guanlisheng
commented
1 week ago hi @aardbol sorry to hear your data was lost and great you finally saved it with your own data backup.
in short, the app will temporarily store records in the db defined in the Database path setting as a cache, and keep it synced to Remote path periodically based on your synchronization setting (e.g. the interval to 5 minutes and ensure “Sync on start” from https://moneymanagerex.org/docs/features/usecloud/).
No idea why your sync did not work while can you share some information as the issue template suggested? Device Information:
- Device: [e.g. LG G7 ThinQ]
- OS: [e.g. Android 8.1]
- Storage: [e.g. Phone storage + Syncthing]
- Synchronization: [e.g. Enabled with 5min interval and Sync on Start]
- Encrypted: [e.g. Yes]
- App Version: [e.g. 2023.12.06]
aardbol
Describe the bug The app doesn't store records in the db that is defined in the Database path setting. The Synchronization button in the left menu has no effect to update that db with the latest records, hence keep increasing the gap of the live data and the data that is stored in that db. As a result, any backups made of that db will be useless and there's a huge risk of the Synchonization feature in the settings to cause an enormous data loss as it doesn't warn about a bigger db being overwritten by a smaller one or any similar security check.
To Reproduce
I often pressed the Synchronization button in the left menu, expecting that the original file (as shown in Database path setting) gets the latest updates written into it, that for a reason I don't understand aren't directly written to that db. I experienced this data gap issue with an older version before, so I decided from that point on to do manual syncs as explained. This worked in the beginning, hence why I didn't doubt its functionality later on.
Wanting to copy the latest version of the db to another device, I did the same thing again and copied the db, seeing that its history was more than 7 months old. So I Synchronized again, and saw that the size nor the last Modification Date changed for the db on the original device. So I went to Settings -> Synchronization, which is unfortunately very poorly documented in the app on what it actually does, and enabled Sync and without much thinking pressed the Download button, hoping that it would download the changes to the original db. Even though it should "Download... from the cloud storage", I never set up anything like that so I assumed it would cause no data loss. And without any warning about the huge data discrepancy, the app just overwrote the original db and removing more than 7 months of data...
Expected behavior There's a few issues here imo.
It's unclear why the original db doesn't get updated with the latest records. This should be basic behavior. It's also unclear why the Synchronize feature in the left menu doesn't perform that data sync
The Synchonization setting should clearly explain what's happening, and where it is downloading form and uploading to. There should be a warning about the risk of data loss, when downloading a db which doesn't have the latest live records. When enabling sync - in its current way of working -, it should upload the latest records immediately, and would've prevented Downloading an older db to overwrite 7 months of extra records as well. But generally, it shouldn't upload anything anywhere externally without a manual setup first, which also involves considering the security and privacy risks.
The app needs a proper backup feature. This flaw also shows again why syncing is not a backup. One issue or design flaw can cause a huge data loss. I have a backup process myself of my desktop computer, where the db gets synced to very often, but this is useless for the reason explained above: the db that always got synced, never got any updates from the app.