Help me understand sync

dcam101

New user here. Installed Vivaldi about a week ago.

With the customization options, the email and calendar I couldn't be happier.

The fact that sync was down when I installed and stayed down so long is concerning but it looks like that is just a one off.

Reading posts about people losing data 'after' sync came back online is what I don't understand.

@Vodoinstalater said in 21.12.24 | Sync'd Data Lost + New Encryption Key:

So, finally sync feature is back, I had Vivaldi on my phone and tablet whole time where all passwords are stored and on my computer I had to reinstall Windows, so of course it is logical that passwords from those 2 will transfer to my computer, as they always did, because I reinstall a lot Windows, but
After logging in as I always do all of my sync data is gone, even from my phone and tablet.

How does that happen and how to avoid it?

Aaron

@dcam101
Please read first:
https://help.vivaldi.com/?s=sync

dcam101

@Aaron I read all that and did a bunch of searches before asking. Maybe I'm missing it but I didn't find an answer to my concern.

Why the heck would installing on a new device erase all data from other devices?

mib2berlin

@dcam101
Hi, caused by the outage of the sync system the Vivaldi team had to delete all data on the sync servers.
If a user now sync a new system or clean install it upload these data to the server.
I synced several devices and installs today and lost nothing, I used a up to date system with all data, bookmarks, passwords and so forth.
A new device will get this data and all is fine.
I have real backups of all user profiles, exported data for passwords, bookmarks one one system, in a cloud and an external disk.
Even I would lost everything by the sync system I can easily restore all data.
I once lost all my data due to a power outage, that will never happen again.

Cheers, mib

Aaron

@dcam101
To be honest, I cannot accurately describe the reason why the error occurs until I fully understand the complete mechanism of Vivaldi synchronization service.
But at least, the sync server should not be thought of as a persistent store. Rather, it can only be seen as a "pipeline".

mohamadeen

@mib2berlin said in Help me understand sync:

Hi, caused by the outage of the sync system the Vivaldi team had to delete all data on the sync servers.
If a user now sync a new system or clean install it upload these data to the server.
I synced several devices and installs today and lost nothing, I used a up to date system with all data, bookmarks, passwords and so forth.
A new device will get this data and all is fine.
I have real backups of all user profiles, exported data for passwords, bookmarks one one system, in a cloud and an external disk.
Even I would lost everything by the sync system I can easily restore all data.
I once lost all my data due to a power outage, that will never happen again.

Cheers, mib

How so? specifically this part

I synced several devices and installs today and lost nothing, I used a up to date system with all data, bookmarks, passwords and so forth.

Like how would you not lose anything? what about different out-of-sync bookmarks and history. Does Vivaldi handle those in a git-like fashion?

If I sync my most recent used device right now and then sign in and sync a year old machine (that was logged in the same account and has some history that was weirdly deleted from Sync server, and sequentially my newer devices, but it contains a very old version of my bookmarks and of course doesn't have my recent months history entries) would the sync server merge these together? In my mind it'd be overriding one with the other..

Viqsi

@mohamadeen Based on my experience I believe they would be merged, rather than one wholly overwriting the other. History, for example, is effectively a single globally shared thing across devices. Same with the bookmarks, and with what extensions are loaded.

Can't speak for Notes, passwords, or the reading list as I don't use those features but I imagine they'd be the same. Tabs are the one thing that's slightly different in my experience in that they're grouped by device (this is a recent thing they did that is extremely welcome).

Preferences are also slightly different - in my experience not all of them sync, and I've never known if this is by design or not, but as I don't change my preferences often I've never cared to follow up.

Hope that helps.

mib2berlin

@mohamadeen
Like @Viqsi mentioned sync work additive so if you sync a device was offline for a long time the bookmarks of this device get added to all other devices.
For example if I add a new device I delete all default bookmarks and then connect to sync, if I forget this all other device get the default bookmarks back.

If you meant the backup part check the pinned thread about:
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/51704/guide-v-backup-extra-steps/42

Cheers, mib

mohamadeen

@mib2berlin Thank you, I will definitely check out the backup threads later, but history is a big part of my concern and, with my limited knowledge, I believe many of these things are stored in a binary-like db in the profile folder so I can't really merge backed up files (from different devices) myself.

mib2berlin

@mohamadeen
Yes, a backup is always for a specific device.
If you are familiar with databases you may can merge different history files, I am not.
History is synced, I don't know much about I don't care about history but:
This is the history list on my laptop, the first is a page I opened on my mobile device, the Sushi one.