[Geany] Lost all my scribble notes

[Teresa e Junior]

Hello, guys!

Yesterday I closed Geany with a certain file open. Then I modified
the file and it grew to about 50MB. When I opened Geany, it tried to
restore my session, but it would take forever, so I killed Geany and
deleted the line corresponding to that file from my session at
.config/geany. The problem is that, when I opened Geany again, my
session was OK, but my scribble notes disappeared! And I left some
important notes there! Any ideas on how to recover them? I haven't
closed Geany yet, so I still have some hope.

Thank you and best regards!
Teresa e Junior

[Colomban Wendling]

Post by Teresa e Junior
Hello, guys!
Yesterday I closed Geany with a certain file open. Then I modified
the file and it grew to about 50MB. When I opened Geany, it tried to
restore my session, but it would take forever, so I killed Geany and
deleted the line corresponding to that file from my session at
.config/geany. The problem is that, when I opened Geany again, my
session was OK, but my scribble notes disappeared! And I left some
important notes there! Any ideas on how to recover them? I haven't
closed Geany yet, so I still have some hope.

Weird... scribble is saved to geany.conf (~/.config/geany/geany.conf)
and should only be loaded/saved at start/quit time, so killing Geany
wouldn't have lost scribbles took in a *previous* run.

Maybe you could check what's in the "scribble_text" in your geany.conf,
but I'm afraid I've not much ideas on what could have happened and where
could the scribbles be gone... Had you more than one Geany instance
opened or something?

Anyway, maybe wait for somebody with better ideas than me, let's hope :)

Cheers,
Colomban

Post by Teresa e Junior
Thank you and best regards!
Teresa e Junior
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Geany mailing list
https://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany

[Teresa e Junior]

On Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:04:39 +0100

Post by Colomban Wendling

Post by Teresa e Junior
Hello, guys!
Yesterday I closed Geany with a certain file open. Then I modified
the file and it grew to about 50MB. When I opened Geany, it tried to
restore my session, but it would take forever, so I killed Geany and
deleted the line corresponding to that file from my session at
.config/geany. The problem is that, when I opened Geany again, my
session was OK, but my scribble notes disappeared! And I left some
important notes there! Any ideas on how to recover them? I haven't
closed Geany yet, so I still have some hope.

Weird... scribble is saved to geany.conf (~/.config/geany/geany.conf)
and should only be loaded/saved at start/quit time, so killing Geany
wouldn't have lost scribbles took in a *previous* run.
Maybe you could check what's in the "scribble_text" in your geany.conf,
but I'm afraid I've not much ideas on what could have happened and
where could the scribbles be gone... Had you more than one Geany
instance opened or something?
Anyway, maybe wait for somebody with better ideas than me, let's hope :)
Cheers,
Colomban

Hello, Colomban!

I think Geany didn't like when I deleted the line FILE_NAME_X=, and it
created a new geany.conf for me... scribble_text is empty, but I wonder
why was my previous session still restored.

Thank you!
Teresa e Junior

[Lex Trotman]

[...]

Post by Teresa e Junior
Hello, Colomban!
I think Geany didn't like when I deleted the line FILE_NAME_X=, and it
created a new geany.conf for me... scribble_text is empty, but I wonder
why was my previous session still restored.

Hi,

Removing one of the FILE_NAME_X lines will stop session loading at the
file numbered before, Geany stops at the first missing number, files
numbered after won't load, but that shouldn't affect scribble_text.

If geany.conf is broken, maybe locked or something as a result of
killing Geany, then a fresh copy is generated, but that wouldn't load
your session.

Some "wise after the fact" lessons:

1. don't hand edit config files unless you know what you are doing.

2. when you do, keep a backup (oh, of course, you can restore
geany.conf from your daily backup can't you :)

3. open Geany with --no-session to avoid loading dud files, but that
does mean manually re-loading the rest

4. as I found out recently, when loading large files, turn line
wrapping off (250Mb file took 3s vs 6 minutes)

Cheers
Lex

Post by Teresa e Junior
Thank you!
Teresa e Junior
_______________________________________________
Geany mailing list
https://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany

[Teresa e Junior]

On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:00:14 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman
[...]

Post by Teresa e Junior
Hello, Colomban!
I think Geany didn't like when I deleted the line FILE_NAME_X=, and
it created a new geany.conf for me... scribble_text is empty, but I
wonder why was my previous session still restored.

