Occasionally, when I quit Obsidian this will result in data loss in the note to seemingly a previous (recent) save point. Command + S will not work to save the note, and I can tell when the note is in this state when I try to open another note through the quick switcher and it won’t let me.
Steps to reproduce
None that I am aware of. This seems to happen every once in a while, seemingly when I have had Obsidian open and am returning to using it.
Expected result
I expect it to save when I type Command + S or quit the app.
Actual result
Data loss to seemingly a recent save in the note.
Environment
Operating system: macOS Big Sur 11.3.1 Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB / NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2 GB
I haven’t been able to recreate so far, but in the past I’ve opened the quick switcher and clicked on another note, and this note would not open. The solution in that case would be to copy the contents of the current note and force reload Obsidian (upon this force reload, it always opens up to a recent save state with some data loss) then paste my current progress into the force-reloaded note.
I have wondered if this might have something to do with my old graphics cards (Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB / NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2 GB) and the fact that I have hardware acceleration turned off.
This issue just came up for me again — now with hardware acceleration on. I had a note open and noticed that I couldn’t switch to another note. With the note still open I turned off community plugins (I only have Dataview) and all theme CSS changes and still this issue persisted. I typed Command + S to try to save, then quit Obsidian. When I re-opened, the note had not saved the last minute or so of typing.
In Developer Tools, there is an alert (yellow triangle with exclamation mark) that says this:
(electron) electron/js2c/renderer_init.js:13 (electron) The remote module is deprecated. Use https://github.com/electron/remote instead.
log @ electron/js2c/renderer_init.js:13
The bug just came up again, after I had been away from the computer for a few minutes with Obsidian open. I turned off custom CSS and plugins (dataview) while in this state and the bug persisted — also there were no new errors in the console. But, strangely enough, when I quit and then re-opened Obsidian, the custom CSS and plugins were back on again. (Also this time the entire note had been wiped.)
I don’t have the time right now to do a screen recording and retroactively blur out my personal information but it again wouldn’t allow me to open other notes — when I clicked on other notes in the file navigation list or in the quick switcher, they would not open. The only way I’ve been able to save my progress when this happens is copying the entire current note and pasting into the same note upon refresh.
I don’t think you can turn off the plugins to fix a bug that has already happened.
Which plugins do you have active? which theme do you use?
Does this happen if you don’t use plugins or custom css?
Where do you store your files exactly? Are you using some sync service?
I am surprised there’s nothing in console. Next time post a screenshot of console when the bug is happening (not after you close and reopen)
Thanks for you patience. I am trying to figure out what is going on.
I have only the dataview plugin active, and the Minimal theme v2.5.9, along with some custom visual CSS tweaks. I can try working without plugins or custom CSS and see if this issue comes up again.
I’ve been beta testing the mobile app and so I store my files in the special iCloud “Obsidian” folder (though I haven’t used my mobile app at all in the past few days).
And sounds good about a screenshot of the console! Thanks for your help!
I’m suspicious that this is an iCloud sync issue, so I’ve completely turned off iCloud on my computer and am turning it on again to re-establish a connection. Will update if this fixes the bug.
I don’t but I’ve been having other issues with iCloud syncing. My iCloud has yet to re-establish itself but since I’ve been working on a local non-iCloud copy of the same vault this bug hasn’t come up for me again — so it seems to have been caused by something related to storing the vault in iCloud.
I also noticed that while I was encountering the bug, there was a dotted-line “waiting to upload” iCloud icon beside the Obsidian folder (even though I had optimization off). So this (potentially just caused by my personal iCloud issues) seems to have been connected to the bug. Will update when iCloud finishes re-establishing — hopefully after this is done I can host my vault on iCloud without the bug coming up again.
After re-connecting with iCloud and using Obsidian for a few days I can say with high confidence that this was an iCloud issue! Re-establishing an iCloud connection on my MacBook worked for me and I’m no longer experiencing this bug. Thank you @WhiteNoise for helping get to the bottom of this!
I do think that it might have been caused by whatever specific issue was going on with my iCloud account (it had been wonky for a while for unknown reasons) — will update if I discover what was behind the issue.
Thank you! WOW it is affirming to see other people having the same issue with Obsidian and iCloud. Hopefully this can be resolved because it does seem as though there is some underlying vulnerability re this bug. I’m guessing it’s related to the way iCloud syncs. Since reporting no longer experiencing this bug, the same issue has come up for me two or three times but it hasn’t been a constant nuisance like it was when I first made this post. My guess is that there are some idiosyncrasies with the way iCloud syncs that makes Obsidian notes freeze up and potentially lose data or revert to previous saves — and that my personal iCloud sync issue (with the everlasting “waiting to upload” dotted line icon) just made it worse.