Sync issue: Lost all my "new" bookmarks

A Former User

Hello,

I used Opera Sync on my old laptop. When I got a new one about one year ago, I installed Opera and synced my bookmarks to the new one. So far, so good. After that, I logged out of my opera account / sync.

Now my new laptop is broken and I needed to send it in. Meanwhile I have to use my old laptop (pain in the ***). So before I sent the broken laptop in, I logged in again on my new (broken) laptop with my sync account to start syncing the new / latest bookmarks.

I then reinstalled Opera (fresh installation, CC cleaner in between as well) on my old laptop and logged in to sync as well. All my bookmarks were synced properly (except that I should've killed the old sync version since it doubled with the latest sync version of / on my new laptop, my mistake - annoying). That was last Friday. So everything was fine and well prepared, as I thought.

I then logged out of my opera account/sync on my new/broken laptop, uninstalled Opera and deleted all files with CC Cleaner. Then I sent it in. So far, so good.

Today I wanted to continue to work (on my old laptop) and that's when I saw that all my new bookmarks (that were there on Friday!) are gone. Only those from one year ago are being displayed, but not the new ones. Unfortunately I haven't exported the bookmarks on my broken laptop, because I thought everything was fine because of sync (I saw the new bookmarks on my old laptop, so they were there last Friday, properly synced!).

So right now I lost hundreds of bookmarks that were/are very important for me and I don't know how I can get them back. I searched within the bookmarks for some pages I know I've saved in the last months - no results.
And I couldn't find a way to contact Opera (for support, not for press) - is there a way to do that?

So do you have some ideas what I can do? Unfortunately I have no backup of Opera / bookmarks from last year until today. (I have backed up almost all my files manually except software/programs. So I haven't thought about this issue.)

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Guest

@juicedaniel Can you see your data at https://sync.opera.com/web/ ?

A Former User @leocg

@leocg Nope, I can't. (I can only see the old bookmarks as I see them in my Opera bookmarks as well.) And the sad thing is that I could last Friday. Right now it says 4958 bookmark entries, but last Friday it said something about 5-7000 entries, so way more (I can't remember the right number).

I questioned myself, that maybe I was mistaken. The funny thing is that I even showed it to my wife (what a crazy amount of bookmarks are synced), who also remembers the number to be much higher. (And again: I've already seen the new bookmarks on my old laptop, so the sync temporarily worked. So I don't understand why now all of a sudden they're all gone.)

I am still devastated about this loss of data (I use and need for my work as an entrepreneur).

PS: You know what's funny? I just realized that the number of bookmarks today is lower than yesterday. When I wrote a friend of mine about the problem, Opera said on https://sync.opera.com/web/ that about 5700 bookmarks were synced. Now it's only 4958. I seriously don't know what's going on.

PPS: I just thought: When I uninstalled Opera on my new/broken laptop I was still logged in with my Opera account for syncing. While uninstalling I activated the option saying delete ALL my files (personal files as well). So maybe this meant that also my bookmarks were deleted from sync? (They're not in the synced trash bin, I already checked.) This would be a terrible behaviour.

PPPS: A friend of mine suggested to uninstall Opera on my old laptop and reinstall it to see if the new bookmarks show up again (because they might be temporarily stored on my old computer when synced successfully last Friday). I am afraid to destroy even more if there is any (other) chance of getting the bookmarks back.

Edit: For those asking about the high number of bookmarks: a) I am a heavy user (That's why I was angry about Opera 15 for those of you who can rembemer that time) and b) I have many bookmarks twice due to my manually import one year ago. I already deleted many bookmarks during 2017, but I haven't finished this time consuming project.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Guest

@juicedaniel If you can't see them there, it means that they most probably were never synced. Or they were removed from sync servers for some reason.

A Former User @leocg

@leocg As I said: I saw them on my old laptop. Bookmarks I've added weeks ago on my new laptop. So unless syncing temporarily worked there is NO way I could have seen the bookmarks on my old laptop.

A Former User @Guest

@juicedaniel So that's it, right? No chance to get my bookmarks back? "Removed for some reason." Bad luck. Not our problem.

Thanks, Opera.

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Guest

@juicedaniel Unfortunately this is the main problem of any synchronization service and the reason why they shouldn't be used as a backup: If anything goes wrong, the error may propagate and you will lost your data on all devices connected to the sync service.

It seems that at some point Sync understood that those bookmarks were to be removed and did it. To restore them you need to use a backup, if you have one.

zalex108

zalex108 @Guest

@juicedaniel

You can check at your Opera profile for a Bookmarks.bak file.

If exist, maybe they are still there.

To find the route to your profile:

Follow the Opera Reset / Back up signature's link for your OS.

To load them:

Close Opera
Rename the current Bookmarks to anything else
Make a copy of Bookmarks.bak
Disconnect from iNet
Rename the current Bookmarks.bak to Bookmarks
Open Opera - Check the Bookmarks

If they are there, do whatever you need, modify, remove..., then make another file backup and then use Sync.

After that make back ups of any browser/program profiles/settings.

--
If no luck,
look for System Restore Points on your OS.