Hi,
Removing one of the FILE_NAME_X lines will stop session loading at the
file numbered before, Geany stops at the first missing number, files
numbered after won't load, but that shouldn't affect scribble_text.
If geany.conf is broken, maybe locked or something as a result of
killing Geany, then a fresh copy is generated, but that wouldn't load
your session.
1. don't hand edit config files unless you know what you are doing.
2. when you do, keep a backup (oh, of course, you can restore
geany.conf from your daily backup can't you :)
3. open Geany with --no-session to avoid loading dud files, but that
does mean manually re-loading the rest
4. as I found out recently, when loading large files, turn line
wrapping off (250Mb file took 3s vs 6 minutes)
Cheers
Lex

Thank you for the tips, Lex, but it basically means I've lost all my
notes, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I don't have a recent backup :(

Anyway, don't you think it is a good idea to change the notes to a
separate file instead of a variable in .conf? Of course, I have a
separate application for notetaking, but scribble is handy for quick
notes while working in Geany.

Thank you and best regards!
Teresa e Junior

[Lex Trotman]

[...]

Post by Teresa e Junior
Thank you for the tips, Lex, but it basically means I've lost all my
notes, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I don't have a recent backup :(

Unless you can find a copy somewhere I'm afraid, yes, it means you
have lost them. I can't criticise, my backups are way behind too.

Post by Teresa e Junior
Anyway, don't you think it is a good idea to change the notes to a
separate file instead of a variable in .conf? Of course, I have a
separate application for notetaking, but scribble is handy for quick
notes while working in Geany.

Storing scribble in a separate file would not make it any less
vulnerable, but it would add extra complexity, which that makes
everything more vulnerable.

Cheers
Lex

Post by Teresa e Junior
Thank you and best regards!
Teresa e Junior
_______________________________________________
Geany mailing list
https://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany

[Teresa e Junior]

On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:33:01 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman
[...]

Post by Teresa e Junior
Thank you for the tips, Lex, but it basically means I've lost all my
notes, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I don't have a recent backup :(

Unless you can find a copy somewhere I'm afraid, yes, it means you
have lost them. I can't criticise, my backups are way behind too.

Post by Teresa e Junior
Anyway, don't you think it is a good idea to change the notes to a
separate file instead of a variable in .conf? Of course, I have a
separate application for notetaking, but scribble is handy for quick
notes while working in Geany.

Storing scribble in a separate file would not make it any less
vulnerable, but it would add extra complexity, which that makes
everything more vulnerable.
Cheers
Lex

OK, thanks!

[Russell Dickenson]

Post by Teresa e Junior
On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:33:01 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman
[...]

Post by Teresa e Junior
Thank you for the tips, Lex, but it basically means I've lost all my
notes, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I don't have a recent backup :(

Unless you can find a copy somewhere I'm afraid, yes, it means you
have lost them.  I can't criticise, my backups are way behind too.

Post by Teresa e Junior
Anyway, don't you think it is a good idea to change the notes to a
separate file instead of a variable in .conf? Of course, I have a
separate application for notetaking, but scribble is handy for quick
notes while working in Geany.

Storing scribble in a separate file would not make it any less
vulnerable, but it would add extra complexity, which that makes
everything more vulnerable.
Cheers
Lex

OK, thanks!

Can I suggest perhaps adding your configuration files - Geany's at a
minimum - to a version control repository, whether using git, bazaar
or any other modern system? Once you had that done you could also
schedule an import of config files perhaps once a day. They'd only be
stored locally but at least you could revert to any revision with a
minimum of disk space being used.

Another suggestion would be to keep important notes somewhere other
then Geany but that doesn't solve the essential nature of the problem.


// Russell

[Teresa e Junior]

On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:21:21 +1000

Post by Russell Dickenson

Post by Teresa e Junior
On Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:33:01 +1100

Post by Lex Trotman
[...]

Post by Teresa e Junior
Thank you for the tips, Lex, but it basically means I've lost all
my notes, doesn't it? Unfortunately, I don't have a recent
backup :(

Unless you can find a copy somewhere I'm afraid, yes, it means you
have lost them.  I can't criticise, my backups are way behind too.

Post by Teresa e Junior
Anyway, don't you think it is a good idea to change the notes to a
separate file instead of a variable in .conf? Of course, I have a
separate application for notetaking, but scribble is handy for
quick notes while working in Geany.

Storing scribble in a separate file would not make it any less
vulnerable, but it would add extra complexity, which that makes
everything more vulnerable.
Cheers
Lex

OK, thanks!

Can I suggest perhaps adding your configuration files - Geany's at a
minimum - to a version control repository, whether using git, bazaar
or any other modern system? Once you had that done you could also
schedule an import of config files perhaps once a day. They'd only be
stored locally but at least you could revert to any revision with a
minimum of disk space being used.
Another suggestion would be to keep important notes somewhere other
then Geany but that doesn't solve the essential nature of the problem.
// Russell
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Geany mailing list
https://lists.uvena.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geany

Thanks, Russell, that's a nice suggestion! But I think what I really
need actually is to schedule daily backups of at least my text files
to my spare hard disk. I keep my backups there, but only run rsync
once a month :p

Best regards,
Teresa e Junior