BEWARE! Watch out for the Emphasis and Solid Colors Markup files

I just had a terrible experience.

Some of the speed improvements I was appreciating after upgrading to Logos 4.5 prompted me to clean up my numerous layouts to streamline my work and speed up layout loading. I happen to notice in My Reading Companion Guide under My Content two note files I hadn't seen before, Solid Colors and Emphasis Markup. Their contents looked very unfamiliar.

I had imported a number of other people's note files when I had Logos 3 and carried them over to Logos 4, so I assumed I had just not noticed these particular files before and since I was cleaning things up, I deleted the Emphasis Markup note file.

Lo an behold ALL, repeat ***ALL*** of the emphasis markups I have made went POOF!

I called Logos and when I was told that the file was IRRETRIEVABLE, (they don't put it in the Windows trash so it can be retrieved). This was an inexpressible hurt. I had to quickly say thank you, hang up and move away from the computer for awhile to keep from saying or doing anything I'd regret.

My thoughts were that in NO WAY ON EARTH should these special files be readily visible and certainly not deletable without a dire warning informing the user of what they are about to do to themselves. I fumed that anything less is irresponsible and inconsiderate (which I still think it is!).

When I returned to my desk and checked my phone messages, Scarlett, (I hope I got the spelling right) the customer support tech I had spoken to, had left a message. She cared enough to look into the issue further and found a way to undelete this note file on her end, thus restoring my markups. I am very grateful for her care and help.

What a roller-coaster ride I've had this morning.

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

davidphillips

She cared enough to look into the issue further and found a way to undelete this note file on her end, thus restoring my markups. I am grateful for her help.

Praise God! I'm so glad to hear that your notes were retrieved!

fgh

Ironically, the very last thing I did before reading your post was reading this in the release notes:

Deleting a palette that contains styles still in use will be prevented and the attempt will bring up a “# style is still in use” alert at the top of the Highlighting panel. The alert can be closed or left open until it disappears on its own in 10 seconds. Hovering over the alert will keep it open and display the styles in use and how many times each one has been applied.
Deleting a style that is still in use will bring up a “Style is still in use” alert, with an option to move the annotation(s) to “No highlight” or to another style from the drop-down list, before clicking “Delete Style.” To close the alert without moving the annotation, click “Cancel.”

Seems they closed two back doors but left the front door open...

Glad you could get it fixed eventually. What a nightmare!

Logos, you've got to start showing more respect for our work. Time and time again people lose hours or weeks or years of work, sometimes because they accidentally delete something that shouldn't have been so easy to delete, sometimes because of bugs, and then the involuntary change is immediately synced to the cloud, making it hard or impossible to undo, even if you have a local backup. This must stop. We must be able to go back in time and retrieve things, either through the cloud or through local backup.

Bradley Grainger (Logos)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/329887#Comment_329887

Logos, you've got to start showing more respect for our work. Time and time again people lose hours or weeks or years of work, sometimes because they accidentally delete something that shouldn't have been so easy to delete, sometimes because of bugs, and then the involuntary change is immediately synced to the cloud, making it hard or impossible to undo, even if you have a local backup. This must stop. We must be able to go back in time and retrieve things, either through the cloud or through local backup.

See http://community.logos.com/forums/p/43176/322004.aspx#322004.

Jim

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/329947#Comment_329947

See http://community.logos.com/forums/p/43176/322004.aspx#322004.

Very interesting. I did a search before posting my comment, but came up dry and don't know why, but I seldom seem to find good results when searching the forums.

Up until now highlighting has been a rather hidden internal structural matter. Perhaps there is a good reason to expose those files to users for some advanced feature, but there ought to be some warning before the user attempts to delete something so important (they are not user-generated files after-all).

I don't know all the issues, but on the surface it seems to me what has been done is like Windows moving part of its registry to an innocent looking file on the desktop with a .txt extension and not warning you that you will loose a significant amount of your program settings on the computer if you delete it.

