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Notion importer hangs immediately after clicking the import button

Open SanjayBysani opened this issue 1 year ago • 45 comments

Am on the latest Obsedian mac app version. Screenshot 2024-06-08 at 7 48 34 PM

Followed import steps as outlined here - https://help.obsidian.md/import/notion

Force reload (after several minutes) reveals an empty Notion folder. Screenshot 2024-06-08 at 7 49 40 PM

Confirmed that the dev console shows nothing. Screenshot 2024-06-08 at 7 52 06 PM

The Notion zip file for reference was ~350MB. Unzipped it and confirmed that there were no nested zip files.

SanjayBysani avatar Jun 09 '24 02:06 SanjayBysani

Experiencing the same issue.

danibalcells avatar Jun 09 '24 15:06 danibalcells

+1, same issue.

CBlair1986 avatar Jun 09 '24 18:06 CBlair1986

To confirm:

  1. this is with Obsidian 1.6.3 and Importer 1.6.2?
  2. are you using the HTML export from Notion (not Markdown export)

I tested on my end and am not able to reproduce the issue. I wonder if it is related to the size of your export. Perhaps you can try to export a subset of your workspace and see if the issue persists.

kepano avatar Jun 09 '24 21:06 kepano

To confirm:

  1. this is with Obsidian 1.6.3 and Importer 1.6.2?

Yes

  1. are you using the HTML export from Notion (not Markdown export)

Yes

I tested on my end and am not able to reproduce the issue. I wonder if it is related to the size of your export. Perhaps you can try to export a subset of your workspace and see if the issue persists.

Surprisingly, the issue self-resolved when I tried again after a while (without any changes on my end). But, keeping the issue open cause looks like others are facing it, will wait for them to chime in if it's still reproducible for them.

SanjayBysani avatar Jun 09 '24 21:06 SanjayBysani

To confirm:

  1. this is with Obsidian 1.6.3 and Importer 1.6.2?

Obsidian 1.6.3 AppImage and Importer 1.6.2

  1. are you using the HTML export from Notion (not Markdown export)

Yes, HTML export.

I tested on my end and am not able to reproduce the issue. I wonder if it is related to the size of your export. Perhaps you can try to export a subset of your workspace and see if the issue persists.

It could be due to the size of the export (it's a rather large 1.6GB), the importer works for a split-second and hangs showing:

image

If I kill Obsidian and restart, no files are shown in the folder I'm importing into.

CBlair1986 avatar Jun 09 '24 23:06 CBlair1986

Same issue here

linhnph05 avatar Jun 10 '24 02:06 linhnph05

Ok now I solved it, I try to turn off community plugins and turn on again, also import the data into another folder

linhnph05 avatar Jun 10 '24 02:06 linhnph05

... also import the data into another folder

This worked for me as well, interesting.

CBlair1986 avatar Jun 10 '24 03:06 CBlair1986

When I put the zip file which is just 3.5 mb but still obsidian freezes when i try to import the zip file. Help me~

kamal-stark-dev avatar Jun 11 '24 07:06 kamal-stark-dev

Experiencing the same issue, but turning off and then back on community plugins and importing into a different folder did not resolve the issue. My .zip is 85mb.

safko-dsp avatar Jun 11 '24 18:06 safko-dsp

Same issue. Suggested fixes could not help.

I noticed that the issue occurs due to some specific .html file content, but I couldn't pin point what it is exactly.

Obsidian v1.6.3 Importer 1.6.2

LukasDzenk avatar Jun 12 '24 00:06 LukasDzenk

In order to explore this issue we would ideally need a .zip file that can reliably produce this result.

kepano avatar Jun 12 '24 00:06 kepano

@j-palindrome @tgrosinger any idea what might be going on here? I wonder if something has changed in Notion's zip. We might need to add more logging.

kepano avatar Jun 12 '24 00:06 kepano

Yeah I changed some things and it worked. I noticed there is another zip inside notion zip so extract that and select that file in obsidian. Try using importer now it'll probably not work on the first try but shall work in 2 to 3 tries.

On Wed, Jun 12, 2024, 06:06 Steph Ango @.***> wrote:

@j-palindrome https://github.com/j-palindrome @tgrosinger https://github.com/tgrosinger any idea what might be going on here? I wonder if something has changed in Notion's zip. We might need to add more logging.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-importer/issues/266#issuecomment-2161847837, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BBTLPWDH7QZ7BAKWY6YWYVDZG6JYPAVCNFSM6AAAAABJAPW55SVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDCNRRHA2DOOBTG4 . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

kamal-stark-dev avatar Jun 12 '24 01:06 kamal-stark-dev

Anecdotally I tried a number of times to import a Notion zip by using the command palette to bring up the import modal. Each time the screen went blank immediately after confirming the import. I then saw that there was an import icon in the left sidebar, I tried that instead and it worked first time for me.

andrewgarner avatar Jun 12 '24 07:06 andrewgarner

The same issue has arisen. I performed a couple of tests for a few minutes and noted the following observations regarding the process of importing data in the .zip format exported from Notion as HTML:

  • When the output folder is left empty, all content is imported to the root directory without any problems.
  • When a specific name is given to the output folder, the import process freezes (but an empty folder is still created).

