I tried deleting and reinstalling the app without any change to behaviour.
Having checked the Sync log after receiving the null is not an object error it does appear to be syncing - I can see it downloading a big pile of files, all the way up to fully synced (there are no errors). However, when I close/restart the app and open the Sync settings, it says it is not connected to any remote vault.
I have two remote vaults in total.
Obsidian doesn’t appear in the list of apps for which you can disable lockdown mode, so I haven’t checked this yet - I’ll take another look over the weekend and see if lockdown mode makes a difference.
FYI we had another user with Lockdown Mode enabled report issues via the support email; they were able to resolve it by adding Obsidian to the exclusion list. (I’m not sure how that’s done, exactly, but at least we have n = 1 for a potential solution here.
Yes, I’ve already tried rebooting the phone, but to no avail. I would urge you to try replicating the steps mentioned above yourself, as this issue is not unique to me.
Quite a few individuals in the Obsidian Discord community are experiencing the same problem.
The only workaround we have found so far involves completely disabling Lockdown Mode, syncing, and then re-enabling it, which is far from ideal. This process necessitates a restart and disrupts our workflow significantly.
Obsidian Sync is a paid service and currently, it’s not functioning for those who use Lockdown Mode.
It is best to report it to Apple. Here’s how to submit feedback to Apple re: iOS: https://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone/
I’ll ask the technical team to submit one to Apple on the developer side.
I appreciate your suggestion, but isn’t it possible for the app to operate normally in Lockdown Mode like many other apps do?
Further, from my understanding, Apple will not consider this a bug that needs fixing. Typically, apps only appear in the exclusion list if they open an in-app Safari browser, which Obsidian doesn’t. So, it might not be an issue they will address. Can you help clarify this?
To help others facing the same issue: I also ran into issues with Obsidian Sync in Lockdown mode. The solution was to exclude the app in Lockdown settings.
For Obsidian developers: it would be helpful if you could add a message to people using Lockdown mode AND sync to add the app in the exclusion list in Lockdown settings. You can detect lockdown mode by checking if a particular javascript function fails (which is why Obsidian sync fails). Or even better decrypt the vault without javascript, which might make the sync work in Lockdown mode.
I am not sure we can detect lockdown mode simply by detecting network calls fail. They could fail because you have no signal too or any other network issues.
The decryption without JavaScript makes no sense to me.
Send the bug report to apple if Obsidian does not appear in the lockdown mode list.
Obsidian not showing up in the exclusion list is an Apple bug, there is nothing we can do about it.
As said above, it does show up in the exclusion list for some users.
then perhaps Obsidian could detect this condition (not some kind of network failure, but that some critical data API is not available) and display remediation steps for the user.
There appears to be an iOS API for explicitly detecting lockdown mode and showing the user messages in response to lockdown mode for the first time.
Maybe if Obsidian implements these checks or dialogs, then the app will reliably appear on the lockdown list? I haven’t used these API myself, so I can’t say for certain, but it could definitely improve the user experience of:
Obsidian sync working
Enable lockdown mode
Obsidian sync silently failing
No remediation for user without disabling lockdown mode on entire device, because app does not appear in the potential exclusion list in Settings
Lockdown mode, for some users, is a matter of personal safety. I hope that Obsidian developers can consider taking another look at this matter. I’ve been a very happy user of the product for a while, but this is a showstopper for me.