Bob Pritchett

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/329971#Comment_329971

Moving highlights to notes gives you more control and visibility over your data. In the earlier implementation highlights were just "magically" stored, but you couldn't treat them like a document. To support richer functionality, as well as more intentional use and (coming soon) sharing with others, we needed to expose them as items, in documents, that you could actually do something with.

Jim

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/329975#Comment_329975

Moving highlights to notes gives you more control and visibility over your data.

Thanks for the note. After reading this thread I was really confused and frustrated.I read the release notes and they seem more clear.

I do greatly appreciate that now when I paste text from a resource into a note a reference link is automatically added. THANK YOU!

I also appreciate the greater controls on note highlighting I stumbled upon as well as the greatly increased speed of highlighting and the sort features.

It's just been a rather frustrating ride to back into this stuff.

Kevin A. Purcell

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/329992#Comment_329992

Nice to hear about a great customer service story.

Ward Walker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/330005#Comment_330005

Nice to hear about a great customer service story.

[Y]

I'm skittish about how easy it will now be to wipe out my highlights in one fell swoop, but am happy to hear Logos has an undo--at least via cust svc.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/329947#Comment_329947

Logos, you've got to start showing more respect for our work. Time and time again people lose hours or weeks or years of work, sometimes because they accidentally delete something that shouldn't have been so easy to delete, sometimes because of bugs, and then the involuntary change is immediately synced to the cloud, making it hard or impossible to undo, even if you have a local backup. This must stop. We must be able to go back in time and retrieve things, either through the cloud or through local backup.

See http://community.logos.com/forums/p/43176/322004.aspx#322004.

Well, that's certainly one step in the right direction. I just hope it's going to be big enough, and arrive soon, because this isn't just about note files or passage lists. It's also about individual notes. It's about the people who've suddenly lost all their collections. It's about the hundreds of font slider settings I just lost with 4.5. It's about the content of the Last Updated column that I lost last spring when neither CS nor Tech Support could be bothered to check if the missing files I told them were probably not unlocked actually were so, and instead had me delete a file which took over an hour to rebuild. Not the end of the world compared to lost notes or highlights, but annoying, completely unnecessary (since the files weren't unlocked and couldn't possibly have turned up in a rebuild), and at the time apparently irreversible (in spite of me having carefully saved the old file).

So, please make sure your solution covers everything.

I'm also wondering: if you were developing this 'tool' before the 7th, how come CS or Tech Support (it's unclear which) didn't know about it when the OP phoned today? How many others have been told their highlighting is lost forever, by someone who didn't get back to them later?

tom

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/330145#Comment_330145

Logos, you've got to start showing more respect for our work. Time and time again people lose hours or weeks or years of work, sometimes because they accidentally delete something that shouldn't have been so easy to delete, sometimes because of bugs, and then the involuntary change is immediately synced to the cloud, making it hard or impossible to undo, even if you have a local backup. This must stop. We must be able to go back in time and retrieve things, either through the cloud or through local backup.

[Y]

I agree 110%. From a user's perspective, Logos does not care much about our data.

Bruce Cullom Sr.

I have done similar things. But what if this happens over a weekend?

What I have done is this: I have a desktop AND a laptop, each with Logos 4. I use both frequently so both stay synchronized with each other. Should I accidentally delete, or otherwise mess up something terribly (let's say on my desktop), the data is still uncorrupted on my laptop. So I take my laptop off line, power it up, and do some work on Logos 4 (anything). I then go back online with my laptop and the Logos server will now recognize that my laptop is the last computer I worked on and will synchronize/update their server to my laptop.

Then, the next time I power up my desktop and open Logos 4, the Logos server will synchronize my desktop with the data it got from my laptop and my files (or whatever) are restored. But remember, if you don't take your (other/second) computer offline before you open Logos 4, the Logos server will synchronize it with the first one and you will lose the data from both.

This has saved me (metaphorically speaking several times over the years. Of course, you have to have two computers with Logos 4 for this to work.

