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Crash on startup after botched import of notes + settings from old phone to new model

Open ponko2MSL opened this issue 7 months ago • 1 comments

Describe the bug I got a new phone (Sony Xperia 10 VI running Android 15) the other day. I already had neutrinote CE (installed from F-droid) on my previous phone (Sony Xperia 10 III running Android 13) and had been using it there daily, so I wanted to continue using the same files on my new phone.

I think what I did was to first install neutrinote on my new phone (also from F-droid) and then to send the whole neutrinote folder from the old phone to the new phone via Quick Share. This unfortunately ended up with all the text files in my Downloads folder instead of in a subfolder as I'd expected, so I manually moved these files over to the /storage/emulated/0/Documents/neutrinote directory I had set up when installing neutrinote CE on the new phone. I'm not sure what I did after that, but I think I opened neutrinote and told it to import from that directory (which incidentally is the same directory where it was set to save incremental backups - maybe not choosing a different one is where I messed up). The app promptly and silently crashed.

Now I can't even open neutrinote anymore: when I tap the app icon it briefly expands to full screen and immediately shrinks back down again.

My first suspicion was that there's an issue with the ~neutrinote_settings_data.txt file from the old phone conflicting with what I had set up in the new one. (The only difference I spotted so far was com.appmindlab.nano.pref_incremental_backup being set to false in the settings file from the old phone, but to true in the backup data on the new one). I have tried to open that file in another text editor and change its contents, but setting that one line to true did not make the app stop crashing. Perhaps file permissions are involved somehow?

This all happened yesterday morning (April 30 2025), and I had resigned myself to be temporarily without the app for a while. However, this morning I noticed a neutrinote notification about a successful backup, and indeed there's a subdirectory timestamped 08:29 today (May 1 2025) in my neutrinote folder. So it looks like part of the app is still running in the background, even though the visible parts of the app refuse to work.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

  1. Install fresh neutrinote on a new device
  2. Configure neutrinote to use /storage/emulated/0/Documents/neutrinote to save incremental backups
  3. From a different device with existing neutrinote installation and text files (this one set to not save backups), send all text files to the new phone. Move these files to the aforementioned Documents/neutrinote directory
  4. Start neutrinote on new device and import from that directory
  5. neutrinote crashes and refuses to start again
  6. Wait 24 hours
  7. Though not visibly running, neutrinote somehow creates a new backup in Documents/neutrinote

Expected behavior

File list gets populated with imported documents, can continue editing these files right away

Screenshots

Image

Smartphone (please complete the following information): Current device

  • Device: Sony Xperia 10 VI
  • OS: Android 15 build number 70.1.A.3.132 release-keys
  • Browser: Firefox
  • Version: 4.5.6a

Old device (source of import data):

  • Device: Sony Xperia 10 III
  • OS: Android 13 build number 62.2.A.0.533 release-keys
  • Browser: Cromite
  • Version: 4.5.6

Additional context I can't think of anything to add right now, except that I'd be happy to answer questions, and even happier with a solution to get the app running again and import my notes properly next time.

ponko2MSL avatar May 01 '25 08:05 ponko2MSL

Describe the bug I got a new phone (Sony Xperia 10 VI running Android 15) the other day. I already had neutrinote CE (installed from F-droid) on my previous phone (Sony Xperia 10 III running Android 13) and had been using it there daily, so I wanted to continue using the same files on my new phone.

I think what I did was to first install neutrinote on my new phone (also from F-droid) and then to send the whole neutrinote folder from the old phone to the new phone via Quick Share. This unfortunately ended up with all the text files in my Downloads folder instead of in a subfolder as I'd expected, so I manually moved these files over to the /storage/emulated/0/Documents/neutrinote directory I had set up when installing neutrinote CE on the new phone. I'm not sure what I did after that, but I think I opened neutrinote and told it to import from that directory (which incidentally is the same directory where it was set to save incremental backups - maybe not choosing a different one is where I messed up). The app promptly and silently crashed.

Now I can't even open neutrinote anymore: when I tap the app icon it briefly expands to full screen and immediately shrinks back down again.

My first suspicion was that there's an issue with the ~neutrinote_settings_data.txt file from the old phone conflicting with what I had set up in the new one. (The only difference I spotted so far was com.appmindlab.nano.pref_incremental_backup being set to false in the settings file from the old phone, but to true in the backup data on the new one). I have tried to open that file in another text editor and change its contents, but setting that one line to true did not make the app stop crashing. Perhaps file permissions are involved somehow?

This all happened yesterday morning (April 30 2025), and I had resigned myself to be temporarily without the app for a while. However, this morning I noticed a neutrinote notification about a successful backup, and indeed there's a subdirectory timestamped 08:29 today (May 1 2025) in my neutrinote folder. So it looks like part of the app is still running in the background, even though the visible parts of the app refuse to work.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

  1. Install fresh neutrinote on a new device
  2. Configure neutrinote to use /storage/emulated/0/Documents/neutrinote to save incremental backups
  3. From a different device with existing neutrinote installation and text files (this one set to not save backups), send all text files to the new phone. Move these files to the aforementioned Documents/neutrinote directory
  4. Start neutrinote on new device and import from that directory
  5. neutrinote crashes and refuses to start again
  6. Wait 24 hours
  7. Though not visibly running, neutrinote somehow creates a new backup in Documents/neutrinote

Expected behavior

File list gets populated with imported documents, can continue editing these files right away

Screenshots

Image

Smartphone (please complete the following information): Current device

  • Device: Sony Xperia 10 VI
  • OS: Android 15 build number 70.1.A.3.132 release-keys
  • Browser: Firefox
  • Version: 4.5.6a

Old device (source of import data):

  • Device: Sony Xperia 10 III
  • OS: Android 13 build number 62.2.A.0.533 release-keys
  • Browser: Cromite
  • Version: 4.5.6

Additional context I can't think of anything to add right now, except that I'd be happy to answer questions, and even happier with a solution to get the app running again and import my notes properly next time.

Hi, please follow the steps below and use the exact path as indicated in the section:

https://appml.github.io/nano/#mirror

Hope this helps.

appml avatar May 01 '25 15:05 appml