Sync problem

[thewoolleyman]

@CawlinTeffid

And if you’re using Obsidian Sync and Google Drive for the same vault, that by itself can cause problems. (If Drive is only being used with the vault on 1 device, that’s OK; you jus need to make sure it’s set to keep the vault folder downloaded.)

• Yes, I am using both official paid Obsidian Sync and storing my vaults on my local filesystem which is synced with Google Drive.

• My MacOs Google Drive sync is set up for “Mirror Files”: “Store all My Drive files in the cloud and on your computer”. So yes, I do “keep my Vault folder downloaded”. This is my backup mechanism for my vault, to ensure that it is backed up to the cloud.

• I do have the Obsidian installed in this way on multiple MacOS computers. I.e., vault synced to local filesystem via Google Drive, and Obsidian Sync enabled.

• For my mobile device sync (android) I rely on Obsidian Sync only.

• These sync problems only seemed to start occurring when I started using this setup on the SECOND MacOS computer. I never had it with 1 MacOS + 1 Android.

• I don’t have an option now, because I NEED to have sync across multiple MacOS computers.

  I’m still having this problem (just a couple of days ago) where a file created on just one MacOS started replicating itself over and over making multiple filename (1) (1) … copies of itself, and also losing my changes.

  The main reason I chose Obsidian was:

  1. Non-proprietary native Markdown file format, that I can easily backup (e.g. via Google Drive)
  2. solid sync across all desktop and mobile devices.

  If 2 is no longer true now that I have added a second desktop device, then I can no longer use Obsidian.

  If this is somehow due to me storing my Vault on Google Drive AND having multiple desktop clients AND also using Obsidian sync, then this is something that Obsidian engineers should definitely investigate on their own, and either fix it, or respond in this thread (and update docs) to indicate that this is NOT a supported approach, and alternate vault backup methods than Google Drive must be used in this scenario.

[CawlinTeffid]

@thewoolleyman

• I do have the Obsidian installed in this way on multiple MacOS computers. I.e., vault synced to local filesystem via Google Drive, and Obsidian Sync enabled.

This is a problem. For vaults that use Obsidian Sync you can connect the vault to Google Drive on one device, and let Sync bring the files over to be backed up in Drive. If you use Sync and Drive on the same vault on more than one device, the two sync systems will interfere with each other and cause problems as they try to sync the same files. This isn’t specific to Obsidian Sync; any two sync systems used on the same files will have this problem.

@thewoolleyman

Obsidian engineers should … in … docs … indicate that this is NOT a supported approach

They do, in the Sync FAQ. The setup instructions send you there.