Help! Highlights are gone after app reinstall!

Matthew
Matthew Member Posts: 941
edited November 21 in English Forum

I recently installed Bible 4.5.0 (Build 412) on my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (running Android 4.4.2). After I did this, the app began crashing every time I would try viewing the library to open a book. The only solution I could find was to completely uninstall the app and install the latest stable version (4.4.7, Build 348) from the Google Play Store. I have all the books I need re-downloaded and my notes files are showing up, but I am no longer able to access the highlights I had previously made. All of my highlights had been saved to a single notes file called "Solid Colors." If I open the full Logos program on my desktop (Windows 7, 64-bit, running Logos 6, not sure of the exact version as I am not on that computer right now), the "Solid Colors" notes file is still accessible and does in fact still have all the highlights that I had previously made. This tells me that the data does still exist and thankfully has not vanished into oblivion. When I try opening that same file in the mobile app, it comes up as a blank document and shows no highlights have been made. Interestingly, when I went to Settings in the app and reset the default "Document for Highlights" back to "Solid Colors," my desktop installation shows that i created a notes files called "Solid Colors (2)." It is as my app can see my original file but is unable to access the data in it, and it for some reason it tries creating a new file rather than using the one already there. Two questions:

1. How do I fix this?

2. What is the best way to back up my original "Solid Colors" file until this is resolved? I REALLY do not want to lose all the hard work that was put into the highlights I have.

As always, thanks in advance for the help!

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Comments

  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,474

    When I try opening that same file in the mobile app, it comes up as a blank document and shows no highlights have been made.

    How long is this after reinstalling the app? Sometimes it can take some time for notes to fully sync

    Interestingly, when I went to Settings in the app and reset the default "Document for Highlights" back to "Solid Colors," my desktop installation shows that i created a notes files called "Solid Colors (2).

    That's strange - this shouldn't create a new file, it should simply set the target for new highlights / notes

  • Matthew
    Matthew Member Posts: 941

    I reinstalled yesterday. Everything else appears to be back as it should except for my highlights.

  • Kevin Byford (Faithlife)
    Kevin Byford (Faithlife) Member, Logos Employee Posts: 4,309

    I recently installed Bible 4.5.0 (Build 412) on my Samsung Galaxy Note 2 (running Android 4.4.2). After I did this, the app began crashing every time I would try viewing the library to open a book. The only solution I could find was to completely uninstall the app and install the latest stable version (4.4.7, Build 348) from the Google Play Store.

    Version 4.5.0 is Beta software and is not officially supported - this is why beta users are cautioned that problems can and will happen.  Please post to the Android Beta forum if you run into any further issues.

    Two questions:

    1. How do I fix this?

    2. What is the best way to back up my original "Solid Colors" file until this is resolved? I REALLY do not want to lose all the hard work that was put into the highlights I have.

    What I recommend is not using our beta apps as your main production / stable app.  In any case I will take a look at this issue and see what I can find out.

  • Matthew
    Matthew Member Posts: 941

    Version 4.5.0 is Beta software and is not officially supported - this is why beta users are cautioned that problems can and will happen.  Please post to the Android Beta forum if you run into any further issues.

    I apologize if I posted on the wrong forum. I posted here rather than the beta forum because the problem I am having is with the stable, non-beta version of app. I was able to view my "Solid Colors" highlights when 4.5.0 was installed. It was only after I replaced it with 4.4.7 that I encountered my current problem.

    In any case I will take a look at this issue and see what I can find out.

    Thank you very much. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated! Please let me know if there is additional information I can provide!

  • Kevin Byford (Faithlife)
    Kevin Byford (Faithlife) Member, Logos Employee Posts: 4,309

    I apologize if I posted on the wrong forum. I posted here rather than the beta forum because the problem I am having is with the stable, non-beta version of app. I was able to view my "Solid Colors" highlights when 4.5.0 was installed. It was only after I replaced it with 4.4.7 that I encountered my current problem.

    Sorry Matthew, it's been a long day already... I didn't mean to jump on you, please forgive me.  

    The good news is we found some crash logs on the server side related to your account and I've written up a case - this is to fix the original crash issue you experienced on 4.5.0.  The other issue with the duplicate Note Document being created, we thought that was fixed already but apparently it isn't.  We're looking at both issues.

  • Matthew
    Matthew Member Posts: 941

    Sorry Matthew, it's been a long day already... I didn't mean to jump on you, please forgive me.  

