit papers for CertainTeed
Send email to Travis [08:41]
Finish Investment paper and give it to her printed and on flash drive
Take return to UPS
Go to ALDI for tea and such, then Dollar Tree
Submit papers for CertainTeed
Send email to Travis [08:41]
Finish Investment paper and give it to her printed and on flash drive
Spend UHC bucks
Take return to UPS
Go to ALDI for tea and such, then Dollar Tree
Submit papers for CertainTeed
Send email to Travis [08:41]
Finish Investment paper and give it to her printed and on flash drive
Spend UHC bucks [done]
Take return to UPS [17:00]
Go to ALDI for tea and such, then Dollar Tree [17:15]
Submit papers for CertainTeed [done]
Send email to Travis [08:41]
Finish Investment paper and give it to her printed and on flash drive [Done]
Spend UHC bucks [done]
Take return to UPS [done]
Go to ALDI for tea and such, then Dollar Tree [half]
Submit papers for CertainTeed
Send email to Travis [08:41]
Finish Investment paper and give it to her printed and on flash drive
Spend UHC bucks
Take return to UPS
Go to ALDI for tea and such, then Dollar Tree
Submit papers for CertainTeed
Send email to Travis [08:41]
Finish Investment paper and give it to her printed and on flash drive
Take return to UPS
Go to ALDI for tea and such, then Dollar Tree
Submit papers for CertainTeed
Send email to Travis [08:41]
Finish Investment paper and give it to her printed and on flash drive
Spend UHC bucks
Take return to UPS
Go to ALDI for tea and such, then Dollar Tree
Submit papers for CertainTeed
Send email to Travis [08:41]
Finish Investment paper and give it to her printed and on flash drive
Spend UHC bucks [done]
Take return to UPS [17:00]
Go to ALDI for tea and such, then Dollar Tree [17:15]

timo

In a recent update, Diarium adopted a text merging when syncing and there was a conflict, see here - in order to prevent loss of data.
But this change can cause duplicated text, because the app simply cannot know what text was intentional written, and which wasn't.
To "clean it up", you simply need to make sure the app is synced on all devices, then remove the text on one and let that change sync to all devices.
Generally, it is strongly recommended to only enter text when the journal is fully synced (which should be the default, when you have auto sync enabled). If you can provide me with clear steps on how to reproduce this behavior, I am happy to look into it

FredericGray

OK. So what do I do? I can no longer use Diarium on my three machines. SO I will use another app that does not repeat corrected text, such as Simple Note, and then copy the finished daily text into the Diarium app one one machine.

It may not be a bug to you but it sure is to me. And I have 10,800 entries

timo

FredericGray OK. So what do I do?

I wrote it in my comment above.

Make sure all devices are synced
Make the desired change on one device, then sync
Sync on the remaining devices

I am almost certain this would resolve the issue. Does it not?

Fcgiii

timo

This issue started on 30 July. Before that i did not see it, oddly except for this sole instance on July 9 in the middle of an otherwise clean log. Interestingly I can guarantee I only put this news entry in one time, most likely on my I pad.

News
Record high heat in Death Valley: 125°.
Record high heat in Death Valley: 125°.

Record high heat in Death Valley: 125°.
Record high heat in Death Valley: 125°.
Record high heat in Death Valley: 125°.

Record high heat in Death Valley: 125°.

I typically set up a log on one device and add to as the day progresses, which I will now avoid doing.

I applied the procedure you suggested and it does work.
I will continue to check this out.
Something odd is going on here.
Or perhaps I am just Odd.

Fred

timo

Fcgiii As I wrote above, can you please provide clear step-by-step instructions on how to reproduce this? The only option I have at the moment is just to remove the feature again, but this could then lead to loss of data when an entry has been edited on two separated devices without syncing, just like before the change

FredericGray

timo

Last night i Used my iPad to go back and correct all the duplicate text from July to today. I then synched my iPad.
Everything looked good.

This morning I went to my laptop and synched it. Looks good.

My iPhone is sitting on my nightstand untougched.

I made some entries for today on my iPad. I synched it.

All the dupes came rolling back. On both devices. I checked my iPhone. It has the old dupes, not the today updated dupes.

So here's my plan:
I will synch all three devices
I will fix the logs on my laptop. removing all the dupes
I will then backup the laptop.
I will then sync the laptop.
Then synch the iPad and iPhone.
I will report back.

Good thing I am retired and have copious free time.

By the way, when deleting dupes last nightb I noticed that many of the duplicated blocks of text were identical, though most had some error corrected, such as a missing letter or spelling error.

And if i am the only fellow with this problem I will just keep backing up the diary.

timo

Thanks for reporting back with your observations!
~~I might have identified a sync issue today that I will try to track down in the upcoming hours/days. Maybe it has something to do with this problematic behavior...~~ (EDIT: doesn't look like that issue is related to yours)
May I ask what cloud service you are using for the Cloud Sync? iCloud?

Fcgiii

timo

Timo,

Here is how i got rid of the duplicate text

I Finished correcting Diarium on my laptop back from June 1, deleting duplicates and correcting errors. Just as backup I copied each corrected log to another app, UpNote. Then synched. Backed it up to iCloud. Set laptop app to automatic sync. Then. went to my iPad and synched that. All the old dupes and errors came back! Imported the backup. went to the iphone and repeated the process. Set all three devices to auto sync and icloud. (iphone was dropbox)

I note for the first sync on the iPad and iPhone after the corrections on the laptop i got a warning about deleted entries being more than 6. I had deleted some logs as i was doing the original work on the laptop. So this might be the problem here. With auto sync this hopefully will not recur.

Thanks for your help. Hope this has been useful to you. As a former programmer I can sympathize with trying to meet apparent bugs resulting from competing issues.

timo

I would strongly recommend to always have the auto-sync enabled. Because when you edit the journal in an un-synced state, it is normal that there will be conflicts upon syncing and then the app will do the merging process.
The app also performs a merge when you are deleting more than 5 entries at once in a single edit/sync - this is another way to ensure that no data gets lost.