Obsidian Sync: Hot/Live Reload of plugin settings and hotkeys after sync

I would love it if there were a setting or default behavior within the Sync core plugin that would either reload the whole Obsidian app, or, preferably, reload only the plugins for which preferences changed due to the sync.

Use case or problem

I use obsidian on 5 different devices, between personal and work computers/phones and an iPad. This issue occurs when I begin using Obsidian on a different device than I did for my last usage, e.g., when I login to my work computer in the morning, having changed something on my phone or personal computer the previous day.

At some point, I notice that some feature is not working as expected, or a note is not behaving/appearing as expected. This problem was vexing me for a bit before I realized that the cause was related to settings that require a reload after changing to take effect. These settings were updated in the background by Sync, and I had not thought to reload or restart Obsidian to enable/resolve the updated settings.

I have mainly noticed this after changing something related to the Tasks or QuickAdd community plugins, though I do believe there are other examples that aren’t coming to mind.

Proposed solution

It would be great to have an option in the Sync plugin settings (or just the default behavior) that would enable some sort of post-sync reload that would resolve the behavior of plugins with changed settings.

  • Ideally, I would love to see a way that individual plugins could be reloaded after their settings were changed due to a sync. I have no idea if this fix is feasible/possible or whether notes employing these plugins would have to also be reloaded.
  • Second-best would probably be a way to quietly reload Obsidian, avoiding the screen blank and momentary lack of functionality.
  • The most straightforward fix would be to just enable a reload of Obsidian via the built-in Reload app without saving mechanism.

Current workaround (optional)

Since noticing this issue, I have done my best to make sure to keep an eye on the sync progress using the View button associated with the Sync Activity setting. Once I see that the vault is fully synced, I then manually reload the app.


Thank you, and much love for a fantastic app–I use it constantly and couldn’t be happier with its wide-ranging functionality and use cases!

13 Likes

My preference would be to get a notification (just like Chrome notifies you if an update has been installed) and then I can click to reload.

5 Likes

I agree on your first proposed solution. It’s very annoying misremember that you have updated some settings and have them overwritten.

Hey all,

I’m having an issue where, when I first add a remote vault to mobile, it doesn’t respect daily notes settings even though I’ve toggled Sync Core Plugin Settings on.

Steps to reproduce
I’ve got a vault on my Mac. I’ve purchased Obsidian Sync, and that’s all been configured with that Mac vault.

When I added that remote vault to my iPhone, everything pulled through nicely, and I enabled all the toggles on both device including “Sync Core Plugin Settings” and then waited for the sync to complete.

When I then tried to navigate to my daily note using the menu bar shortcut, it created a new one on the root of the vault.

Going into the Daily Note Settings, it had none of the date formatting / custom folder configuration I’d set up on Mac.

Plugins
I’m only using this Google Cal/Contacts plugin, no other community plugins.

I’ve seen other posts similar to this in the forum, but not this specifically.

While I’ve now resolved this by manually replicating my desktop settings for the daily notes in my mobile settings, I wanted to share here.

Cheers.

Vault settings sync, but they do not hot-reload. Vaults need to be relaunched for newly-synced settings to be picked up and used.

This is a known issue. I actually don’t see a feature request for hot-reloading settings, though, so I’ve switched this to a FR and retitled it accordingly.

4 Likes

Great, thanks Ryan. At least we now know how to properly call this (“hot reload of settings”).

An API was introduced in v1.5.8 for third party plugins to handle hot/live update of their settings.
Plugin developers should use it:

1 Like

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