I reasoned this might work because I often take my laptop on trips/vacations and sometimes do significant work on Logos 4 off line. When I return home and put it on line, the Logos server synchronizes itself with my laptop (recognizing it as the last computer on which I did work) and then copies/downloads the off line work to my desktop when I power it up and go online with Logos 4. I have tried this and it works.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374530#Comment_374530

I reasoned this might work because I often take my laptop on trips/vacations and sometimes do significant work on Logos 4 off line. When I return home and put it on line, the Logos server synchronizes itself with my laptop (recognizing it as the last computer on which I did work) and then copies/downloads the off line work to my desktop when I power it up and go online with Logos 4. I have tried this and it works.

This is what one would expect but it does not depend on the computer as upon the transactions that are the most recent.

Should I accidentally delete, or otherwise mess up something terribly (let's say on my desktop), the data is still uncorrupted on my laptop. So I take my laptop off line, power it up, and do some work on Logos 4 (anything). I then go back online with my laptop and the Logos server will now recognize that my laptop is the last computer I worked on and will synchronize/update their server to my laptop.

I made similar attempts with two computers but concluded you have to at least open/close the deleted document(s) on the other computer whilst offline.

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374549#Comment_374549

Should I accidentally delete, or otherwise mess up something terribly (let's say on my desktop), the data is still uncorrupted on my laptop. So I take my laptop off line, power it up, and do some work on Logos 4 (anything). I then go back online with my laptop and the Logos server will now recognize that my laptop is the last computer I worked on and will synchronize/update their server to my laptop.

I made similar attempts with two computers but concluded you have to at least open/close the deleted document(s) on the other computer whilst offline

Would that be sufficient, or would you need to make some small change to the document?

Gregory Miller

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374579#Comment_374579

Just for clarification, when you are going 'off line' are you changing the 'Use Internet' option to 'No'?

Bruce Cullom Sr.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374603#Comment_374603

No. I just disconnect the ethernet cable and when you open Logos a menu will pop up telling you it can't find an internet connection and asks you if you want to "Work Offline." Just click on work "Work Offlilne" and Logos will open. Later, when I am finished with my work, I reconnect the eithernet cable and restart Logos and it will automatically syncronize my laptop to the Logos server.

Bruce Cullom Sr.

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374579#Comment_374579

I have not checked to see exactly how much work (what degree of change) needs to be done before Logos accepts the second computer as the latest one used and syncs their server to that one.

I just use the laptop (second computer) off line for whatever work I need to do at that time and then reconnect it to the internet and restart Logos.

There does appear to be some minimum degree of change. For an expeiment, I just higlighted one word on my desktop computer. I then started up my laptop and when it syncronized with the Logos server, the same word appeared hightlighted. I then took the laptop offline and returned to my desktop and deleted the highlighting from the word. Returning to my laptop (still offline) I opened Logos and highlighted another word just to make "some" change. I then put my laptop back on line and when I restarted Logos, the orginal word I had highlighted (on my desktop) was now eraced. This means that simply highlighting a second word was not sufficient for Logos to identify my laptop as the last computer on which I worked.

I called Logos tech service and asked what caused the Logos server to identify which of two computers was the last on which work was done -- so their server would sync with that one. The person I spoke to had no answer.

So there seems to be some degree of change needed(on the second offline computer) to make the Logos server recognize it as the last one used. But currently, I don't know what that is. I have, however, severall times, recovered data accidentally deleted from my desktop by using the method I outlined above. It seems the safest thing is to not make minor changes on the second computer, but do a day's work on it offline and then reconnect.

If I can get more information on this from Logos, I will post it.

In any case, I believe Logos should provide some way/method to create a "system image" of Logos, or, some way to back up all files on an outboard hard drive since the Logos server, as good as it is, if not fool proof with regard to recovering lost data. I once did a sentence diagram of 1st. Thessalonians and saved it under Layouts. Later, I accidentially deleted it thinking I was deleting the saved Layout above it (Logos does not give you a "are you sure?" warning). I didn't notice this until after I had already powered up my Laptop and Logos had sync'd it with my desktop. All work was lost. If you have ever sentence diagrammed an entire book, you know how much work this was. If I had a backup, I could have simply reloaded it and restored my work.

