Opening in default app now results in Obsidian blocking until I close the default app

Things I have tried

  • I searched in this forum
  • I searched on the Obsidian site using Google

What I’m trying to do

I love Obsidian. But since I am more used to my own editor, I have used the default app option since beginning to use Obsidian over a year ago. Until recently, one of my favourite workflows would be to open the note I was working on in the default app, and then use the Obsidian interface to open other notes with relevant bits that I can use/ link to / draw on for my current note (i.e. the editor becomes its own ‘pane’ in that sense).

Unfortunately in recent versions this no longer seems to work. As soon as I open a note in the default app, I am no longer able to interact with the main Obsidian window - at least “Ctrl+O” and editing no longer work. The program appears frozen. As soon as I quit the default app, Obsidian becomes responsive again.

Is there a way to restore the original functionality, or is that now gone?

Thanks a lot!

1 Like

I’ve not been tracking this type of behaviour, but when I looked after your post, there does seem to have been a change. I used to be able to use Obsidian and another editor on the same file simultaneously. Not now.

When another editor has the file open, Obsidian no longer writes anything written in Obsidian to the file; it does, however, read immediately anything written in the other editor. So Obsidian is not completely frozen, just seems to have surrendered editing duties.

Yeah. Now looks very unsafe to use Obsidian at the same time as any other editor. But I’m not looking at consistency. Some editors seem to work fine - eg FocusWriter (but that doesn’t have autosave).

One of the problems is the same as syncing. The programs need to autoread the file and autosave frequently enough to keep up with what might be going on outside, and also play nicely with each other. I never used to have any concerns about this, but now I will check the detail before doing anything. Idk if there’s an operating system change behind it (I’m testing on W10).

If you are looking for a workaround, I’ve managed to unblock it as described in my post here: Open in default app on Linux renders Obsidian unusable - #4 by nenad

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