Sonny Software

Hello,

I've experienced a problem using Bookends 11.1.6 that I'm finding both very mysterious and extremely debilitating to my use of the software. I use the Notes feature heavily during my workflow. My preferred approach is to use the Main/Notes/Attachments window to take notes while I read a PDF in Preview alongside. Occasionally, I will switch from Notes to Main to add a keyword. On some occasions all the text in the Notes field disappears. No error messages, beach balls, or other stalls accompany this loss of text--the text just disappears.

I'm usually doing nothing more than using Preview and Bookends actively at the time but sometimes other applications will be open (e.g., iTunes, DevonThink, etc). I find it really dispiriting to lose work in this way. While this doesn't happen every time it's happened enough for me to be extremely cautious about how BE handles my Notes text. I've even begun temporarily copying the text to clipboard at times.

Has this sort of thing happened to anyone else? I'd really like to identify the instability that causes this problem but I'm not at all sure where to begin. The console log doesn't reveal very much to my untrained eye. If you have friendly suggestions on how to troubleshoot this problem, please let me know.

Will

UPDATE: I'm now able to replicate this problem so that when I click Main and then click Notes again, the text disappears. Something else occurred to me: occasionally, I will copy text from a PDF and paste it into the Notes field. Is it possible that doing so introduces some corruption or characters that the RTF/text processing engine for Bookends has difficulty handling?

Hi,

Please Rebuild your database (Database Maintenance). If you can reproduce a problem after that, please contact tech support off-forum and we'll follow this up (support@sonnysoftware.com).

Jon
Sonny Software

Jon,

I just rebuilt both databases (I have a sync operation with an external drive upon open/close of the database) and then attempted to replicate the problem. I did this by copying and pasting directly from a PDF into the Notes pane and then switching to the Main pane. I did this several times but couldn't reproduce what happened yesterday.

Do you have any theories about what causes this?

If rebuilding the database fixed it it was probably due to some internal misconfiguration of the database structure. That can happen, which is why we provide the Database Maintenance tools if needed.

Jon
Sonny Software

Jon,

While the database rebuild seems to have fixed the problem it still raises a couple of questions for me:

1) I have configured Bookends to sync to an external drive when I open and close my database. I also have it set to backup once every day. Just prior to the backup operation, Bookends is verifies the integrity of the database. Normally, when I verify the database, Bookends would inform me of a potential problem in the database and prompt for a rebuild. Just prior to the problem I described in my first post, the verification/backup process took place as expected. It was then followed by the auto-sync. But there was never any indication that a rebuild was necessary. Is it possible that the verification missed the problem or is it more likely that the auto-sync propagated a corruption from the copy I was syncing from on the external drive? I'm sorry if this is unclear or reflects a misunderstanding. I'm just trying to figure out what caused this problem (disappearing text in Notes);

Also, 2) I use Bookends every day and about once every 4-5 days, the automatic verification that takes place prior to a backup prompts me to rebuild my database. This seems to be too frequent to be the result of chance and I would like to understand what might be causing this. Can you or anyone else suggest any steps I can take to ensure integrity of my databases?

Will

Hi,

I'm guessing that at least some of these warnings were for the remote database, not the local. You can do a Verify on both to be sure which is the one with the problem. Second, the problem with the database may be very minor (e.g. a misplaced item in an index) or more significant. It's rare to have any problems that result in data loss (and you should have automatic backups made by Bookends, just in case). If you can identify any behavior that triggers a verify -> warning, of course let me know and we can investigate.

Jon
Sonny Software

Thanks, Jon. As always, I appreciate the timely and helpful support.