Notes disappear after 0.3.0 update

[shimotoriharuki]

Current behavior

When I updated to Boost Note 0.3.0, some of the notes disappeared. Can it be revived?
Just in case, I looked for the '.cson' file with reference to this site, but I couldn't find it.
The place I looked for is 'C:\Users \ -- \AppData\Local\Programs\boostnote'.

Expected behavior

Resurrect the notebook.

Steps to reproduce

1. Click 'Help' tab.
2. Click 'Check For Updates'.
3. Install Boost Note 0.3.0.
4. Some of the notes were missing.

Environment

Desktop

• Boost Note.next version: 0.3.0
• OS version and name: Windows 10

[mhkehrein]

I have a similar problem in that all my notes are gone and cannot be imported.

@shimotoriharuki
I found my files in the folder which I used as local storage in older Boostnote versions, not the one which contains the executable.

In previous versions, I had saved my notes in a Dropbox folder as local storage, but when trying to import them (as outlined in the "Preferences" > "Import" screen) I am informed that the files are invalid.

I updated from 0.1.3 to 0.3.0 from on my Windows machine, and on my (still) 0.1.3 Ubuntu I can still work on those notes.

---

I just installed 0.1.4 and the import worked for some of the files.
After some research I figured out that it was only snippets files which could not be imported at this point, regular markdown was okay. The amount of snippets elements within the file were of no importance, it seems.

Some examples of my notes, as marked by the "import" feature:
example valid files
example invalid files

[shimotoriharuki]

Thank you for your response. @mhkehrein

I'll wait for a response on the issue of not being able to import notes.

However, the problem still remains, As @mhkehrein says, local storage for the old 'Boostnote' has been found. (In my case it was in OneDrive), but what I want to find is local storage for the new 'Boost Note', not the old 'Boostnote'. That's because the disappearing notes I'm looking for are the ones I created with the new 'Boost Note'. I'd like to find local storage for the new 'Boost Note' to revive it. Do you know where it is?

I searched everything in my computer for '.cson', assuming that the new '.Boost Note' notes file is also '.cson' as well as the old '.Boostnote'. But it was not found. I wonder if it's a different format? Or does the new 'Boost Note' have no local storage by default in the first place?

Thank you for your answer.

[Flexo013]

The new Boost Note stores the notes in a database file, which can be found in C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Boost Note\. I don't expect the files will be helpful in recovering the notes, but it's worth a shot.

[shimotoriharuki]

@Flexo013 Thank you very much.

I hope this problem is solved.

[Rokt33r]

@shimotoriharuki
The new app doesn't support file based system yet. We're going to start working on it very soon and hopefully it will be shipped around June.

Btw, I need more context to help you. Do you lost some notes? or whole cloud storage?
FYI, once the notes are synced, they are very safe. But the previous version's auto sync wasn't implemented properly.(From v0.3.0, the app will automatically sync after 30 secs from last editing.) So if you didn't press sync button often, the notes might be in cloud storage.

But you might have a chance to retrieve them. PouchDB works like github does. So you might have identical DB in your browser(or the app). To find it, please do like the below.

1. Open dev tool from your browser(or the app)
2. Select Application > IndexedDB to see the storage still exist in the browser.

If it does still exist, I probably could make some tools to retrieve data from missing db.

And please join our slack and send direct message to me so I can help you more efficiently and faster. I also can speak Japanese so you can send messages to me in Japanese.

[Rokt33r]

@mhkehrein
Sadly, the problem never happens to me so I don't know what is causing the problem yet.
So please sync your storage before upgrade the app. And sadly, v0.1.3 doesn't show any progress of syncing so please open devtool and check console and network. After you click sync button, the app will send several http requests. Syncing should be finished when all http requests are resolved.
Then your data should be safe in cloud storage. So you can revive storage data easily even after you lose all data from your local machine. You can also sync synced cloud storage data into other local machine for the safety. But from v0.3.0, you probably don't need to worry it anymore.

FYI, we are not going to support snippet notes in this app. We are probably going to make another app just for snippet notes once this app is settled. So if you need both note types, please keep using old BoostNote app. We will keep maintaining it until the new app can do most of things of the old app.

[Rokt33r]

Other people who have same problem, please join slack and send a direct message to me. I'm using same user name, @Rokt33r, in there too.
https://join.slack.com/t/boostnote-group/shared_invite/zt-cun7pas3-WwkaezxHBB1lCbUHrwQLXw

[Rokt33r]

I succeeded to recover shimotoriharuki's missing storage. I guess there was a problem when upgrading v0.1.3 to v0.3.0. But this problem probably won't happen anymore from v0.3.0.

If there are any other people having similar problems, please join our slack and ping me, @Rokt33r, or create another issue than this.

[Rokt33r]

FYI, this is how I did recover shimotoriharuki's storage.

1. Open dev tool（Ctrl＋Shift + I)
2. Select Application tab
3. Click IndexedDB on the left sidebar in the tab and check there are databases named like _pouch_***~~ - file://
4. Press ESC and open Console
5. Execute JSON.parse(localStorage['note.boostio.co:storageDataList']).
6. Click returned value and see it shows currently linked db info.(It might returns an empty array. But we're not done yet. Please proceed to step 7. to know more.)
7. Compare the results of the step 3. and the step 6. The result of the step 3 shows databases existing in the App(storage id of each db is random string after _pouch_ prefix). And the result of the step 6 shows dbs currently linked to the app(Visible in the app). So db doesn't exist in the result of the step 6 but exist in the result of the step 3 should be a missing storage. In the example screenshot, _pouch_kal11z0Rt - file:// is the one.
8. Execute targetId = '{{STORAGE_ID}}' with the storage id from the step 7. (For example, targetId = 'kal11z0Rt')
9. And execute this localStorage.setItem('note.boostio.co:storageDataList', JSON.stringify(JSON.parse(localStorage['note.boostio.co:storageDataList']).concat({id: targetId, name: 'recovered'})))
10. Refresh the page with Ctrl +R, then you will see recovered storage