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Data Loss with Dropbox Sync


tammycravit

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My spouse and I are both using Storyist, and she's running into a strange problem with her iPad that's resulted in data loss at least once. She's getting really frustrated, and since I'm her tech support, I am too. :)

 

Here's what she does:

  1. Open a .storyist file on the iPad. Work on it for a while, make changes, etc.
  2. Close the file and return to the My Projects screen on the iPad.
  3. Hit the one-touch sync button.
  4. Come back some time later and re-open the file.

After step #4, we've had two different occasions where changes she'd made in step 1 disappeared, and were also not in the desktop version. It's almost as though Storyist is trying to save to Dropbox, the save is failing, and she's being left with the old version of her file.

 

Anyone seen this before? Any ideas for troubleshooting?

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I first wrote that I hadn't seen this behavior, but then I remembered I had, when I was testing the beta version of the iPad app. So this is an edited note.

 

Whenever I remember, I copy my files to iTunes before syncing to Dropbox, because I started on computers in the years when they crashed frequently, so I am paranoid. That said,one-tap Dropbox sync works for me unless I mix copying and syncing in such a way that Dropbox thinks that it stores the newest version of the file. Under those conditions and those conditions only, it may appear to destroy your changes by overwriting your file with an older version. But it renames the iPad version of the file first.

 

If the iPad contains a file called something like my.story (Shared iPad date), that is the newer version. It will be at the bottom of the project items and perhaps not visible unless you look.

 

In brief, you can confuse Dropbox by (1) copying a file from Dropbox or from iTunes instead of syncing with Dropbox; (2) editing the file on your iPad; then (3) syncing with Dropbox. But usually what happens is that Dropbox copies its version of the file to your iPad (which then looks like the file that you edited) but at the same time creates a backup of the edited file, which it also copies back to Dropbox.

 

That is, for me any such result was always user error, frustrating as the results can be.

Best,

M

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Maury, it won't. Honest.

 

If you are worried, just save a copy to a different Dropbox folder or to iTunes before syncing. Also, Dropbox itself stores previous versions of files, so you can always retrieve a deleted file or the previous version of an existing file. At worst, you would lose one round of changes, and that would happen only if everything went wrong at once.

Best,

Marguerite

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Yes, what Marguerite said. Part of the reason I posted about my spouse's issue was that it was so unusual - I've never had any data loss prior to this issue. And, the issue I posted about hasn't recurred, so I'm chalking it up to mysterious gremlins and moving on.

 

I have four novels and two short story anthologies going in Storyist right now, and have no reservations about trusting it.

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Hi Tammy,

 

I suspect that the project file was changed on both the Mac and the iPad which would create a sync conflict. When this happens, Storyist does not know which version you want to keep, and will

  • Indicate in the sync status dialog that there was a sync conflict.
  • Rename the file on your iPad to something like "{project name} Tammy's iPad Version 2012-04-15.story"
  • Download the updated file ("{project name}.story") from your Dropbox folder.

If there is a sync conflict and you then open the "{project name}.story" file, you'll see the version that was in Dropbox. To see the version that was on your iPad, open the "{project name} Tammy's iPad Version 2012-04-15.story" file.

 

I think you mentioned in your support email that her network access is intermittent. It could be that she made changes on the Mac and thought these changes were synced to the Dropbox server, but that they weren't actually synced until the next time she had network access. The best way to tell that a sync on the Mac side has occurred is to look for the green check mark on the file icon.

 

-Steve

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Steve, that's my guess too, and it's a scenario that makes sense given what happened, and given the fact that we haven't seen the problem recur since she got home. Thanks for checking, and I'll let you know if we see this issue arise again.

 

Warmly,

Tammy

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