No navigation from "No file is open"

Steps to reproduce

  1. Open obsidian

  2. Press the tab selector

  3. Press the “(+) New tab” button

  4. The screen displays “No file is open” and a list of 4 buttons:

    • Create new file
    • Go to file
    • See recent files
    • Close
  5. Press “Go to file” or “See recent files”

Expected result

at step 5, the “Find or create a note…” dialog opens (this is what happens on desktop, for either button)

Actual result

at step 5, the UI is unchanged, i.e. “No file is open” is still displayed

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:
Operating system: android 11 (samsung SM-A305YN)
Obsidian version: 1.4.3 (95)
API version: v1.1.16
Login status: logged in
Catalyst license: none
Live preview: off
Legacy editor: off
Base theme: dark
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 0
Plugins enabled: 0

RECOMMENDATIONS:
none


Additional information

The other 2 buttons on the “No file is open” screen work as I’d expect them to.

The “No file is open” screen behaves the same regardless of how I get there. E.g. :

  • open a new tab via the tab selector (as described above)
  • delete the current file
  • close all tabs

Pressing the (+) button next to the tab selector does not open the “No file is open” screen, but just opens the “Find or create a note…” dialog directly. Once it is open, the “Find or create a note…” dialog works as I’d expect, though this process (using the + button) opens the selected file in the current tab, which seems unintuitive but is not an issue for me.

As there’s no sandbox vault on mobile, could you make a test vault and see if the “no file is open” screen acts strange there as well? A screen recording would also help.

And yes, the (+) button is odd because you’re not adding anything, but that’s another conversation… :laughing:

In a new vault, the buttons work as expected. Going back to my primary vault, the issue is still present. Any recommendations for diagnosing this?

From the debug info it looks like no community theme/no snippets/and no plugins. That’s good. Try turning ON restricted mode and restarting. If you just turned off plugins previously, there might be one that didn’t unload properly. :crossed_fingers:t4: Or have you never installed any plugins?

Turning on restricted mode (and then closing the app) did not resolve it.
And I’ve not installed any community plugins.

hmm.

I see two options:

a) As you have no plugins/snippets/themes and (maybe?) a recent vault: move all your folders/files to the new vault you just created and use that one.

b) In your vault there’s an .obsidian folder with a bunch of .json settings files. It’s rare but occasionally one gets messed up. Maybe workspace-mobile? If you can access them on Android, move one-at-a-time out of your vault (a new one will be created on start) and see if it fixes it.

It’s at least one of them. Moving them all fixed it. Will update once I’ve narrowed it down

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“core-plugins.json” is the bad one. I’ll upload both the “bad” version and the working default soon.

Not working:

[
  "file-explorer",
  "graph",
  "backlink",
  "canvas",
  "outgoing-link",
  "tag-pane",
  "daily-notes",
  "templates",
  "note-composer",
  "editor-status",
  "outline",
  "file-recovery",
  "sync"
]

working:

[
  "file-explorer",
  "global-search",
  "switcher",
  "graph",
  "backlink",
  "canvas",
  "outgoing-link",
  "tag-pane",
  "page-preview",
  "daily-notes",
  "templates",
  "note-composer",
  "command-palette",
  "editor-status",
  "starred",
  "outline",
  "word-count",
  "file-recovery"
]

The only difference I can tell is that the working one has the following items missing from the other one (and the other one has “sync”):

  "global-search",
  "switcher",
  "page-preview",
  "command-palette",
  "starred",
  "word-count",

it was the “Quick switcher” plugin. Turning it off on desktop causes the same behaviour that I was getting on mobile.

Given that, I think either:

  • The navigation buttons on the new tab screen should still work (like the (+) button does) when the switcher plugin is off
  • Alternatively, the documentation for the switcher plugin should be updated, as it only says it affects navigation via keyboard (specifically the Ctrl-O shortcut)

Should I close this one and raise a new issue, or just track that here? It doesn’t look like there’s any other bug reports about this

If I turn off the Quick Switcher, I get the same no-response behavior clicking on “Go to file” and “See recent files”. I think most people have the Quick Switcher on or leave it on and use an alternative with the same or different hotkey. I don’t think it’s a bug because clicking both of those brings the Quick Switcher up. If it’s off, what else should happen?

If you feel it is a bug, you can file a bug report (follow the template as you did) and refer to this thread with your additional comments on the documentation.

Thanks for the digging. :mag:

That makes sense. I think the buttons that weren’t working just open the quick switcher. I think it’s definitely worth filing a bug report (it might get moved to feature requests because reasons, but regardless, the app should handle this better).

The documentation is currently missing a lot of mobile-specific stuff. The devs are actively improving the docs, but it’s a process. If you’d like to propose changes (or just point out deficiencies), the main help page has a long to the docs’ GitHub repo where you can file issues.

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My snarky answer would be “whatever allows the (+) button to work when the plugin is off”. Though I mean that more as a query / investigation direction of why (+) still works without the switcher; I don’t mean to imply that this solution would necessarily be simple to implement, or that the simple solution would be the right one.

Not snarky at all, and a good question! The (+) button is fairly new, only on phone sized devices, and may not be fully fleshed out yet.

However, I do agree with you and @CawlinTeffid that this should be handled better as the option to turn off the Quick Switcher is there.

I raised a feature request:

(It was easier to fit into the feature request template than bug report)

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