[Backup] Advanced backup (hourly, daily backups) (#186)

[Jon]

Original subject: Data lost - possible bug with back-up

I only recently discovered this program (using version M7.3) and was very impressed until I lost all my data following a system crash.

Unfortunately when I restarted my system Cintanotes appears to have done an auto back-up which has overwritten the exisiting notebook-backup.dat file.

Obviously this is my own fault for not copying the data file to another location, but most programs keep more than one back-up copy (eg. bak1, bak2, or .24h), and I think this would be a great improvement, and presumably easy to implement.

[CintaNotes Developer]

I only recently discovered this program (using version M7.3) and was very impressed until I lost all my data following a system crash.

Unfortunately when I restarted my system Cintanotes appears to have done an auto back-up which has overwritten the exisiting notebook-backup.dat file.

Obviously this is my own fault for not copying the data file to another location, but most programs keep more than one back-up copy (eg. bak1, bak2, or .24h), and I think this would be a great improvement, and presumably easy to implement.

Yes, this is unfortunately a known limitation of current (very basic) backup scheme. I'm very sorry for your data.
I'll investigate if such write-overs can be avoided. Has CN displayed any message box, e.g. "stream error"?

I've also created a ticket #186 "More advanced backup scheme (hourly, daily backups)" and put it on the roadmap.
I'll try to implement this asap.

In the meanwhile, everyone concerned about possibility of such an event should configure their own backup using e.g Task Scheduler and an archiving tool. Alternatively, if you feel you can trust online services, put CN into a Dropbox folder and all your notes will be automatically uploaded to a server.

Also I'm converting this topic into a suggestion-topic.

Jon, thanks for reporting, and again, sorry!

[Jon]

Hi Alex

Thanks for your very quick response.

Fortunately I can remember most of what I'd stored and/or can reconstruct the data from elsewhere.

I always mean to be more thorough with back-ups and hopefully this will force me to be, so I guess CintaNotes has done me a favour - just glad it happened so soon after I'd started using the program and only had a few notes.

Regards

Jon

[Noddy330]

I take a timestamped backup copy (e.g. as notebook.dat.200904140624) before I start CintaNotes. I use a script to start CintaNotes and it is automatic.
Nod

[Midas]

I take a timestamped backup copy (e.g. as notebook.dat.200904140624) before I start CintaNotes. I use a script to start CintaNotes and it is automatic.
Nod

I like this solution. CN could easily do this on its own without much trouble, right?

[CintaNotes Developer]

I take a timestamped backup copy (e.g. as notebook.dat.200904140624) before I start CintaNotes. I use a script to start CintaNotes and it is automatic.
Nod

I like this solution. CN could easily do this on its own without much trouble, right?

Yes, but is not that simple.
1) Not everyone would want it to be enabled by default - need to add an option
2) The CN folder will grow larger and larger unless there's some rolling mechanism built-in.
3) Doing #186 is not much more difficult

[Midas]

Yes, but is not that simple.
1) Not everyone would want it to be enabled by default - need to add an option
2) The CN folder will grow larger and larger unless there's some rolling mechanism built-in.
3) Doing #186 is not much more difficult

I thought we were talking about #186... !

While I can't disagree that making this optional is a sensible move, I don't think that 2) is really a problem -- we're talking mainly text files here, and when you add other type of content, you could link it instead of embedding it, so you'd only need one copy of each single object; another solution would be to compress the backups, including copies of the relevant objects, thus enforcing referential integrity (think 7Zip!).

[Noddy330]

I take a timestamped backup copy (e.g. as notebook.dat.200904140624) before I start CintaNotes. I use a script to start CintaNotes and it is automatic.
Nod

I like this solution. CN could easily do this on its own without much trouble, right?

Yes, but is not that simple.
1) Not everyone would want it to be enabled by default - need to add an option
2) The CN folder will grow larger and larger unless there's some rolling mechanism built-in.
3) Doing #186 is not much more difficult

Yes – I realise my method will not suit everyone, and I do have to do a regular tidy up. But I don’t like just one backup file – overwrite it with a bad one, and all your backup data has gone. Maybe it’s a user responsibility. Nod

[Midas]

Yes – I realise my method will not suit everyone, and I do have to do a regular tidy up. But I don’t like just one backup file – overwrite it with a bad one, and all your backup data has gone. Maybe it’s a user responsibility. Nod

What about keeping notebook.dat for the main notebook and labeling backups like 200904140624.sav; then a file system check could be performed against some optional preset disk space value (10MB, for instance) that, if exceeded by the *.sav files would trigger some message like: "You now have over 10MB in CintaNotes backups; should older ones be deleted? YES|NO|REMIND ME LATER|STOP BUGGING ME"?

[Noddy330]

Yes – I realise my method will not suit everyone, and I do have to do a regular tidy up. But I don’t like just one backup file – overwrite it with a bad one, and all your backup data has gone. Maybe it’s a user responsibility. Nod

What about keeping notebook.dat for the main notebook and labeling backups like 200904140624.sav; then a file system check could be performed against some optional preset disk space value (10MB, for instance) that, if exceeded by the *.sav files would trigger some message like: "You now have over 10MB in CintaNotes backups; should older ones be deleted? YES|NO|REMIND ME LATER|STOP BUGGING ME"?

I think that any tidy up (disc space management) should be a user responsibility, unless there was a CintaNotes option to only keep that last xx backups. Nod