___________________________________

One other unrelated thing I wanted to pass along -- a couple of months ago I moved Logos 4 from my hard drive to a Solid State Drive I installed specifically for the Windows 7 operating system and Logos 4 (a 128 GiG SSD will work nicely with room to spare). Now Logos opens in 14 seconds flat and commentaries and other linked windows update/refresh and scroll orders of magnatude faster. Furthermore, everytime I download a book, series, or Logos does an update, I noticed that my hard drive becomes fragmented by perhaps 3 to 5 percent (sometimes more). This somewhat affected the speed with which my commentary list populated (when I clicked on "more" -- I have 50 commentary sets) and had some other noticeable effects. Since fragmentation does not affect the read speed of an SSD, I never get any negative slowing effects -- at all -- when running Logos. Logos is now "screaming fast" as compared to when I was running it on my hard drive. Windows 7 opens in 28 seconds from power on, and in 4 seconds from "sleep." Just passing this along for what it's worth.

I did a fair amount of research as to which SSD was the best value/most reliable, and below is a link to the one I bought. Crucial tech support told me you can write 40 GiG of data to it every day for five years before it fails (most of us don't even write 10 gig of data per day). I ran an "SSD Life" (free download app) this last week and at my average use it is saying mine should last until January 10, 2021. I still use my hard drive for iTunes and downloading video files, etc. If anyone has any questions about SSDs, I can probably answer them or point you to a source that can.

http://www.buy.com/prod/crucial-m4-128gb-2-5-sata-iii-solid-state-drive-ssd/221150373.html

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1. Desktop Custom built Magic Micro Core i7 3.8 GiG processor, 16 GiGs DDR-3 1600 Mhz RAM, NVIDIA GTX 2 GiG DDR-5 Graphics Card, 128 GiG Crucial M4 SSD, 750 GiG Seagate Barrracuda hard drive, SATA III 6 GiG, USB 3.0, Dual 27" Samsung LED monitors, Windows 7 Home Premium.

2. Laptop HP DV7T Core i7 3.2 GiG processor, 8 GiGs DDR-3 1333 Mhz RAM, Radeon 2 GiG DDR-5 Graphics card, Crucial M4 256 GiG SSD, SATA III 6 GiG, USB 3.0, 17.3" LED Monitor, 19" external monitor, Windows 7 Home Premium.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374579#Comment_374579

I made similar attempts with two computers but concluded you have to at least open/close the deleted document(s) on the other computer whilst offline

Would that be sufficient, or would you need to make some small change to the document?

I succeeded without making any changes, opened/closed a few other documents and was offline for a few minutes only. But I do not regard this as a foolproof method as I could not reproduce on two other, slightly different, attempts. It may be reproducible but you would have to document the steps.

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374673#Comment_374673

It may be reproducible but you would have to document the steps

All-in-all, a rather unsatisfactory arrangement.

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374693#Comment_374693

It may be reproducible but you would have to document the steps

All-in-all, a rather unsatisfactory arrangement.

I managed to reproduce a recovery of a deleted document as follows:

don't bother if L4 can sync on the other computer i.e. L4 must be closed or the computer is not awake
no guarantee this will work for you!

close L4 after deletion of document(s) and remember the File name(s)
switch off your Internet modem or disconnect the Ethernet cable to other computer
start or restart the other L4 and Work Offline
open deleted documents and change their File name
close L4
re-connect Internet to computer (undo Step 2)
restart L4 and allow sync to complete
change the documents back to their original names
let L4 sync and then close it
restart the original L4, let it sync and then celebrate!

NB. I didn't test this for deleted annotations, prayers, clippings, etc WITHIN a document File.

