Backing up and restoring notes, prayer lists, favorites, and etc.

I had to reimage my hard drive due to an unrecoverable fatal error. I thought that I lost everything which I created under L4.0b11. When I did a clean install of Logos 4.0bRC1, some of my notes were recovered without doing anything. But obviously some of more recent notes and favorites were lost forever. I tried to get an answer to the following questions through technical support and got nowhere. Please help.

"Is it all transparent to me when I recover Logos 4 from a hard drive crash? Does Logos 4 automatically restore my notes, prayer lists, and preferences when I recover from a fatal hard drive or system failure? Are they synchronized when I change my computer from one to the other? Is there a web page or a document that I can study to understand better about the feature?"

I was told "They are all backed up on our server in Logos 4, so there is no need to back them up." Does it mean that when I use Logos 4 with an internet connection, all of my personal data including notes, prayer lists, favorites, etc. are backed up real time? Is that why notes are so slow in catching up with my typing?

I have issues with this feature.

1. I was not warned clearly enough for me to know that all my personal files are uploaded.

2. I was not given an option to opt out from automatic upload to backup my personal files.

3. There appear to be no easy way for me to backup my personal files myself.

4. Logos support team could not point me to a resource where I can study and learn more about this important feature.

I have enjoyed excellent customer support thus far, but not for this one.

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Comments

Mark Smith

But obviously some of more recent notes and favorites were lost forever.

David, I will be interested in learning why and how your 'recent' notes and favorites were lost. As far as I've been able to tell, as long as Use Internet is set to Yes in Program Settings and we have an Internet connection the process of 'backing up' our notes and favorites goes on (perhaps too) frequently. Of course this information can be lost in a situation in which content is created 'off line' and a HD corruption occurs before we go back online and Logos syncs with the Logos servers.

I'm in favor of local backups, but would like to know how your situation arose.

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

1. I was not warned clearly enough for me to know that all my personal files are uploaded.

2. I was not given an option to opt out from automatic upload to backup my personal files.

3. There appear to be no easy way for me to backup my personal files myself.

4. Logos support team could not point me to a resource where I can study and learn more about this important feature.

The feature is described mentioned in the product tour (http://www.logos.com/logos4/customize) and in a section in the EULA (http://www.logos.com/ArticleViewer/2090) clearly labelled "ONLINE BACKUP". We're open to your suggestions on how users could be "warned clearly enough" about this feature.

The opt-out feature is to disable Internet use in the software; use the Program Settings panel and set "Use Internet" to "No". This will prevent any transmission of information from your computer to our servers.

The Logos 4 files are stored in the "%LOCALAPPDATA%\Logos4" folder, which can be backed up by any normal Windows backup software. I would strongly recommend a "whole hard disk" backup (which would obviously include this folder), but if minimising the size of backups is important, the "Data" folder could be excluded to save space.

Even though we do back up your documents (if sync is enabled), I would still highly recommend keeping your own local backups. That way, you can recover if any of your documents didn't get synced (e.g., Internet wasn't available), you can restore resources and indexes without having to re-download and re-index, and you're not affected if our servers happen to be down for maintenance the same day that your computer crashes.

David Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/103475#Comment_103475

It would be nice if you could provide a pop up window with the information about ONLINE BACKUP when you are performing ONLINE BACKUP for the first time or everytime with an option not to ask again. Without internet use, I might lose other important features such as automatic update or any other things that I am not aware of. Could there be a separate system parameter for ONLINE BACKUP? I'll follow your instruction to backup my personal data and other resources.

How often do you perfrom ONLINE BACKUP? Is the frequency of ONLINE BACKUP a configurable parameter? I lost quite a few days if not weeks of data when I recovered from the fatal system failure.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104119#Comment_104119

I lost quite a few days if not weeks of data when I recovered from the fatal system failure.

Any chance you'd been working offline? Otherwise, it isn't working as I understood.

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104129#Comment_104129

Bradley, I am wondering!!! What would happen if the office in Bellingham, or wherever the servers are located, burnt down. What would happen to our data? [:(]

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104140#Comment_104140

Bradley, I am wondering!!! What would happen if the office in Bellingham, or wherever the servers are located, burnt down. What would happen to our data?

