save problems on new document created from template

[mmeeks]

I heard from Gabriele that he was editing with some friends on an entirely new document, created in Nextcloud. He worked on it with some friends for some hours - and then it was lost (luckily he had downloaded a copy).

They hit save repeatedly during the process, and indeed the Nextcloud file history showed many saves as expected - but all of an identically sized, rather small file with next-to-no content.

I wonder if there is some lingering problem with the template/save-as flow that is causing data-loss here. I'll ask Gabriele to dig out some more information on respective versions if possible.

Thanks =)

[gponzo]

The steps I do are:

1. from the NextCloud UI: click on the "+ New" button in the path bar;
2. enter the file name in the text box appearing in place;
3. it then opens COOL;
4. populate a random cell;
5. click on the "check button" on the top left most to save it;
6. check that the dot close to the check symbol disappears;
7. close COOL using the "X" button at the top right most position;
8. let NC show the file details (below).

This is the COOL versione:

This is the COOL version but I can't know if they updated it from that time, as I didn't check it:
COOLWSD version: 23.05.5.3 (git hash: 5093121 (E))
LOKit version: Collabora Office 23.05.5.3 (git hash: e7921fe)
Served by: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
Server ID: 5edcbe53

About NC and the plugin versions, sadly I can't help as I can't find where to check them:
I tried on the user icon (top right most position in NC UI) and clicking in the "Info" voice of the menu, but I believe it has been customized by Aruba, as it shows a kind of tutorial on how to use NC and how to sync it with various devices.

Please tell me if I'm looking in the wrong place.

I don't know if it could be useful, but that's the link to access that file:
https://www.gabriponzo.it/s/cJTNt3r56jMgQZn

BTW I've just tested this again and it still doesn't work.
So, if they updated (I don't believe so, at this point, even if they closed the ticket) it didn't fix anyway.
This is the link to the Test3 file:
https://www.gabriponzo.it/s/BgTQyosdfcsEdcs

But if you open the file again and enter some data, then it works, as you can see from the file size increase:

And from that moment on, it behaves correctly.

I hope to have been helpful. Please let me know if there are any tests I can perform to help more.
(And if I don't notice the activity here, feel free to ping me directly ;)

[gponzo]

BTW the files history looks incomplete: I'm pretty sure there were many more savings...
I could remember wrong, as so many days have passed, or may be the system or some Aruba operator (I doubt) simplified somehow.

[mmeeks]

Versions are generationally expired in Nextcloud so that's not unexpected :-)

[mmeeks]

@juliushaertl any ideas how we can determine the version of nextcloud and richdocuments from Gabriel's editing link ? I tried https://scan.nextcloud.com/ but - you would think there would be an easy-to-find version string somewhere in the JS/CSS/HTML we serve somewhere (?) =)

[juliusknorr]

Those from the JS console work for that:

[gponzo]

According to Ashod's private request, I tried populating more than one cell:

And that's the result:

BTW when I first experimented this trouble I had the SpreadSheet full of data, from three different people (including me), so I wanted to make this test for Ash, but I was more than sure of this result ;)

But again, from the second opening it retains data:

[thebearon]

@gponzo Could you open the browser console, and enter the two commands listed by Julius to find out your Nextcloud and richdocuments version?

[gponzo]

Sorry, I though that @juliushaertl had already done it himself :)

These are my results, identical to @juliushaertl's:

oc_config.version
"27.1.5.1"
OC.getCapabilities().richdocuments.version
"8.2.3"

Those from the JS console work for that:

[thebearon]

Oh, I misunderstood, my bad.

[zyphlar]

This just happened to me without a template. Added Collabora via Nextcloud, got excited that it was usable, wrote just over a page in outlines for a presentation, double checked what looked like a Save ✔️ confirming that I was good to go, closed the window, now I have 8KB of nothingness.

Tried creating a new file alongside it, wrote "Testing", hit save repeatedly as much as anyone could reasonably expect, close, reopen, nothing.

I'd say maybe it first needs to be proven if Collabora works on Nextcloud (installed via Yunohost) at all.

This Nextcloud is on version 28.0.4
Nextcloud Office 8.3.3

Nextcloud Office

COOLWSD version:
23.05.10.1 git hash: 
[baa6eef](https://github.com/CollaboraOnline/online/commits/baa6eef)
(E)
LOKit version:
built on 
[a great technology base](http://col.la/lot)
Collabora Office 23.05.10.1 git hash: 
[c8fa7c0](https://hub.libreoffice.org/git-core/c8fa7c0)
Served by: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye) 
[e98a8a19](/apps/richdocumentscode/proxy.php?req=/hosting/discovery)
"Slow Proxy"

Copyright © 2024, Collabora Productivity Limited.

[mmeeks]

@zyphlar thanks so much for the report! the richdocumentscode version is very far from optimal from a performance perspective; @Ashod I wonder if there is some combination of the PHP proxied thing and saving (?).

[thebearon]

A similar issue has been fixed recently in #9328, the fix is in NC 29.0.5 (no fix in NC 28 for the time being). That wasn't a hidden data loss, but the symptom was that the document couldn't be saved at times.