# Recovering Lost Notes

Recovering Lost Notes If you are reading this, odds are you are worried ! So, first bit of advice is don't panic (1) Its quite possible we can help you. That will depend on whats happened and maybe if you have taken a manual snapshot recently. Firstly, don't do a sync, it could replace good data with bad. Next, take small steps. Lets look at the possibilities - I (or the sync) deleted a note I need That just might be easy. We keep a backup copy of every note you manually delete or is overwritten during a sync. But only one copy so if its been synced and overwritten again, its gone. Check by going back to Settings, the Recover tab, click "Show Me", browse through the old notes there and double click a likely candidate. You'll get a dialog that lets you view, delete or recover that note. I have a corrupted note. When you start tomboy-ng, you see a warning about an inability to index a note. That probably means the note's XML has somehow become corrupted (2). The indexing mechanism in tomboy-ng is deliberately very strict in what it will accept, it errors if one field is unobtainable. However, depending on where the XML error in the note is, you may be able to open it and save it with rewritten XML. Do take a snapshot before you start this process. To try this quick fix, you should - From Settings, the Recover tab, click "Manual Snapshot" (to be safe!) then click "Recover lost notes". In this window, under "Bad Notes" is a list of just that. Double click a likely candidate and a new Edit window will open. You may have just recovered at least some content. You're not listening, I have lost all my notes ! OK, I get you, this is serious. But we at have two paths left, lets see - I sync my notes from somewhere else. Oh, that's good. Maybe all you need do is clean out your current notes directory (3) and rejoin the sync network. Note, I emphasise, not just do a sync. You MUST go to the sync tab and click "Set File Sync Repo". That way, the sync system sees you as a new friend and sends you a full set of notes. Just how good an approach this is depends on how recently you last synced, obviously any changes since last sync will be lost. I have a snapshot Great news ! You can easily choose to roll back to a particular snapshot and blow away all your troubles. Too Easy ! If you wisely kept the snapshot elsewhere, copy it to your snapshot directory (shown on the settings -> snapshots tab). From the SnapShot tab, click "Recover one or more lost Notes". If you have not already, now would be a great time to click "Safety Snapshot", you are in seriously dangerous space right now. Go to the "Recover Snapshot" tab, choose the snapshot you wish to use and away you go (4). Back out, go to the Search and click "Refresh". After you have checked all is good, please remember to take a snapshot every now and again ! Notes (1) By Douglas Adams, used without permission. (2) Corrupted notes should never happen, looks like it did. Power failure, program error, whatever. If its my fault, I am sincerely sorry ! Please report this experience to the Tomboy mailing list or Github. The only way I can rid of these problems is if people tell me about them. (3) Tomboy-ng tells you where your notes are stored, go there with a file manager and select all the note files. They are the ones with a 36 apparently random character name and ".note" extension. Only do this if you are a sync user ! (4) If you (wisely) keep a copy elsewhere, bring it back, un-encrypt it if necessary. And, good work ! 2020-11-17T20:33:16.2310674+11:00 2020-11-17T20:33:16.2310674+11:00 2018-08-26T14:03:28.1020000+10:00 1 1 1061 626 76 243 False