These findings were made on the Ubuntu 22.04 operating system.

Ssentiago avatar Jun 12 '24 14:06 Ssentiago

Anecdotally I tried a number of times to import a Notion zip by using the command palette to bring up the import modal. Each time the screen went blank immediately after confirming the import. I then saw that there was an import icon in the left sidebar, I tried that instead and it worked first time for me.

This ended up working out for me. Peeped it in the sidebar too and ended up working for me first try. No issue with default folder being used either (Notion) or import size cause my Notion was about 5 GB. CleanShot 2024-06-13 at 10 45 48

brando-soto28 avatar Jun 13 '24 15:06 brando-soto28

If anyone that has run into this issue could provide a zip to us that exhibits this behavior it would be very helpful. Thank you!

tgrosinger avatar Jun 13 '24 16:06 tgrosinger

The same happened to me, nothing worked including restarting, disabling plugins, and clicking the sidebar. After a 1hr break, worked flawlessly

JasonLovesDoggo avatar Jun 15 '24 03:06 JasonLovesDoggo

Had the same issue. It worked after creating a simple note in the current vault. I think the problem arises if the vault is empty which is the case on the first time use of a vault

achintyadesai avatar Jun 18 '24 05:06 achintyadesai

Had the same issue. It worked after creating a simple note in the current vault. I think the problem arises if the vault is empty which is the case on the first time use of a vault

No, I had a vault with a bunch of other content in it and I was dealing with the same issue.

JasonLovesDoggo avatar Jun 18 '24 06:06 JasonLovesDoggo

This is happening to me.. not a great first experience of Obsidian :(

If anyone that has run into this issue could provide a zip to us that exhibits this behavior it would be very helpful. Thank you!

I have sensitive content in there so cant share.

mikecann avatar Jun 19 '24 00:06 mikecann

Interestingly after closing obsidian and trying to doubl click the zip I get:

image

Btw this is the zip inside of the zip notion provided (I unzipped it as per some people suggesting here)

mikecann avatar Jun 19 '24 00:06 mikecann

Anecdotally I tried a number of times to import a Notion zip by using the command palette to bring up the import modal. Each time the screen went blank immediately after confirming the import. I then saw that there was an import icon in the left sidebar, I tried that instead and it worked first time for me.

This ended up working out for me. Peeped it in the sidebar too and ended up working for me first try. No issue with default folder being used either (Notion) or import size cause my Notion was about 5 GB. CleanShot 2024-06-13 at 10 45 48

Oh wow! yes this indeed is the solution!!

mikecann avatar Jun 19 '24 04:06 mikecann

As mentioned above, using the side button over the command pallet fixes this!

image

Also noticed that you have to close & re-open Obsidian after installation & enabling the Plugin, otherwise it will not work.

jxc876 avatar Jun 20 '24 14:06 jxc876

I've released a new version of the Importer plugin that resolves a couple of small bugs I found with importing in Notion, however I have not yet managed to reproduce this issue so there might still be another issue.

Interestingly after closing obsidian and trying to doubl click the zip I get:

Btw this is the zip inside of the zip notion provided (I unzipped it as per some people suggesting here)

Notion exports seem to create invalid zip files that contain multiple files of the same filename. This importer already accounts for that even though Windows cannot open the zip file.

If you're having this issue please test on 1.6.4 and let us know if the issue still persists.

We are still looking for someone that can provide a zip file that reproduces the issue. If you are willing to share please feel free to contact us directly if you don't wish to upload it to Github. Thank you!

tgrosinger avatar Jun 20 '24 17:06 tgrosinger

I also had this issue when loading the importer from the command palette. Clicking the sidebar button worked correctly.

diggity314 avatar Jun 22 '24 02:06 diggity314

Are there options triggered in the command palette that aren't on the side pallete or something?

j-palindrome avatar Jun 23 '24 16:06 j-palindrome

The command palette and ribbon trigger the exact same code and modal view, so my instinct is that this is just a coincidence.

kepano avatar Jun 23 '24 16:06 kepano

Just tried it again with the same result. If I use the command palette, then Obsidian turns into an empty gray screen. Then, if I restart Obsidian and click the import button from ribbon it works correctly. If I open command palette and attempt again, I get the gray screen. The import settings look the same in both cases and I'm importing the same file.

notion

Here is a simple example file, but this has happened with both notion export files I've attempted. This one just has two pages and an image. cb177660-18fe-45a8-b1dd-b07f44a8af5e_Export-37869bf0-7d68-4796-8d85-1fb7ebdbd568.zip

diggity314 avatar Jun 24 '24 11:06 diggity314