All my data lost - "Failed to create remote project"

[PerLycke]

Expected Behavior

I had a lot of local data setup. After creating an account using Google, migration tool reports "Failed to create remote project". Everything seems lost, I have no idea how to recover my local data. I'm in the middle of some big work and this is truly screwed up as the app was auto-updated.

Actual Behavior

"Failed to create remote project"

Reproduction Steps

No response

Is there an existing issue for this?

• [X] I have searched the issue tracker for this problem.

Additional Information

No response

Insomnia Version

8.0

What operating system are you using?

macOS

Operating System Version

13.6

Installation method

downloaded

Last Known Working Insomnia version

Before 8.0

[bxjw]

yep, my scratch pad also disappeared all of my working data...

[minusfive]

Same here, + I feel I'm being strong-armed into uploading everything to your cloud. How do I get my data back?

[smnbbrv]

Same as well - how to restore the data? I mean I could not choose not to upgrade...

[mkdillard]

Same here, + I feel I'm being strong-armed into uploading everything to your cloud. How do I get my data back?

The other issue thread (#6577) started on this has steps to do so: https://github.com/Kong/insomnia/issues/6577#issuecomment-1737957278. Turn off automatic updates and downgrade, the data is still there, just not being displayed by 8.0

[PerLycke]

We are indeed forced to upload all our data to cloud with the 8.0 update. What a truly awful behaviour.

[wodrich]

My company won't likely approve this for use, now that it's storing data in the cloud. Lost everything I was using for testing, URLs, payloads etc. So frustrating.

[dyerjos]

I also had to rollback to the previous version to get my data back. I don't know about other people but I use Insomnia because it's open source and keeps my data local. Take away the local aspect and I'll start using Postman. Not happy about the direction this is going

[dyerjos]

Current fix for people here is to roll back to https://github.com/Kong/insomnia/releases/tag/core%402023.5.8 and you should see your data again. Step 2, turn off automatic updates

[minusfive]

Yeah, no way our company will allow us to use this now.

[stefanks]

Lost data too, have to roll back :(

[artiebob]

Our company will not use this if data is in the cloud. We would pay for a local cloud version or alternative but not something hosted externally.

[subnetmarco]

Hello,

Insomnia 8.0 doesn't migrate to the cloud any data unless you create an account or login.

• You can export the data from the initial wizard (screenshot below).
• You can export with an older version of Insomnia.
• You can even re-import a collection into Scratch Pad and it will be always local.
• If you sync to the cloud, the data is fully end-to-end encrypted (E2EE).

[PerLycke]

Is the bold text on the line at the bottom with smaller font size compared to the rest of the text a link to save your data?

Also, if you click continue, how do you go back to this screen? Or where is the clear option to use your service locally after continuing beyond this screen? Also, if you go beyond this screen, your data is lost as there is no clear option how to recover it.

This whole update is all about forcing users to upload their data to the cloud.

Funny thing is, even if users try to go cloud your migration tools are broken. Laughable

[codinronan]

Just put out a request to my team to find a different tool for us to use.

This is why we can't have nice things.

[codsane]

I originally started using and grew to like Insomnia because it didn't force cloud features down your throat like others do.

It appears Insomnia is starting to become no different than the others.

I'll be switching immediately, so long Insomnia.

[subnetmarco]

Data can be recovered by downloading an older version of Insomnia. We are also adding an export also in the Preferences, to make it easier to do (this will ship in a minor 8.1).

Either way - nobody can look into the data when it's in the cloud - not even we can do that, because of E2EE.

A collection can also be re-imported in Scratch Pad which is always local.

[codinronan]

Data can be recovered by downloading an older version of Insomnia.

Why can't it be recovered via the new version?

[codsane]

Data can be recovered by downloading an older version of Insomnia.

Why can't it be recovered via the new version?

Would appreciate an answer to this as well. This is a UX oversight so big that it's hard to see it any other way than a dark pattern to get you to sign up to the managed platform. Disappointing either way.

[subnetmarco]

It can via the onboarding wizard, but we are adding a way to export it via the Preferences (most likely in 8.1).

In the meantime, you can use an older version. You can even re-import a collection into Scratch Pad and keep it local forever.

[PerLycke]

@subnetmarco you mean clicking on the embedded button in the bottom left with such a small emphasis that it requires you to know it is a button beforehand? On the wizard that shows once and that you cannot re-visit if you clicked "continue".

If that is not hiding a feature you don't want your users to use, I don't know what is.

Emphasis wise - all you want to achieve with this update is to move users to cloud. Extremely low, nearly non existent, emphasis on enabling users to stay working locally.

[codinronan]

Yeah at the risk of piling on, a piece of productive feedback: I did not know that was a button. It looked like a message so I just clicked continue. There's no indicator it's a button, you should fix that with a "click here" or "export your data by clicking here" or something. AND a way to get back to that screen - or the function it would have exposed.

