Clippings not atomically or immediately Synced?

I am sure that this has been covered elsewhere but I could not find it ....

I have a clippings file that I use to dump clippings as I read. they are not going towards any particular project, more a record my studies and particular phrases that 'spoke' to me at the time.

I am adding to this file all the time I am reading, and on all of my computers.

This morning, the files was gone Surprise and in its place on my layout was 'untitled clippings' ... a blank file.

Using the File menu I found a 'personal clippings (3)' file, which is basically the correct file but without some of the clippings that I put there with my PC yesterday.

This implies a couple of things (unless there is a bug somewhere)

Clippings are not being synced immediately, allowing different versions of the same file to reside on my different computers?
The alogroithm use to reconcile these different files does not seem to compare them at a clipping by clipping level, where each clipping has a date stamp, merging the results, but at a whole file level?
No warning is given when this version conflict arises. Thus I presumably could end up with three clipping files and not knowing into which file I have been adding the clips.

I am not sure what I can do about this. I can sort it manually in this case, but I know that some clippings have been 'lost' (not important in this case).

In terms of workflow, I am not sure how to guard against this in the future.

I also do not know whether it is also something related to one of my computers being a Mac. I have experienced considerable difficulty downloading updates etc. on the mac, where the same machine, at the same time, using Parallels and W7 will download every time.

Is there something that I am not doing?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Dave Hooton

Is there something that I am not doing?

I doubt it. It would be best to talk with Customer Support because they can check things on your computer if necessary and also see what is happening on the Sync server.

Mark Barnes

I am adding to this file all the time I am reading, and on all of my computers.

I could imagine this causing problems if the clippings file is very large. When you change a clipping, then entire file is synced (not just the clipping you added). So if the clipping file was very large, it would took a long time to upload. If, before it completed, you made a change on another computer, that would cause a collision, which might give the very symptoms you describe.

In terms of workflow, I am not sure how to guard against this in the future.

If I'm right, then the way to guard against it would be to either (a) use smaller clippings files that will upload quickly, or (b) wait a little longer before switching programs, and certainly before editing the clippings file on the other machine.

Martin Folley

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/195043#Comment_195043

If I'm right, then the way to guard against it would be to either (a) use smaller clippings files that will upload quickly, or (b) wait a little longer before switching programs, and certainly before editing the clippings file on the other machine.

Thanks Mark. I was beginning to move towards this conclusion as well ... but I am still concerned about a couple of things

Conflict resolutions are not notified to the user (if that is indeed the issue), they seem to be dealt with by silently making duplicate files which can lead to confusion.
I seem to remember a Logos employee replying in another thread that according to their data, most users only have about 6 note files (I think it was in reference to the file menu facilities). I presume the note files to then be quite large. If the same 'whole file' mechanism applies to both then does that restrict note files in their size as well? I did not mention it this morning, but my clippings are not what I would call a huge file. 30/40 clippings of about a paragraph each.

As far as I can tell, I always wait for the sync. icon to go grey, but sometimes I am working off-line so synchronisation must take place at a later stage. In this case, I am adding to the clippings after some extended reading and stumbling on a provoking (for me) passage. I cannot think of a situation where I would have started L4 and edited the file before it had had time to sync itself.

I think I'll suggest that we receive an automated email if L4 creates a second copy of a file for any reason.