I have 3 Macs all running Mavericks. DropBox 2.10.45 and Keyboard Maestro 6.4.7 however this problem has been bugging me for a few weeks.
I make a change to a Macro (not action) on my primary Mac and in the past it would show up in KM on the others. But it has not been working recently.
I’ve made a major change to a macro and it does not reflect on the other 2 Macs. Interestingly if I use BBEdit to open and search the “Keyboard Maestro Macros.kmsync” file on DropBox I can locate the changed Macro (it has some unique “Insert Text by Typing” actions) so the DB file is up-to-date.
I’ve tried using the KM Preference to turn off Sync and back on, selecting the DB file and still it does not reflect the changed Macro.
As long as you don't make changes on two Macs faster than Dropbox syncs you will not get any conflicts, but if you do, Dropbox will save a conflict file and one or other change will be lost. You will probably need to periodically delete any conflict files Dropbox generates.
I have had this happen 3 or so times over the past year where my .kmsync file gets overwritten by another computer. At least that is what I think is happening. I spent hours yesterday making macros for Nuendo and a few other things and for whatever reason they are all gone. The last conflict that shows up was 10 days ago and restoring that doesn't have all my work from yesterday.
I didn't do any Keyboard Maestro saves on another machine so not sure how that would have over writen my work. I saved on two computers and they both updated just fine so I am at a loss of why this keeps happening every now and again. Unfortunately there is nothing that shows up online and my last file through TimeMachine was 2 nights ago. My fans are out in my TimeMachine Raid so I turned it off mid-day yesterday
Did you check the DropBox file version history for the KM sync file?
It may not have generated a conflict file, but it should have captured the saves from both machines.
Keyboard Maestro does keep a revision “before the last sync”, so if you were still running the editor, you can undo a sync.
Unfortunately, without a repeatable case it is hard to make any kind of suggestion. And it is probably related to network issues and when exactly Dropbox is syncing which can be unpredictable.
Peter, IME DropBox sync has always been very quick and reliable. It appears to me to sync instantly when a changed file is closed. Are you seeing other behavior?
No, that is my experience as well. However if your network connection was dodgy then Dropbox would become less "quick and reliable" and then you're more likely to get conflicts, and as soon as you have conflicts in a two-way syncing system, something will be lost.
I did, the last conflict file I found was from 10 days ago
That is great I completely missed that! I need to study everything in the menus again, it wasn't in there but I was thankfully able to spend an hour or so and quickly recreate from memory most of what I had learned and done from the day before.
This is my experience as well, Google drive very, very slow to sync dropbox super quick. We have about 500Mbps upload and 150Mbps down so it tends to be pretty fast. That is why this is a mystery when it happens. I sometimes seem to have strange write permissions issues occasionally with things like Image capture trying to save files to the desktop and have to save to a folder on the desktop. Occasionally some apps can't save to places they should save to or I can't save a spreadsheet over itself and have to save as first. It seems inconsistent and don't know why it would happen at random but thanks for the tips and help.
Nope, that's not what I was talking about.
Version History is completely different from Conflict files.
View the Version History to see a version of the sync file every time it was saved by KM.
You should be able to find a version saved by each Mac.
**EDIT: 2017-03-31 6:53 PM CT**
These are just text files. You will want to download each one around the time you lost your macros. This is going to take some detective work, and it won't be fast. :wink:
Download each candidate version, and give it a name that includes the date/time saved. You can either search each file (using BBEdit or similar), or you can download multiple versions, and do a file compare, using BBEdit or some other file compare tool.
Once you find the version with your lost macros, on the Mac which had the loss, open up that version of sync file in the KM Editor. Export all macros that were lost.
Then open up the normal sync file, and import these back in.
@peternlewis, I have to say that I am very impressed with the sync process you have designed for Keyboard Maestro.
I just did a test with two of my Macs side-by-side, and found this:
As soon as I made a change to one Action in a KM Macro:
The Keyboard Maestro Macros.plist file in Mac#1 KM App Support folder was updated.
The Keyboard Maestro Macros.kmsync file was also instantly updated, showing the same time stamp
DropBox service then noticed the changed sync file, and updated/synced the same file on Mac#2 in less than 1 min, probably less than 30 sec.. Just timed it with my iPhone Stopwatch: 6.12 sec!!!
This is a round-trip from Mac#1 > Internet > Mac#2
I do have a ultra high speed Internet service by Comcast (200Mbps)
Normally I would not be using multiple Macs so quickly. My normal mode is to close all apps one Mac and put it to sleep before starting/waking another Mac.
I do use multiple macs quickly, and the syncing is functionally never an issue. I've never had the KM Editor open on both at once, but I can make edits on one, quit the Editor and move to the other, and the changes have already synced. It really is great