    No worries Kevin. I am just grateful for the help! I have two additional pieces of information that may be helpful. First, it appears that I am able to reproduce the problem of a "Solid Colors (2)" file being created. I deleted the original "Solid Colors (2)" from my desktop installation, selected a different default document for highlights on my Bible! app, closed the app, re-opened it, and once again changed the default document to "Solid Colors." Sure enough, when I checked my desktop installation, I once again I have a "Solid Colors (2)" file. Not surprisingly, the file is blank. It shows a modification date of today, whereas my original "Solid Colors" file shows that it has not been updated since February 12. The second piece of information that may be helpful is that even though this duplicate/blank file appears to be created by my Bible! app, the app itself does not seem to know that it is a duplicate. I can only find "Solid Colors (2)" on my desktop. There is no highlighter style or notes file by that name anywhere in the Bible! app. All that shows up is a blank "Solid Colors" file without the "(2)" in the name.

  • Matthew
    Matthew Member Posts: 941

    One more update. Since the app keeps making a new highlighting file rather than selecting the one that is already there, I tried re-naming my "Solid Colors" file on the desktop to "Original Solid Colors." I wanted to see if the app would at least reflect this name change. It does not. It still only shows "Solid Colors" (the blank file it created, which shows up on my desktop as "Solid Colors (2)." I do not know what this looks like on the server side of things, but to me this behavior suggests that there is something about my highlight file itself that is preventing it from syncing from my desktop to my phone. I do not believe it is a matter of not waiting long enough for things to sync, as I have allowed my phone to sit for long periods of time where it is connected to WiFi, mobile data, or a combination of the two. Something else is at play here. I am running out of things to try, although I suppose I could always try uninstalling the app and re-installing a slightly older version of it to see if that might fix things. Not sure where I might find the installation file for that, though.

  • Matthew
    Matthew Member Posts: 941

    I apologize to everyone if it is bad protocol for me to continue posting update after update, but I have made significant progress on resolving my issue and want to share my steps with the community in case someone else has the misfortune of experiencing this issue. My highlights are back on my phone and appear, at least initially, to by syncing both to and from my desktop installation. The following are the steps I took to get where I am now:

    1. I renamed my original highlighter notes file on the desktop. It had been "Solid Colors," but I changed it to "Original Solid Colors."

    2. I deleted the file the Android app had created that had the same name as my original file but was empty. This is the file that was showing up in Android as "Solid Colors" but for some reason showed up on my desktop as "Solid Colors (2)." It was empty on both installation.

    3. I allowed some time for both installations to sync.

    4. On my desktop installation, I opened "Original Solid Colors," clicked on the notebook icon in the upper left corner of tab, and selected "Manage Document Sharing." This took me to documents.logos.com, where I logged in.

    5. In the upper right corner of my browser, I clicked the blue "Action" button and selected "Duplicate: Make a private copy of this document." This created a highlighter notes document in both my desktop and mobile installation called "Original Solid Colors (2)."

    6. Using my desktop installation, I renamed this file "Solid Colors," which is what my highlights file had been called before this whole problem started.

    7. I waited for this name change to sync to my mobile installation.

    8. I added one highlight to this document from my mobile installation and one highlight from my desktop installation to verify it was syncing both ways.

    This process seems to confirm my suspicion that something became corrupted with my original file that it was no longer syncing correctly. In creating a duplicate of it, the corruption seems to have been resolved. There is just one thing that still has me scratching my head. The book I used to create my "test highlights" was Synonyms of the New Testament. If I open my now-functional "Solid Colors" file on the desktop and set the dropdown box in the upper right to "Quotes," Synonyms of the New Testament does not show up as one of the books that has highlighting in it. If I change that setting to "Full," "Compact," or "Split," both of my test highlights show up at the top of this list next to the book title. For whatever reason Synonyms of the New Testament shows up in every view except "Quotes." Not sure what to make of this, but everything else appears to be working and syncing correctly. Sorry for the long post, but hopefully this may be of some use to someone with a similar issue.

  • Matthew
    Matthew Member Posts: 941

    Unless something goes terribly, terribly wrong, this will be my last update on this issue. I added a few more highlights, and everything is now showing up correctly as it should under the "Quotes" view of my notes file. I guess it just took longer to show up for some reason. In any case, my main takeaway from this is that since I use a single notes file for all my highlights, as opposed to a separate notes file for each book that I highlight something in, I need to periodically make a duplicate of that file in case the original gets corrupted. Thankful for Logos and thankful more than 600 highlights were not lost. Lesson learned!