Renaming a note (3 ways) does not work, and does not change system storage file name

Bug graveyard
1

Steps to reproduce

  1. From left nav menu: click the “New note” icon to create a new note: see new note created with a title like “Untitled 5”. I have inline title on, so this title is shown twice, firstly as system file name on top, secondly as heading or first line of note.
  2. Double-click the first line of note to directly edit it, into “new note title”, and observe that although the first line changed, the system file name on top does not change.
  3. Use the top-right 3-dot menu > Rename to bring up a popup menu, and change Note title to “new note title through right 3 dot menu”, enter Save, and observe that the first line of note does NOT change. (Still showing “new note title” from step 2).
  4. Use left nav pane file browser, locate the file (still named “Untitled 5”), and right-click menu “Rename” to “new note title through left nav file browser rename”, and observe that although that file browser entry changed, the note’s first line and the system file name didn’t change. Now there are 3 different names.
  5. Finally, go to the file system (in my case, MacOS, non-iCloud location, local file) and locate the “Untitled 5.md” file. Change it to “new note title from file system.md”. The note window automatically disappears. Bring back the note named “new note title from file system”, and observe that, finally, the note title (first line), the left nav entry, and the file system name are all changed and finally in sync: new note title from file system.

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

Yes. I followed the guide.
I cannot reproduce this bug in Sandbox vault.
But, I updated all themes and plugins, and eventually disabled community plugins into restricted mode, and restarted. Bug still occurs.

Expected result

Actual result

Environment

Additional information

2

Please

  1. Download and reinstall obsidian.
  2. Enable safe mode, restart Obsidian, Post a screen recording of this happening.
  3. What is the output of show debug info?
  4. Press Cmd-opt-i, go in console tab, do you see any errors there?
  5. Where is your vault stored exactly?

Thanks

3

Sorry. I composed a long post to report the issue but I must have accidentally saved the post too soon, and later couldn’t edit it. Here is the entire intended post:

Steps to reproduce

(1) From left nav menu: click the “New note” icon to create a new note: see new note created with a title like “Untitled 5”. I have inline title on, so this title is shown twice, firstly as system file name on top, secondly as heading or first line of note.

(2) Double-click the first line of note to directly edit it, into “new note title”, and observe that although the first line changed, the system file name on top does not change.

(3) Use the top-right 3-dot menu > Rename to bring up a popup menu, and change Note title to “new note title through right 3 dot menu”, enter Save, and observe that the first line of note does NOT change. (Still showing “new note title” from step 2).

(4) Use left nav pane file browser, locate the file (still named “Untitled 5”), and right-click menu “Rename” to “new note title through left nav file browser rename”, and observe that although that file browser entry changed, the note’s first line and the system file name didn’t change. Now there are 3 different names.

(5) Finally, go to the file system (in my case, MacOS, non-iCloud location, local file) and locate the “Untitled 5.md” file. Change it to “new note title from file system.md”. The note window automatically disappears. Bring back the note named “new note title from file system”, and observe that, finally, the note title (first line), the left nav entry, and the file system name are all changed and finally in sync: new note title from file system.

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

Yes. I followed the guide.

I cannot reproduce this bug in Sandbox vault.

But, I updated all themes and plugins, and eventually disabled community plugins into restricted mode, and restarted. Bug still occurs.

Expected result

In steps 2, 3, 4, both the system file name and the note title are expected to change. I used to see the change, but suddenly (I don’t know what happened) it stops working like that.

Actual result

After steps 2, 3, 4, no change to name.

Environment

SYSTEM INFO:Obsidian version: v1.10.6Installer version: v1.7.7Operating system: Darwin Kernel Version 24.6.0: Mon Jul 14 11:30:55 PDT 2025; root:xnu-11417.140.69~1/RELEASE_ARM64_T6031 24.6.0Login status: logged inLanguage: enCatalyst license: noneInsider build toggle: offLive preview: onBase theme: darkCommunity theme: Everforest v0.0.0Snippets enabled: 0Restricted mode: onRECOMMENDATIONS:Custom theme and snippets: for cosmetic issues, please first try updating your theme and disabling your snippets. If still not fixed, please try to make the issue happen in the Sandbox Vault or disable community theme and snippets.

Additional information

ink to videoLink to video: https://youtu.be/h1mDEc3ySI0

It’s possible I changed some system or plugin functionality to cause this disconnect between note display title and the system file name. But I don’t remember what, and cannot figure out how and where to fix this. Appreciate your help! My file system is MacOS on local directory, not iCloud. I use Obsidian Sync. It does not appear to be a file system permissions issue (as one old bug was).

4

Cmd-opt-i: shows a debugging windows on the right.

My vault is stored on this path (starts with sysem SSD):

Macintosh HD/Users/my-user-name/_Obsidian

5

There is a “console” tab on the window that appears on the right. Do you see errors there when you try to rename

6

No. The console tab shows a single “>” and it remained empty, no error messages, as I tried all 4 ways of renaming the note.

7

Did you download and reinstall obsidian?

8

No I didn’t. Would that impact my existing vault name and content, and configurations (plugins, etc), and I have to manually move everything?

9

No, it would not impact.

Another thing that you should try, is to make a copy of your vault and see if the problem happens in the copy of your vault.

Another thing, check if there are filesystem level permission problems.

10

Mystery solved! :slight_smile:

I directly made a copy of the problem vault, and the same problem persisted, while another existing lighter vault (in the same local, non-iCloud, non-cloud system) works fine.

Then I realized that one thing I did recently was adding a couple of large plain-text files as notes. Their sizes are: 3MB, 5MB, 7MB, even +10MB. I remember seeing the system message of “indexing is taking a long time”. That turns out to be the issue. I started removing those large text notes one by one. Found that the 5MB note worked, but the 7MB text note caused indexing to never complete, and eventually caused the malfunction of such basic operation of renaming a note.

Thanks for your speedy help! Case closed!

I understand that although technically there’s no size limit to a note, large ones can be a problem, as I experienced.

Thanks again, and happy holidays to you and the team!

1 Like
11

Ok thank you. That was one thing that caught my eye in your screen recording. Can you please zip the problematic file and dm it to me. We wanna have a look at it.

Thanks

12

It this helps, I wrapped the 5mb, 7mb, even 18mb text in a giant code block (``` ... ```) and they all worked! I think it’s easy for large amount of text, especially if from OCR output, to be processed and recognized as markdown code and trip up indexing.

1 Like
13

Thank you for the file you sent. It was actually quite helpful.