Timimi not saving after Google Chrome nuclear update

#1

Hi everyone

Google Chrome last night did a number on me. It updated, and now suddenly I lost my bookmarks, saved logins, new tab homepage shortcuts, etc. I tried to import my bookmarks, etc, but it imported what it was like a couple of months ago. And I had just reorganized my bookmarks AND Windows files over Christmas. This is going to slow me down considerably every time I want to use a site that requires login, or find a file I used to have saved as a bookmark.

Additionally, Timimi is not working correctly. I hit save on a local file, it says “Saved wiki”, and shows me a window to save a backup file. It used to be set up to just change the file. Any ideas on what I can do? I tried deleting and re-adding the app, and downloading the exec that goes with it. This is urgent for me, since I can’t use TiddlyWiki at all without the ability to save.

#2

Hi Dave,

It might help to know what operating system and brower # version you’re using.

Are you saying that the bookmarks that are missing are only ones that refer to files on your local disk? Or all bookmarks rolled back?

Do you have access to another PC? Old machine, wife’s, kid’s … where you could log into your account? The first thing I would want to check is if your bookmarks are still available via Google. If they are, then back them up locally while you still can.

To me, this sounds like an installation that got messed up. This might happen if the process was interrupted. Possible by a bad band connection, power failure, out of space on the disk (be sure to check that), or a hyper vigilant anti-virus software. So the solution might be to re-install Chrome.

But let’s see what others say. Or if there are similar reports.

I like Timimi a lot, but now that the developer has left TiddlyWiki, it’s likely a matter of time before it stops working for real. But there’s now other ways to save. Tiddlystow. Webdav via easy Rclone. Also, browser storage in connection with Tiddlyhost for offline.

#3

Thanks Mark. When I get home I will find and try TiddlyStow. I am also going to check with my employer that manages my Google account. I think the bookmarks I imported were on my drive from a backup I did in August.

#4

Okay, this has been a rough day. I preached this morning and that went well, but I am in seasonal allergy…season, and I came home and slept 3 hours and am not at 100% right now.

I went to TiddlyStow, and it felt unsafe to me. It was a crude html file with no CSS and little explanation, so it left me with lots of questions. And the comments here at Talk TW made it sound like it still needed more to make it work better. So I am hesitant to try to use it.

The TiddlyStow html page mentioned GitHub - slaymaker1907/TW5-browser-nativesaver, and said it “had more features and is bundled as a TiddlyWiki plugin” so I investigated that, thinking it would be a better option. I did not find a demo site with a TiddlyWiki plugin to import, as I had hoped, but I found the html file I needed (example-wiki.html) and downloaded it. A wizard with checkboxes comes up, but the documentation is minimal, and assumes more knowledge than what I have. And it mentions security issues. Great. So now I am hesitant to use that, too.

My questions are these for the TW5-browser-nativesaver.

  1. I downloaded example-wiki.html. Is there a preferred place where I should save it?
  2. I use a lot of local files in different folders. The documentation says backups go to /{selected folder}/backups/{wiki filename/{version hash}.html. It is that the original file is saved AND a backup is made in a /backups/ folder in the folder of the original file? And am I correct in assuming the original file does not have to be moved, and gets saved where it is?
  3. If it is saving and backing up each file, why do the instructions tell me to make backups regularly?
  4. Do I have to be online for this process to work, if I downloaded the example-wiki.html file? It sounds as if the regular process is accessing a page online. Does the example-wiki.html avoid this? I ask because at times, thankfully infrequently, I have spotty Internet. Am I not going to be able to save in any TiddlyWiki when I have problems with internet access?
  5. What is the ideal setup for the checkboxes in the wizard if I want security, and plan to only use local standalone files?
  6. There was mention of asking where to save backups. Will I need to do this for each local file?

Anyway, I can’t actually use TW until I get answers to these questions. Good thing my projects for this week are in Gmail, Word and Dynalist. Thanks to everyone for any light shed on these questions.

P.S. a mild rant: These questions are good examples of important information that most developers don’t need but people like me do. Documentation for everything in TiddlyWiki tends to be a matter of reading between the lines and guessing what “expert blind spots” there are, because the person who wrote it uses node.js and github and assumes everyone reading it is a developer with similar knowledge. Sorry to sound so critical. I appreciate all you guys do. But if you create new plugins and tools, or add new features to the core, you should treat “really thorough documentation” as part of each of those project before eagerly moving on to the next exciting project. Build into your process the step of running the documentation by someone less tech-savvy to see what might be missing. For example, the tiddlywiki.com documentation has logical gaps, links to missing tiddlers (look at the size of the list of non-system missing tiddlers in the tab in tiddlywiki.com!), and not enough examples to see how something works when a little complexity is added in.

I feel like I am always bothering everyone because I ask so many questions here and ask for help so much. I am truly sorry about that. Or maybe I just need to accept that TiddlyWiki is leaving me and others like me behind and at some point I am going to have to migrate to other tools after sticking with it all these years. :frowning: So a plea: whatever everyone can do to polish their documentation will hopefully diminish my constant questioning. Just to show you the extent of my concern: At times I have thought about paying one of you for a day to walk me through things like pragmas. Because I am not going to able to learn that on my own. Everyone here got all excited about them. I just sighed and said, oh, look, another learning curve, and they are even talking about eventually deprecating things like macros that it took me so long to learn, and I only learned macros because @Charlie_Veniot took the time to do a walkthrough video. TW would do well to hire someone techy but good at walking people through complex stuff in simple terms who could create some online courses with videos that help people through a number of things like these (saving, pragmas, complex list filters, I am sure there are several more)

Ok rant done, I love you guys, but right now I am overworked, struggling with allergies, and not even being able to save TiddlyWiki files I depend on without going through yet another learning curve with indecipherable documentation is a huge setback for me. So be patient with me and don’t take my words too personally.

2 Likes
#5

Dave, I am not suffering any problem with my Timimi and not had time to look at your problem. I will as soon as I can, I feel for you and this would be very frustrating.

I am glad Tiddlystow is an option but I don’t like using it much myself, and I too just wanted to improve it a little, but could not see how to.

With timimi be aware if the wiki address includes a search parameter on it eg wiki.html#tiddler is fine but if you have wiki.html#tiddler?param-val or anything similar, Timimi can fail in your browser, and will not work until you restart the browser, worst case the computer.

  • If you then return and use the same link it will happen again
  • If you bookmarked such a broken link it could cause the failure again, when used.

This was one reason I made a button to allow me to save a wiki as a separate file if the saver (in this case timimi) was failing.

  • It does not happen often but it can be catastrophic if it does especially if you have a lot of unsaved wikis.
  • This is why I use automatic save in any not too large wiki, because most of my wikis will be saved if this occurs, although very infrequently when I am experimenting with passing details in the address bar.
1 Like
#6

This is not a problem at all, and you more than contribute back so don’t give this a second thought.

You are key and valuable member of this community we value greatly.

3 Likes
#7

Hi everyone

Just a note to say that I got Timimi working. I had missed an instruction at the bottom of the Timimi update page, to make sure “Allow access to file URLS” was checked. So for all the rants about issues with documentation, the problem in this case was that I didn’t read the Timimi documentation carefully. D’oh! Sorry about that.

So for now I don’t need further instructions for Timimi, TiddlyStow or the TW5 browser nativesaver.

I do not take back my plea for better documentation, however!

Anyway, @TW_Tones, thanks for your kind comment, and both @Mark_S and @TW_Tones , thanks for your help.

2 Likes