Text Disappearing with Obsidian Sync

Help
1

What I’m trying to do

Until a few weeks back, I was intensively writing a dissertation using Obsidian. I was synching my Windows 11 laptop, my iPad and iPhone (both iOS 18) via iCloud. It was working well, but occasionally I would get text disappearing as I wrote. This “undoing” of my work is very triggering and would get me out of my state of flow, but was infrequent. I paid for the Obsidian Sync but never implemented it as it might hinder my work, so I kind of forgot it.

A few weeks after I finish my dissertation, the text disappearing turn VERY bad, it is making me rewrite one every three sentences. I got really motivated (pissed off!), so I decided to give it a go to Obsidian Sync.

Things I have tried

I have now configured my single vault to work with Obsidian Sync, but this morning the text started to disappear again. I cannot overstate my frustration.

These are the community plug-ins I have installed:

  • Auto Link Title
  • Better Word Count
  • BRAT
  • Citations
  • Dataview
  • File Info Panel
  • LanguateTool Integration
  • Note Refactor
  • Pandoc Plugin
  • Pandoc Reference List
  • Paste URL into selection
  • QuickAdd
  • Zotero Integration
2

Is your vault directory still stored in iCloud?

3

No. It’s in a separate folder, right below the system root.

4

My tip;

activate sync at the end of your writing session

Also, open Obsidian settings>core plugins>file recovery and activate the toggle to recover recent files.

A good practice is to backup your most valuable data from time to time, on an external storage like hdds or USB sticks.

There are multiple tools to sync, like for example, Syncthing or just from terminal rsync. Both tools are free.

5

The text disappear is common if you use iCloud and you have not configured to keep the files local.