Has anyone else had one item overwrite another?

[janrif]

Kinook, I think Hillary is on to something.

I was playing around with the command to open Favorites in new tab & ended yesterday's session w several open tabs.

The "reload tabs" options was selected here too.

Today when I clicked on yesterday's tabs, there was no data display.

OTOH, when I tried to recreate this, all tabs between sessions opened normally & all data was present & accounted for.

I do believe there is something going on but can't offer more details at this time. I understand how difficult it is to track down something as elusive as what Hillary (& now I) are reporting.

One difference in our experiencing is that I don't believe I 'lost' any data nor do I believe any data was corrupted. And I use URp all day, every day as well.

[dasymington]

I'm disappointed there hasn't been any further action on this or comment from Kinook, particularly as it's just happened to me.

Structure:

A -> O -> B -> C

A open in tab. C open in another tab. Then I opened B in a third tab and hoisted it. I then switched to the C tab, displayed item B and hoisted it. Going back to the original B tab I found it had the contents of A in it. All of B's contents lost!

On closing down and re-opening the database, B had the correct contents of what should have been in A, and A had the contents before the last edit of A.

I've tried this all again but it didn't do it this time. I had re-open tabs checked in Options.

Hope this helps to track it down quickly. We definitely need some restrictions on what can happen when an item is open in multiple tabs.

[Hilary]

You gave a much clearer description than I ever managed!

FWIW, I'd never used hoisting when it happened to me, so that may not be part of what causes the problem.

Also FWIW, and touching wood, it hasn't happened to me again since I repaired the database and upgraded.

[kinook]

Originally posted by dasymington
I'm disappointed there hasn't been any further action on this or comment from Kinook, particularly as it's just happened to me.

Structure:

A -> O -> B -> C

A open in tab. C open in another tab. Then I opened B in a third tab and hoisted it. I then switched to the C tab, displayed item B and hoisted it. Going back to the original B tab I found it had the contents of A in it. All of B's contents lost!

Apparently you also made changes in some item(s) between some of these steps? Can you provide any more detail on steps that might help us reproduce (exactly how you opened and switched between tabs, what other tabs [if any] were open, what sort of editing was done in items, are these text items being edited internally, etc.)?

BTW, at the point where B displayed the wrong data (before closing the database), you should be able to undo to get back B contents (and then copy its contents, redo, and paste back into B to keep other changes).

On closing down and re-opening the database, B had the correct contents of what should have been in A, and A had the contents before the last edit of A.

I've tried this all again but it didn't do it this time. I had re-open tabs checked in Options.

Hope this helps to track it down quickly. We definitely need some restrictions on what can happen when an item is open in multiple tabs.

We've tried many different permutations but haven't succeeded so far in determining what additional step(s) result in this behavior. But we'll keep trying.

[dasymington]

I can't remember what changes I'd made or provide any more details. I generally open new tabs by right clicking on an item in the explorer pane and choosing open in new tab.

[dasymington]

The stability and reliability of UR just seems to get worse and worse. An item that had lots of useful information has lost this information completely and contains only the details from one of its child items. I can tell from the date stamps in the information I've entered that this happened in the last few days, but I don't know exactly when and so, no, I can't tell you the steps to take to reproduce it. Also, I can't send you the database because it has lots of confidential information, some of it important, which UR has now lost! I can say, though, that it was probably caused by having multiple tabs open as I often have these two items open in tabs.

I'm running the debug build you sent concerning http://www.kinook.com/Forum/showthre...&threadid=2925 but I don't think that will help to track down the problem as it seems it happens without the user noticing until much later when it's too late to recover data. (I've got backups for the last 5 days and they all show the same thing for the corrupt item.)

I don't know what you at Kinook can do to track down these problems in data integrity and stability and I don't know what more your users can do to help you do that. But if the problems persist it will mean that those of us who rely on UR to a great extent will have to look elsewhere. This would be a great pity because until now UR has proved very reliable. Tabs are a welcome feature in UR, but I can't help feeling they've caused lots of problems.

I wonder what other data UR has lost that I haven't found out about yet!

[Hilary]

Ouch!

Lots of sympathy from here.

I haven't had this problem for some time. This may be pure luck, which I may just have jinxed, or it could be because of something I've changed. So here for whatever they're worth is everything that's changed:

- gone from elderly computer to new one
- hence a fresh installation of URD
- and the new computer's running Vista not XP
- and has much more free disk space
- I never have the same item open in multiple tabs
- I never leave several tabs open when I close the program
- I always open the program manually (not on startup)
- I always close the program manually (not closing it down with the computer

[janrif]

Originally posted by dasymington
The stability and reliability of UR just seems to get worse and worse. [snip] I can say, though, that it was probably caused by having multiple tabs open as I often have these two items open in tabs.[snip] if the problems persist it will mean that those of us who rely on UR to a great extent will have to look elsewhere. This would be a great pity because until now UR has proved very reliable. Tabs are a welcome feature in UR, but I can't help feeling they've caused lots of problems. [/snip]

I agree w the above sentiments & altho I have written extensively on other forums re: not suffering from multiple AV's etc, I must now confess that I can no longer say that as AV's seem to be increasing in frequency here, too.

