Disappearing notes?
 

I'm 99% sure this is [b]not[/b] happening, but I want to put a stake in the ground:

Has anyone entered items (with notes) via Quick Entry, and discovered that they've disappeared later? Either the notes have gone missing, or the items themselves?

I'm pretty sure this is user error, and I'm just misremembering things: I thought I captured a note, and it turns out I didn't. It seems unlikely that this would be an OF bug.

But it sure seems to be happening a lot lately, so I figured I'd ask around.

I've been using OmniFocus heavily since September 2007 and I've [B]never[/B] had any data disappear on me - no data loss whatsoever. That's including every pre-release sneakypeak build as well.

I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but in my experience OmniFocus is extremely reliable.

-Dennis

Jay,
The only thing along these lines that I've ever experienced involved an unexpected interaction between OF and another application that worked via Input Manager (TextExpander). You might want to check to see if you've got something like that going on.

The other thing that happens to some folks is that they accidentally switch to a view setting that is hiding some tasks and they don't realize it.

This does happen---I recently submitted a bug report about it.

I dragged a file into the notes and although the notes symbol was still visible, the dragged file went missing (I checked weeks later as I wanted to work on this task). I found the file in the OmniFocus.ofocus data directory, but it still doesn't show up in the notes.

[QUOTE=kasi;53593]I found the file in the OmniFocus.ofocus data directory, but it still doesn't show up in the notes.[/QUOTE]

What's the "OmniFocus.ofocus data directory" you mentioned? Is that a directory inside the OmniFocus database bundle? I've never seen it.

-Dennis

Dennis, how many times do I have to explain the file format to you?!? :-)

Yeah, if you open up the package, and drag out the big 0000000...zip file, and uncompress it, you'll end up with a folder containing a contents.xml file and a data directory full of folders containing attached documents. For example:

[URL=http://imageshack.us][IMG]http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/7735/picture17ht5.png[/IMG][/URL]

Hmm, interesting. I don't keep any attachments embedded in my database (i.e. they're all linked in). So when I uncompress my 0000...zip file all I get is a contents.xml file. No wonder I had never seen the data directory. That might also explain why I've never seen the issue kasi mentioned.

-Dennis

Thanks all.. I haven't been dragging any files into notes; I'm just using that field for "expanded text". I do have a few SIMBL-type things running, so if I see this continuing, I'll dig in that direction. It's most likely in the "I'm sure I wrote that down.. I must have, right?" category.

[QUOTE=kasi;53593]
I dragged a file into the notes and although the notes symbol was still visible, the dragged file went missing (I checked weeks later as I wanted to work on this task). I found the file in the OmniFocus.ofocus data directory, but it still doesn't show up in the notes.[/QUOTE]

There was (is?) a bug where an attachment for a deleted action would remain in the database, but not accessible from the UI. So, the fact that the file was in the data directory does not necessarily mean that OF lost data. It is possible that either the action was deleted and recreated without the note, or perhaps that editing of the note was cancelled after the attachment was made. Of course, it's also possible that OF lost data, but I've never seen that even in the very earliest sneaky peeks of v1.0.