Obsidian Sync no longer merges both sides; data loss when syncing mobile and laptop

Help
1

Previously, when edits happened on both sides, obsidian sync seemed to merge both versions on the page, duplicating some content but preserving all of it. But in recent weeks/months this seems to have changed - it now seems to keep the content from only one side. This has now caused me to lose content from today’s daily note, multiple times (7/9, 7/20, 8/2). So far I have been able to recover it each time, thanks to having the File Recovery plugin enabled.

Steps to reproduce

  • run obsidian on iphone and mac, connected via obsidian sync
  • edit today’s daily note on both sides, while phone is offline. Exact sequence unknown, it feels something like: create daily note on mac, sync to phone, put phone in airplane mode, add content to daily note, reconnect phone, allow obsidian sync to run
  • observe the new content added while phone was offline is now gone; the older daily note from mac has overwritten it.

Did you follow the troubleshooting guide? [Y/N]

I have searched the past reports (finding no exact match) and made a reasonable attempt to provide repro instructions. “Sandbox vault” is blowing my mental stack / risk budget / current available time; this issue seems very visible and I imagine others must have seen it.

Expected result

The latest page content from both sides should be preserved after phone is reconnected and obsidian sync runs. Eg, by concatenating both copies (or better, by a smarter merge).

Actual result

The older content from the mac replaced the newer content on the phone.

Environment

phone

Just now upgraded to 1.4.6; issue most recently seen with 1.4.3.

SYSTEM INFO:
Operating system: ios 16.5.1 (Apple iPhone)
Obsidian version: 1.4.6 (105)
API version: v1.3.5
Login status: logged in
Catalyst license: supporter
Live preview: on
Legacy editor: off
Base theme: adapt to system
Community theme: none
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 1
Plugins enabled: 1
1: Zoom v1.1.1

mac

SYSTEM INFO:
Obsidian version: v1.3.5
Installer version: v1.3.3
Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 22.5.0: Thu Jun 8 22:22:19 PDT 2023; root:xnu-8796.121.3~7/RELEASE_ARM64_T8103 22.5.0
Login status: logged in
Catalyst license: supporter
Insider build toggle: on
Live preview: on
Legacy editor: off
Base theme: light
Community theme: Obsidian gruvbox v0.1.8
Snippets enabled: 0
Restricted mode: off
Plugins installed: 12
Plugins enabled: 11
1: PlantUML v1.6.6
2: Zoom v1.1.1
3: Better Command Palette v0.15.0
4: Hotkeys for specific files v1.3.0
5: File Chucker v1.0.1
6: File Tree Alternative Plugin v2.3.3
7: Recent Files v1.3.5
8: Default New Tab Page v0.11.0
9: Ledger v0.3.1
10: Advanced Tables v0.18.1
11: Pane Relief v0.5.0

Thanks!

1 Like
2

It hasn’t changed. It works like this:

If anything other that this happens, open a new bug report and be specific on how to reproduce the problem

5

Saw your feedback. I’ll reopen and move this to help, if you’d like to discuss it further.

The bug section needs to be tightly organized, because there are a lot of reports to organize. Hope you understand.

After reading the help, do you think the behaviour is not like that page describes?

6

@rigmarole FWIW I feel sometimes a bug report should be given a little time to breathe, especially since closing blocks further comment on this forum, but of course do as you will. Thanks for reopening. The link was helpful. I did not feel it covered what I’ve seen, but I’ll keep it in mind for next time. I have also disabled daily note creation on the phone, which I hope and think will probably prevent recurrence.

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