[eternalblue]

Yeah at the risk of piling on, a piece of productive feedback: I did not know that was a button. It looked like a message so I just clicked continue. There's no indicator it's a button, you should fix that with a "click here" or "export your data by clicking here" or something. AND a way to get back to that screen - or the function it would have exposed.

It's some common shady practice.

[subnetmarco]

I have created a comment here with a FAQ about the recent change that answers many questions you may have.

[cha-king]

Seems I've also lost all of my data. Unfortunately I don't think I was ever presented with any onboarding wizard, or at least I didn't notice if I was. If I now attempt to export any data from the preferences, I'm told that I have no workspaces to export.

I assume I need to downgrade in order to retrieve my data? Any pointers on how to do this? Is there any chance that reinstalling via .dmg will erase my prior data?

[codinronan]

Seems I've also lost all of my data. Unfortunately I don't think I was ever presented with any onboarding wizard, or at least I didn't notice if I was. If I now attempt to export any data from the preferences, I'm told that I have no workspaces to export.

I assume I need to downgrade in order to retrieve my data? Any pointers on how to do this? Is there any chance that reinstalling via .dmg will erase my prior data?

Just go to the prior release in the Releases section of the repo and install it over your existing version. It worked for me, data was there. I immediately turned off automatic updates.

[padge]

This was the SECOND TIME I've upgraded Insomnia and lost all of my requests. The first time was a couple months ago and the second time was today with the latest version. Thankfully uninstalling and reverting back to 2023.5.8 brought them back. I just disabled automatic updates and plan to stay on this older version.

[harpreetsingh91]

It was a perfectly fine tool with no need for a signup. Thanks for letting all the developers know not to recommend Kong to their company. In the meantime I will just fork an older version.

[helder-garcia]

All my data is gone :/

[subnetmarco]

The data is still there. You can simply downgrade to a previous version of Insomnia. You can also keep using Insomnia locally with Scratch Pad.

[drtz]

The data is still there. You can simply downgrade to a previous version of Insomnia. You can also keep using Insomnia locally with Scratch Pad.

Thanks for the tip, I recovered by installing 2023.5.8 from here:

https://github.com/Kong/insomnia/releases/tag/core%402023.5.8

[cooperfrench95]

>open insomnia >asks me to update >click later >app won't stop spamming me with this request to update >fine, I'll do it >suddenly I'm supposed to sign in >click go to scratch pad because why would I need to sign in? sending requests locally works just fine >all my data is gone unless I sign up for this nonsense

Whose bright idea was this? I can't speak for everyone but I know personally the only reason I started using insomnia was because Postman had started doing a bunch of stuff like this. Pestering me to sign in every time I opened the app.

Literally who asked for this? Why does every single service feel the need to harvest my email address? Add a "leave me alone" button next time. Good lord.

[iradofurioso]

Same here, + I feel I'm being strong-armed into uploading everything to your cloud. How do I get my data back?

I managed to get my data back using these paths:

%APPDATA%\Roaming\Insomnia on Windows $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Insomnia or ~/.config/Insomnia on Linux ~/Library/Application\ Support/Insomnia on macOS

if they kept my local projects working I wouldnt mind about the login banner etc possibly I would login. But BLOCK all my projects just because Im not loggedin???? thats not how it works!!

well I have my backup gonna check now how to compile a version of a standlone Insomnia or I gonna move to other client.

[iradofurioso]

If you guys have a compiled working version of Insomnia WITHOUT this login thing please provide me the link.

[relm]

Why doesn't the latest version just auto import your old collections in the new scratch pad? That way, users wouldn't be freaking out that their data was missing. Not to mention, the upgrade notification didn't signify that this was anything other than a usual update. There should have been some warning that there were breaking changes in this release (At least if you don't have an account or don't use the Cloud sync).

It seems like the direction is clear now, the local storage is an afterthought and future features will be designed around the cloud subscriptions. I don't have any faith my data will stay intact across upgrades anymore.

Looking into alternatives now.

[subnetmarco]

Why doesn't the latest version just auto import your old collections in the new scratch pad? That way, users wouldn't be freaking out that their data was missing. Not to mention, the upgrade notification didn't signify that this was anything other than a usual update. There should have been some warning that there were breaking changes in this release (At least if you don't have an account or don't use the Cloud sync).

The Scratch Pad is more lightweight because it doesn't handle multiple projects or anything that is not a collection. Many users have lots of files, design specs, tests and it would not have been possible to show their data in the Scratch Pad.

To clarify: no data is migrated anywhere without creating an account or logging in.

We did create a wizard with illustrations to talk about this upcoming change:

Tomorrow or Friday the latest we will make it more clear, and also we will make it better to export the data right away. This will ship in Insomnia 8.1. Today you can also install a previous version of Insomnia and still see your data, or export it.