We currently have an offsite backup of that data (along with all the other important information from our corporate network). I believe that these things are archived to tape as well, and stored in secure locations, though I don't know the exact details.

We've been doing tests to investigate the feasibility of backing up to more geographical locations (e.g., using S3) and trying to balance privacy, security, efficiency and cost concerns; I don't actually know what the state of that study is right now.

Finally, even if we did have catastrophic data loss, you would still have your own copy of your documents on your desktop(s) and laptop(s). Bringing our servers back online would not instruct your computers to delete anything; we could actually rebuild our servers by instructing your computers to sync everything back to us. In a sense, your computers act as a geographically-distributed online backup (of the content you have created).

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104160#Comment_104160

Thanks Bradley.

David Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104129#Comment_104129

Come to think of it, I might have turned off internet connection in program settings but I never work offline. I definitely lost most of my favorites and many days or weeks worth of notes. I'm still curious how often it is backup up automatically or if there is a way to regulate the frequency from my end.

Terry Poperszky

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104170#Comment_104170

f there is a way to regulate the frequency from my end.

Type "sync now" into the command bar and notice the circular arrows to top right of your programs

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104170#Comment_104170

Come to think of it, I might have turned off internet connection in program settings but I never work offline. I definitely lost most of my favorites and many days or weeks worth of notes. I'm still curious how often it is backup up automatically or if there is a way to regulate the frequency from my end.

The sync process seems to be near continuous. Watch how often the sync wheel spins. Change a place in a resource and let it sit for a few seconds, sync. Highlight something, sync. Type in a new note, almost continuously syncing. I personally love the feature and am grateful that some of my most precious info (my Logos data) is backed up with the most redundancy (among my computers and also to Logos' servers).

David Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104212#Comment_104212

Thank you.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104212#Comment_104212

I might have turned off internet connection in program settings but I never work offline. I definitely lost most of my favorites and many days or weeks worth of notes.

Turning off the internet connection in program settings is what I meant by "offliine". It would explain why you lost notes and favorites - you should have "lost" everything that you did after turning off the internet connection in program settings.

Jacob Hantla

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104263#Comment_104263

MJ, make sure you're quoting the right person.[:D]

David Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104212#Comment_104212

The sync process seems to be near continuous. Watch how often the sync wheel spins. Change a place in a resource and let it sit for a few seconds, sync. Highlight something, sync. Type in a new note, almost continuously syncing. I personally love the feature and am grateful that some of my most precious info (my Logos data) is backed up with the most redundancy (among my computers and also to Logos' servers).

I agree with you that automatic sync is a very nice feature. But when I learned about the feature the first time, it shocked me. I could have prayer lists which should not leave my desk. I'm glad to know now what not to do with Logos 4 software. Other software that I use gives me warnings before uploading any personal data from my computer with a pop up. I consider my notes and prayer lists to be more confidential than my financial data because they involve personal life of those people that I promise to keep their information confidential. It was clearly stated and warned in the license agreement but I do not study the agreement as carefully as pop ups. I may not be the only one that do not study every detail of license agreements which usually carry pretty much the same information from one to the other.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104305#Comment_104305

make sure you're quoting the right person

Hey, it's not my fault the forum software screws up. I just highlight and click "quote"[:D]

Terry Poperszky

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104408#Comment_104408

Hey, it's not my fault the forum software screws up. I just highlight and click "quote"

Hmmm.... Typical user, blaming the software! [;)]

David Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/104206#Comment_104206

Type "sync now" into the command bar and notice the circular arrows to top right of your programs

I set "Use Internet" to "No" in program settings. It appears to me that it is not quite as slow to type notes as when I set "Use Internet" to "Yes." I'm considering to leave "Use Internet" to "No" and enter "Sync Now" command when I'm done with taking notes. Would Logos 4 perform "Online Backup" when I type "Sync Now" command even when "Use Internet" is set to "No"?

Todd Phillips

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/105385#Comment_105385

I'm considering to leave "Use Internet" to "No" and enter "Sync Now" command when I'm done with taking notes.

I sometimes do this when I'm using notes.

Would Logos 4 perform "Online Backup" when I type "Sync Now" command even when "Use Internet" is set to "No"?

Syncing is the same thing that you are calling Online Backup. So the answer would be yes.