I also believe tabs, updating multiple tabs w duplicate content seem suspect. I have also experienced looping problems when one of the tabs contains web content & I replace it with another tab.

And frankly, I, too, am getting a little uneasy about storing all my data in URp despite it's many talents & Kinook's obvious technical expertise & responsiveness. I haven't decided what to do quite yet so I guess I'm here for the time being but I sure hope this stuff gets resolved sooner than later.

Sorry to waste bandwidth on a 'me too' post but I think it's important that kinook know (if they don't already) that these problems are no longer really just a few isolated incidents.

[martym]

I've had a similar, yet different, problem. I've imported a WORD file into a project and then later deleted it. However, when I import a POWERPOINT file or some other file into that same project and then open the file, the old WORD file is displayed. I ended up deleting the host project file and making a new one.

I'm new to UR so I was just experimenting in a new DB and there weren't any serious consequences. I'll keep an eye on this and try to do a better job of describing exactly what I did should this happen again.

Marty

[cnewtonne]

Originally posted by dasymington
that those of us who rely on UR to a great extent will have to look elsewhere.

The problem is there is no 'elsewhere' anywhere. I have checked every app out there in this category but have not seen a single one that has the capturing abilities of UR. This is the only aspect of UR that's making me use it. Also, you will not find any other solution that offers your the mighty attributes system (user and system) as does UR.

UR is really THE leading and pioneeing solution in this regard. Yet, I have to understand why its developers are not taking these stability/integrity/performance issue seriously despite their first-class support.

I have written over 15 software reviews on different forums. I would love to review UR and advertise it on the many forums I participate in. I have not done so because of these major issues. I just do not want to call people to using an app that is not stable and crashes the way it does with me all the time.

One solution that got me interested in is TexNotes Pro at http://www.gemx.com/ . When it comes to keeping text and organizing it, man, man, man. It is sooo attractive. But it has zero capturing and meta-data (or attribute system) to customize.

[quant]

Originally posted by cnewtonne
I just do not want to call people to using an app that is not stable and crashes the way it does with me all the time.

please, keep on submitting the trace files to Kinook, cause as much as I'd like to, I was not able to "produce" a single AV error in the last week or two ...

[$bill]

Originally posted by quant
as much as I'd like to, I was not able to "produce" a single AV error in the last week or two ...

I haven't had an AV error either...UR is quite stable and reliable here. I have noted the reports and taken them seriously enough to make sure my versioning and backup software is working....

Data loss- I don't want to minimize anyones personal loss but my recollection of the postings in this forum is that postings of data loss is pretty rare...a few records among many thousand (? millions)...This is orders of magnitude better than many other forums I have frequented.

I don't know why UR is stable here and not for a few others. My experience with similar mysterious problems with other software would make me suspicious of firewall and/or anti-virus software which may be currently running. I have neither running on my UR computer by delegating those tasks to a gateway box.

[Hilary]

Heh... might've known I shouldn't visit this thread. Or if I do, I shouldn't post something about having no more problems. Yesterday's page of notes just got overwritten by a different item. Fortunately I can pretty much remember what they said, but I need to set aside time today to check all the other items I edited yesterday, see if they still have their original contents. Cross your fingers for me.

Tip for minimising damage: keep your item text short. Subdivide long items into several smaller ones. Yes, it takes a long time to switch focus between them, but at least you can't lose so much at once.

I suppose to be absolutely safe I should just never use more than one tab.

[quant]

Originally posted by Hilary
Heh... might've known I shouldn't visit this thread. Or if I do, I shouldn't post something about having no more problems. Yesterday's page of notes just got overwritten by a different item. Fortunately I can pretty much remember what they said, but I need to set aside time today to check all the other items I edited yesterday, see if they still have their original contents. Cross your fingers for me.

Tip for minimising damage: keep your item text short. Subdivide long items into several smaller ones. Yes, it takes a long time to switch focus between them, but at least you can't lose so much at once.

I suppose to be absolutely safe I should just never use more than one tab.

Hilary, seems that I found the problem that could lead to overwriting one item by another, reported to Kinook, so hopefully corrected very soon, and we all can sleep a little bit better ;-)

[Hilary]

Thanks! You should get a prize, probably involving chocolate.