I opened Android Obsidian, and it decided to reindex my vault. This is annoying, but I’ve experienced this before so let it do its thing.
It wanted to reindex over 7k items, so while waiting I went to the vault switcher. I was looking for clues for why Obsidian insists on this sometimes. Didn’t find anything, so went back into the same vault (I only have one).
After this I let it continue re-indexing, and then opened the Sync plugin page, which was stuck on the “sync is loading” page with a refresh button (this is its own annoyance). Since it can take ages to sync I left it plugged in and came back 10 minutes later and clicked “refresh”.
Sync plugin now tells me “Currently not connected to any remote vault”.
I still have all my local items. The connection just seems to have been killed.
Steps to reproduce
Not the sort of thing I can reproduce.
Expected result
Don’t throw away the vault association without any explanation why.
Actual result
Vault association lost. Now I have to manually extract the notes that have yet to sync and somehow integrate them with my remote vault.
Environment
SYSTEM INFO:
Operating system: android 10 (samsung SM-G960F)
Obsidian version: 1.7.7 (171)
API version: v1.7.7
Login status: logged in
Language: en
Catalyst license: none
Live preview: on
Base theme: light
Community theme: Typewriter v2.1.10
Snippets enabled: 1
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 12
Plugins enabled: 2
1: Recent Files v1.6.0
2: Spaced Repetition v1.13.2
Here are some other details to rule out common responses/questions:
I ONLY experienced this bug on Android. I have no issues with my OSX/Ubuntu/Win10 Obsidian installs (all synced to same vault).
My vault is on internal storage on my phone. I also have over 50GB of free space. The vault is ~11GB, but I only sync folders containing around 2-3 GB of that.
I have no auto clean-up configured at the OS level.
Yesterday, I noticed it was showing it needs index, after that, I noticed the sync status was “Sync: Uninitialized”. I further noticed the remote vault was disconnected. So I configure the remote vault again, and it could sync up successfully.
But today, I noticed the same re-index issue and the remote vault disconnected again.
The issue only happened on my Android phone, no issue with MacOS, iPad, Windows 11.
I am using Samsung S23 Ultra (SM-S918B), Android 14
Obsidian version: 1.7.7 (171)
I have used the sync feature for quite long time, it is the first time I experience the sync issue.
I’ve got the same issue. When opening Obsidian on my Oneplus 8T (android) it starts indexing (14K files). After that, it does not sync. Status: sync uninitialized. I do not have cleaners on my phone. @simpleman how did you configure the remote vault again?
I have the problem more than a week now. Can’t find a solution
Y
It seams that something connected to Obsidian Sync (or some syncing content) is creating the problem
Expected result
I expect to run Obsidian in Android without it needs to do indexing every time. I also expect to access to Obsidian Sync without problems for pausing or change the settings for avoiding this issue.
Actual result
Obsidian is indexing all the notes at any startup and Obsidian Sync is not accessible during the indexing.
After the indexing I can access to Obsidian Sync setting but it asks me the password of the vault.
After I write the password it loads without a end, but if I go back I see that the remote vault is connected. Anyway the problem is not solved. At each startup Obsidian start to index again and Obsidian Sync is again inaccessible.
Environment
“Swipe down from the top on mobile”
It appears the message “Action not configured”
Additional information
I tried to uninstall the app, delete the vault, delete the configuration folder, download the entire vault as it is, download the entire vault without attachments and non .md files… nothing solved the problem.
@Acsidian I merged you thread here.
If you vault is large, it’s gonna take a long time to actually finish/flush indexing (even if it says completed) for another bug we are subject to.
I don’t use Android, only Apple devices for the Vaults in question, but experienced the same issue consistently.
Most of the time the problem happens on Mac , right now it’s Sequoia 15.2
That’s just my 2 cents, it’s not Android-exclusive.
The issue in my case looks usually as follows:
on opening a vault, it either loads and starts re-caching everything or hangs on the loading screen, showing the usual message about cache loading, forever
when I try to quit the app cleanly, it doesn’t, just becomes unresponsive, so I have to use the “Force quit” option
the sync indicator becomes red crossed BEFORE I quit the app, and across ALL vaults opened at that moment
Just some wild guesses below
I’ve read the posts on topic, and noticed the following commonalities between what I have experienced and what others reported:
large vaults, all are at least 1000s, a couple in tens of 1000s and I may have one or several of them open at the same time
in the lists of plugins, I’ve noticed other reporters having entries like “recent files” and similar, and for me it just happened a couple minutes ago immediately after disabling plugin “Update modified date 1.4.7”.
So here’s what I’m suspecting:
there may be a hook into the file system triggered by files being modified, as the plugins mentioned and the cache functionality all probably use such hooks
and/or there may be locks involved, I’m just guessing based on how it freezes on exit, it reminds me of a few situations I’ve experienced when trying to delist something from some registry which has a lock, and for file system change events, oh my… I can only imagine how many locks, each with their own edge cases and error handlings there are on files, paths, hook registries; locks are a bitch always, and we’re talking fsevents.kext, VFS, NSFile… something on iPadOS or whatever it has, and Android, I vaguely recall, may have SELinux, then there’s Obsidian’s own handling.