Note attachments are not available offline

[TheMatjaz]

What happened?

I used Notesnook on my phone completely offline (airplane mode) and the images included into the note are not visible - a placeholder image is shown instead. The images are downloaded every time I open the note online, but are missing offline, even though I already downloaded them previously. It was quite annoying when travelling without an internet connection.

Steps to reproduce the problem

1. Be online
2. Open a note with some attached images, let the images fully load
3. Close app
4. Go offline
5. Reopen the same note: no images

Version

v1.8.9

Platform/OS

Android

Relevant log output

No response

[TheMatjaz]

Just to clarify: I believe all attachments should be downloaded upfront during any sync and not on note open, to have the notes fully available offline.

[jordanhandy]

This isn't a bug, but how Notesnook is designed. I believe this is mistagged

[thecodrr]

Just to clarify: I believe all attachments should be downloaded upfront during any sync and not on note open, to have the notes fully available offline.

One of the main reasons (and benefits) behind adding attachments was to speed up the sync. We even polled this on twitter and while we didn't get a huge response (not many followers then) I agree with the results. There are a few issues with downloading everything upfront:

1. You don't have unlimited space locally on your device
2. You don't have an unlimited data plan that would allow downloading everything
3. You don't have unlimited time to wait for hours before the app becoming usable after login
4. You don't need all the attachments upfront all the time.

On demand loading of attachments is efficient in every way. It is a little inconvenient if you are without Internet but that's an exception.

Secondly, what you are experiencing is a bug. Notesnook caches all the images after download so opening the note again should load it immediately from the cache. I will investigate and fix this.

[thecodrr]

Reopen the same note: no images

I cannot reproduce this on v1.8.9. Can you try again with a new note?

[TheMatjaz]

I cannot reproduce the bug anymore. It has to be told that in the meantime I run a Settings > Manage attachments > Check all which may have helped. For the record: the "Check all" button starts the check but freezes the UI until it's finished.

[TheMatjaz]

Caching seems to be working now? 🤷‍♂️

The other problem still remains: If I write 20 notes, each with many attachments on a desktop, then sync, then take my phone, then sync, and then go into airplaine mode, I will have no pre-loaded attachments offline in the phone notes. I would have to manually open all 20 notes at least once while online and wait for each note to download all attachments completely. This is annoying and error prone.

I would suggest adding an option in the settings for automatic inclusion of attachments in the sync process , so when I sync, I actually sync everything. Alternatively (probably better): at least give me the option to hand-select my 20 notes (with the checkmarks) and enable some "always download all urrent and new attachments for this note" option or something like that.

I just want to point out that not every user fits your assumptions here. For instance, I often use my phone in areas without any internet connecticity, so this feature would come in handy. As a developer I get it: the app needs to work for 99% of the user base first, the exceptions come later. 😉

If you want, you can alter this issue into a feature request.