Windows 10 (x64) | Anniversary Update
Opera Stable · Beta · Developer

Opera Test profile | Opera Reset / Back up Linux · Mac · Win

"You cannot know the meaning of your life until you are connected to the power that created you". · Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

A Former User @zalex108

@zalex108 Thanks for your detailed answer - sounds helpful. It's funny: I got to the same point that you wrote about without reading your answer - by trying to search for and recovering the bookmark file. And guess what? I could successfully recover the Bookmarks.bak-file. It's size is 4.742kb (vs. 2.668kb of the current size (so you can see by the file size how many links I lost).

I just thouroughly followed your steps trying to get my bookmarks back. Unfortunately nothing shows up when I open Opera after your instruction. And: When I open Opera, the file "Bookmarks" gets overwritten and the size is again only 3kb (fresh installation). So is there another way to load the Bookmarks.bak file in another way? (Unfortunately I couldn't recover "BookmarksExtras" since it was already overwritten and irreversibly lost and therefore not possible to recover.)

A Former User

Ok I just realized that the file might not be recovered correctly. When I open it with notepad, I see mostly "NUM" symbols instead of urls/links. So I guess recovery wasn't successfully. Too bad. I was so close. (I still don't understand why Opera deleted them from sync.)

zalex108

zalex108 @Guest

@juicedaniel

On the current Opera Profile, Right Click on the file, properties/Previous Versions?

But I don't know if they are pointing to an specific file Id.

"You cannot know the meaning of your life until you are connected to the power that created you". · Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

A Former User @zalex108

@zalex108 You mean the windows feature, right? Nothing there, unfortunately.
(About my previous post: I meant "NUL" instead of "NUM".)

zalex108

zalex108 @Guest

@juicedaniel

Then I don't know how to recover them from your old laptop, maybe you can try using a program to recover deleted files, but if you didn't delete any profile maybe you will not find any Opera file.

Your Sync data at Sync.Opera.com is wiped? - Not sure if I've read about that -
Your New but broken laptop will be Formatted? - Despite could delay for a week -.

"You cannot know the meaning of your life until you are connected to the power that created you". · Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

A Former User

I just lost mine too. I only uninstalled & reinstall opera, I did this before, there weren't any issues. This time somehow, it's all gone. This sucks so much!

quicksite

quicksite @Guest

@ashiquerai I've lost mine as well. (May 2018). This happens so frequently.
And yet, like most users, we don't understand how Opera engineers or Moderators can't comprehend that their users are not all uninformed or even "stupid". Opera sync messes up all the time, that's the fact. And it's also a bad, confusing interface. Which is a drag because everything else about Opera 52/53 is superb. It is almost a perfect browser.

(1) You look on your browser top-right, see the user icon, click, it's the sync panel, sign in, there's a link to choose what to synchronize. But it never works, it just activates sync without choices. So it's already syncing before you could choose which items to sync.

(2) You click on the grey cog wheel top-right, and come not to SYNC preferences, but to all opera preferences. Totally bad information design. The expectation is to see SYNC prefs, because that's the tool you're on... But fine, you're at overall Opera prefs/settings, and you see "Synchronization"... then under it you see "Advanced Configuration"— but Advanced Configuration is greyed out. So there IS no ability to get to any advanced sync choices. So why confuse people by suggesting that there ARE choices?

(3) Now, where does a user see or know to go to a web interface to see what the server shows? Where is the information within the Sync panel in browser to "See bookmarks on server"? That would be the simplest most logical place to inform the user. But that would make too much sense. So omit it all together. Better, say the Opera engineers. Keep it a mystery. But OK, someone in a forum tells you to go to https://sync.opera.com/web/ ...

(4) This is what I see-- It's not helpful.

alt text

It's all unintelligible, designed by an Opera staff who already know the mapped out information design and drill-down as opposed to approaching from the user's unknowing mindset of "where are my bookmarks? where are my speed dials?". If you are at this server page to begin with, it means you've lost something, and that means, if you'e a normal person, you are panicked.

When I see "Speed Dials", I expect to click on that and SEE my speed-dials. And then a simple set of actions like "PUSH SERVER SPEED DIALS TO BROWSER", or "MERGE LOCAL SPEED DIALS WITH SERVER SPEED DIALS".

This very mysterious "Reset your sync data" is terribly unintuitive. What does that mean? (1) Reset your local speed dials and replace them with Server Speed dials? -- or (2) Reset your Server Speed Dials and replace with my current local speed dials. No, Opera engineers, it is not obvious no matter how many times you may push that out to users. Why is it so hard for you to understand that it is inherently confusing? If something is inherently confusing, then the solution is to be clear with what it means. THIS is not being clear:

You can reset your sync data at any time. No data will be lost from your devices.

Do not argue to us that this IS clear. "UX Design 101" precept is that the user is always right. If the user tells you something is not clear, it is, stop pushing your counter-narrative. Fix it to be clear please.

And you know what, the place to tell people "TIP! "Export your bookmarks" as a safeguard against period sync problems" is in the SYNC PANEL on the browser. It's so obvious even a 6 year old could tell you. And yet all you have there is some dumb generic image:

alt text