Bug: Losing Changes in Macros

Sir @peternlewis I swear I'm losing changes done to macros.

Example, I edited an action a couple days ago.
Today I was doing some additional tweaking, and noticed the previous edits were missing.

In another macro, I had some additional actions (screen captures). Today I ran the macro and saw the screen capture actions where missing...

Also have noticed this happens from time to time, not sure how to reproduce.

Using latest version 9.2, Big Sur.
Have over 1,300 macros, not all of them active.

Are you syncing the Macros File via Dropbox or similar? I’ve had similar issues and found I had to wait for Dropbox to fully sync.

The macros are saved in an iCloud folder, maybe that's the cause? The folder has over a thousand files (ie “Keyboard Maestro Macros 1124.kmsync”),
And iCloud reports the folder size is over 5GB.

Haven't done any changes that I know of, I think that was the initial set up when I installed it.

Single user, single machine.

Hmm...

Something is wrong there.

I have a similar setup with one user and one Mac, but I only have one sync file in iCloud.

~/Library/Mobile Documents/com~apple~CloudDocs/App_Sync/Keyboard Maestro/Keyboard Maestro Macros.kmsync

-Chris

Yes, as @ccstone says there should just be one .kmsync file. I have loads and loads of Macros and my .kmsync file is only 7mb

Dang, I'll disable the Sync Macros checkbox in KM Preferences, and see if that helps.
Thank you both!

Keyboard Maestro does not write the versions of the kmsync file that end in numbers. Thos are presumably conflicts the syncing has detected, caused by multiple local changes happening in different Macs before the sync is completed, which almost certainly is the cause of your data loss.

As to why it is happening specifically to you, that is hard to say. Could be network issues. Could be your macros are constantly changing on one or more of your Macs (not sure how that could be). Could be something else messing with iCloud.

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I sync to dropbox. You need to make sure that you're not editing multiple versions that have not yet been fully synched. I have a macro that waits for Dropbox to be fully synced if that would be a help.

It's also a good idea to File->"Stop KM Synching" on all machines except the one you're working on, then when your done, wait for the dropbox or iCloud sync to complete, and only then re-enable "KM Syncing".

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Thanks.
Disabled Syncing earlier today, also got rid of the 1,124 extra unwanted files creating unnecessary cruft, and
so far everything looks good.
Fingers crossed.

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If you only use Keyboard Maestro on one machine then you don’t need syncing on.

But… syncing Keyboard Maestro across multiple Macs is a great feature and works very well. I use Keyboard Maestro over several Macs and the syncing is an essential part of my Keyboard Maestro experience. If I’m working at home and later in the office I still have all my macros and (probably most importantly) all my shortcuts to hand.

So, I am not sure that turning syncing off is actually a “Solution” as syncing in itself should not be causing what you were seeing.

As @peternlewis says, it is not Keyboard Maestro generating all those sync conflict files. They are being generated by whatever software is keeping your ICloud (or in my case, Dropbox) in sync. They are safety files when the software can’t decide what the latest version should be.

I wonder if previously you did have more than one Mac syncing Keyboard Maestro and those extra files you found have actually been sitting there for a long time?

And something else to consider- as those files were named with numbers after their names, Keyboard Maestro would have totally ignored them - it wouldn’t even have tried to open one of them. It would only have opened the actual single file called “Keyboard Maestro Macros.kmsync”

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Another thought, unrelated to syncing - this kind of thing happened to me and I realised what I had done prior to editing the macro was to make a safety copy so I could go back a step if I messed things up. But I had actually been editing the wrong copy of the Macro and in effect destroying my safety copy. Total User Error on my part but it got me confused as to how changes could have been lost. Probably not what was happening in your case but just wanted to throw that idea in :grinning:

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Update: After disabling syncing, haven't experienced any issues. I can almost declare that KM editor feels a little bit more responsive.

For future wanderers, I've posted a method on how to recover lost macros due to syncing issues: How to recover macros lost due to sync issues (i.e. iCloud)