It seems like the direction is clear now, the local storage is an afterthought and future features will be designed around the cloud subscriptions. I don't have any faith my data will stay intact across upgrades anymore.

We will land in the Scratch Pad all API debugging features (ie: if we support a new transport) but collaboration features and more will require an account, because it is fundamentally needed to do the things that we want to do (we cannot implement collaboration - which many users want - if all data is siloed).

Finally, one more thing: with Git Sync, your data is not going to the cloud but stays in the Git repository that you have configured.

[jdgarcia]

The Scratch Pad is more lightweight because it doesn't handle multiple projects or anything that is not a collection. Many users have lots of files, design specs, tests and it would not have been possible to show their data in the Scratch Pad.

You should still auto-import anything that didn't require cloud collaboration. Anything that used to work without an account should still continue to work in Scratch Pad.

[0x346e3730]

I had the unpleasant surprise to loose all of my workspace after upgrading to 8.0, with no prior warning or whatsoever. Insomnia is the second API client I'm blacklisting after Postman and I will use Hoppscotch from now on. Not thank you.

[gabel]

I don't get it why Insomnia is trying to fail the same way as Postman did? Within a larger corp we are moving away from Postman now and most where willing to use Insomnia. Even a paid version without cloud synchronization would've been possible IF you would have offered such solution. But doing the same mistake as Postman? Weird decision making here.

[nickbg321]

Not auto importing the user's previous data and not making this obvious via some warning message is an incredibly poor way to handle things.

I used to be a long time Postman user and I ditched it in favor of Insomnia for the exact same thing Insomnia is now doing. Guess it's time to look for a new REST client, again.

[dennisMeeQ]

I am sad. Why did you kill a perfectly good tool with the need for cloud sync? Time to look for alternatives, I guess :( Any suggestions?

[schmurfy]

the default behaviour should be transparent, all our data should be there by default in the scratchpad after upgrade. If you wanted us to use something else that's a good way to do it.

[eternalblue]

The Scratch Pad is more lightweight because it doesn't handle multiple projects or anything that is not a collection. Many users have lots of files, design specs, tests and it would not have been possible to show their data in the Scratch Pad.

Wouldn't it have been easy to leave Scratchpad as Insomnia was until this point and add the new features in a different "home" component?

[Rzpeg]

I don't want to store data on cloud. I want to be able to use the stuff you have in free tier, that I used before 8.0, without needing a login button. I don't understand why I need to login to write a unit test or use plugins!

Paid features are fine, but if you leave stuff on free tier, make it usable offline

[eat-pant]

Hello! Friendly local neighborhood InfoSec here!

For us EU users who have had our test data unexpectedly synced to 'the cloud', it has now been transmitted to the US and, regardless of encryption in place, may now be a reportable GDPR breach! (depending on what information was contained and the regulatory compliance that your business is subject to)

Note: this may be a breach inside the US as well for cases involving HIPAA or other compliance where legal control is needed of data that is off-premises!

Make sure to reach out to your local support teams as needed for help :)

[Mudbill]

This is incredibly disappointing. I'm sorry to say, but it's hard to tell if this update is malicious or just pure ignorance. Someone either didn't think this through or thought about it a great deal and went ahead with it anyway. Either way it is a good sign to steer clear of Insomnia if this mentality is at the helm.

[Nek-]

God this was intense losing everything for some minutes... Rollback works... thanks @dyerjos you saved my day 😅 .

To insomnia team, thanks for the product, but really this kind of loss for such product is not acceptable at all, please shutdown auto-update remotely (no idea how, by removing the release?) as soon as you can...

Side note: I accepted any cloud stuff you added, still lost everything, in case you wonder.

[subnetmarco]

Duplicate of https://github.com/Kong/insomnia/issues/6577

[phil-nelson-bt]

Once you've hit continue, and then choose to use the scratch pad, there doesn't seem to be a way to get back to the wizard to do the export/import dance you described. As for using the cloud and "it's encrypted end to end", without any way to know specifically what that means, how secrets are kept for that encryption, what your policies are, how they are audited, basically the all requirements of a password manager, there is no way we'd be able to consider this solution and have environments setup with all the sensitive data it takes to interact with them. You must know this.

I'll try the roll back and disabling up auto updates and check back here in a week or two

[subnetmarco]

Once you've hit continue, and then choose to use the scratch pad, there doesn't seem to be a way to get back to the wizard to do the export/import dance you described. As for using the cloud and "it's encrypted end to end", without any way to know specifically what that means, how secrets are kept for that encryption, what your policies are, how they are audited, basically the all requirements of a password manager, there is no way we'd be able to consider this solution and have environments setup with all the sensitive data it takes to interact with them. You must know this.

I'll try the roll back and disabling up auto updates and check back here in a week or two

With 8.1 and are adding the export button front and center. It will ship later today, tomorrow the latest.

[luke37b]

"if it ain't broke, don't fix it"