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374712#Comment_374712

switch off your Internet modem or disconnect the Ethernet cable to other computer

Don't know about Windows, but on a Mac you can start L4 with the Command key down and choose to work offline. Would this not work? My wife might not be completely enamored with me if I switched off Air Port while she was online [8-|]

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374719#Comment_374719

switch off your Internet modem or disconnect the Ethernet cable to other computer

Don't know about Windows, but on a Mac you can start L4 with the Command key down and choose to work offline. Would this not work? My wife might not be completely enamored with me if I switched off Air Port while she was online

The point about doing it physically is to ensure the other L4 cannot sync before you go to "work offline"! When my computer is sleeping, I can't be sure about the state of L4; but if you are certain that L4 is not running then you can start it with Ctrl key (Windows) or Command key down.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374719#Comment_374719

Not being critical or anything, but watching this thread from its inception (an obvious programming faux paux, followed by great customer service) and then how to work around the continuing quality of program design issues inherent at Logos is really an interesting commentary. Both issues should have been put to bed, one in the alpha stage (warning of deletion) and the other in initial design stage (managing data flows to protect exceptions). The latter is far more interesting given the interest in pastors, etc. (professional support).

Dave Hooton

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374737#Comment_374737

Both issues should have been put to bed, one in the alpha stage (warning of deletion) and the other in initial design stage (managing data flows to protect exceptions). The latter is far more interesting given the interest in pastors, etc. (professional support).

I wonder how the level of support for data recovery/maintenance in Libronix compares to that needed for L4, given that the "cloud" was designed to alleviate the Libronix issue. More importantly, how much data has actually been lost despite the cloud? The fact that I spent some time researching this method of recovery is a comment in itself, but my doubts required that I at least make an effort to clarify how it can be achieved.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374655#Comment_374655

I once did a sentence diagram of 1st. Thessalonians and saved it under Layouts. Later, I accidentially deleted it thinking I was deleting the saved Layout above it (Logos does not give you a "are you sure?" warning). I didn't notice this until after I had already powered up my Laptop and Logos had sync'd it with my desktop. All work was lost.

I beg your pardon, but that scenario is impossible. A layout is just a shapshot. Deleting a layout with a sentence diagram in it doesn't delete the diagram itself any more than deleting a screen shot of an e-mail deletes the e-mail itself. Either you misremember and deleted the diagram under Files, or it's still there.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374742#Comment_374742

Well, actually, the part I'm not familiar with is the software design protocol. There seems to be a lot of software people on the forum, including I assume yourself, since you seem unusually knowledgeable. But in the 'old days' (before L4 and some of the Microsoft updates), it was just SOP to build in confirmation queries where a user action could be disasterous. Opera (who apparently is a potential Facebook purchase) builds them in but also allows the user to turn them off.

The data issue is even more curious. My dad was a preacher; his notes were a criticality, along with his books. Mine are not, beyond simple frustration and replacement costs. On my own software I periodically loose some notes but only because I'm too lazy to program in a simple backup which would take all of 5 minutes. If I were programming for other Bible users, it would be another story of course. That's why from the start of Logos4 I've been surprised at the design sloppiness in resource investment protections for users, and data as well.

fgh

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374719#Comment_374719

My wife might not be completely enamored with me if I switched off Air Port while she was online

How would you switching off AirPort under the icon in the menu bar affect your wife's connection? She's not using the very same computer at the very same time, is she? [:)]

More importantly, how much data has actually been lost despite the cloud?

Still more importantly: how much data has been lost precisely because of the cloud?

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/374753#Comment_374753

My wife might not be completely enamored with me if I switched off Air Port while she was online

How would you switching off AirPort under the icon in the menu bar affect your wife's connection? She's not using the very same computer at the very same time, is she?

Remember. We are one [:D] My comment was in response to Dave's step of turning off the modem.

Jeremy Priest

Jim or Anyone,

I just deleted my Emphasis Mark-up document. I went to the Logos undelete site: https://documents.logos.com/?deleted=true and was able to bring it back.

However, the document seems to have no content and my emphasis mark-ups are still not visible. I restarted Logos and still nothing.

When yours came back did it come back complete or did you have to do something with it? Thoughts?

Jeremy Priest

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/329947#Comment_329947

I just deleted my Emphasis Mark-up document. I went to the Logos undelete site: https://documents.logos.com/?deleted=true and was able to bring it back.

However, the document seems to have no content and my emphasis mark-ups are still not visible. I restarted Logos and still nothing.

Thoughts?

Dustin Masters (Work)

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/568039#Comment_568039

This issue has been fixed. Please see http://community.logos.com/forums/t/81199.aspx for details.