[Sync] Complete sync failure across macOS (Tahoe) and Pop_OS (Linux)

Bug reports
1

Description

I am reporting a complete failure of Obsidian Sync across all my devices.

I previously emailed [email protected] on Sunday, December 14th, 2025 at 02:35 regarding this issue but have not yet received a response. I am posting here to see if this is a known outage or if there are community-recommended steps I should take next.

Currently, none of my vaults are syncing. The status remains idle or non-functional despite manual triggers.

Environment

  • Obsidian Version: Latest Stable (installed via official download/updates)
  • Sync Method: Obsidian Sync (Active License)
  • Operating Systems:
  • macOS: 3 separate devices running macOS Tahoe
  • Linux: 1 device running Pop!_OS 22.04 LTS

Steps to Reproduce & Troubleshooting Attempted

  1. Verified stable internet connectivity and firewall settings on all devices.

  2. Manually triggered sync (clicked the sync icon/command palette).

  3. Waited several hours with Obsidian open to allow for background processing.

  4. Uninstalled Obsidian completely on the Linux (Pop!_OS) machine sudo apt remove --purge obsidian && sudo apt autoremove (pending reinstall).

  5. And to fo fully reset, I also removed the config and cache folders:

    rm -rf ~/.config/obsidian
    rm -rf ~/.cache/obsidian
    rm -rf ~/.local/share/obsidian

Current Status

  • Vault data appears intact locally on the macOS devices.
  • Sync status indicators show no activity (or remain stuck).
  • Changes made on one device are not propagating to the others.

Additional Context

  • I unfortunately removed the Obsidian files from the Linux machine before capturing logs, but I still have access to the 3 macOS systems.
  • Are there known issues with Pop_OS or the current sync server status?
  • Is there anything specific (beyond what is available in the docs) I should know before I run sudo apt install *.deb?

Any guidance from the team or community would be appreciated as I rely on this for my daily workflow.

2

Did you disconnect this vault from your Sync account before removing files? Just be careful that doesn’t trigger a deletion to your other accounts if Sync starts again. (Better save a backup just in case if you don’t have one?)

My only suggestion is, which Sync plan are you on? Did you maybe reach your vault size limit? You can see the remote size in settings.

3

@rigmarole Hi Chris,

First, please accept my sincere apologies for the delayed response.

To answer your questions:

  1. Disconnection & Backups: Regarding the Linux machine, I completely uninstalled the application and removed the local configuration directories (verified that the vault folder itself was not nuked while Sync was active). I do maintain offline backups of the vaults on my macOS devices, so the core data is safe. I appreciate the warning; it is definitely better to be safe than sorry with deletion propagation!
  2. Sync Plan & Storage: I am currently on the Plus plan. I checked the remote vault stats on my Mac, and I am sitting at roughly 6.24 GB usage out of my 10GB limit, so I don’t believe I have hit the size cap. I intend to upgrade this to 100GB once I hit 8. Note that these are just simple .md files.

Is there anything else specific I should look for that might indicate a “stuck” state on the server side?

Thanks again for your help.

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