milesrf's dashboard

Grid View could be useful if Xmarks for IE allowed it. I've seen no sign that it does.

Also, the button for adding more products for this thread doesn't do much of anything. – milesrf, on December 07, 2009 20:23

I have had that problem before, and was able to handle it by finding the item in this conflict already on the server, creating a new bookmark for it in another folder, then deleting the original.

Emailed, but forgot to reference this topic or a previous topic that was closer.

Was assigned ticket: [Xmarks #31220] Xmarks:_User_Support

Have not seen the stack overflow at line 9 problem since I learned how to capture screenshots.

Eric,

How can you do a partial restore at that site without wiping out all the changes made to the rest of the database since the item(s) were lost?

I lost just one folder weeks ago, and has done quite a bit to reorganize the rest of my bookmarks database since then.

The backups I need to restore from won't download as files so that I can select how much to restore.

Also, I clicked on Add a product for this thread to add Xmarks for IE, but nothing happened.

A good idea, especially if it will allow me to restore my lost folder of bookmarks without restoring or downloading the entire database.

I finally found the instructions for capturing a screenshot (in the Vista helpfile, with the keyword screenshot), but the first Xmarks error for which I captured a screenshot (not this one) gave me an error message when I tried to create a problem report with the screenshot attached.

Is there some other means I can use to send you the screenshot?

Can you provide suitable instructions of how to capture a screenshot?

I'm using 64-bit Vista SP2 on the machine where I saw the problem, along with both the 32-bit version of IE8 and the 64-bit version of IE8 (didn't notice which was in use during that problem).

I finally found what looks like the conflicting items on a computer that still synchronizes, and also a copy of a large folder tree (3674 items) under another directory. I deleted the copy of the large folder tree, and brought up the two conflicting items under IE8, then saved them in another directory, then deleted the conflicting items, synchronized on the computer where I did this, then tried to synchronize on the computer with sync problems. The xmarkssync.exe process appeared to almost freeze for several minutes, with a high page fault rate (up to 60,000 as displayed by Windows Task Manager) even though it was using only about 260 MB of the 2 GB memory this machine has. Then the icon went back to showing an error; a new variation this time:

An error occured during synchronization. If the error message below doesn't
explain how to fix the problem, please note the error's source and click Help for
additional support.

Unexpected error during synchronization: XmarksException [source:internal: id:
-50]: Conflict: duplicate nids detected on insert T7hm82 , bnid:, name:Chromium,
glucose intolerance and diabetes. [J Am Coll Nutr. 1998] - [...], bnid:JAIX71,
name:Chromium, glucose intolerance and diabetes. [J Am Coll Nutr. 1998] -

Note that it appears to be seeing a conflict between two items with the same
name. If their URLs are also identical, why cant it just merge them?

This produced a log file too big for Notepad to open, even though I cleared
the logfile first. It also kept the icon from being able to open the Xmarks
user interface window for those several minutes, and now has apparantly
started another synchronization attempt with a high page fault rate.

I found the conflicting item on the computer that syncs correctly, created a new bookmark for it in another folder, then deleted the original bookmark. I then cleared the logfile, asked for a download, then walked away for about half an hour for breakfast; when I came back, a successful automatic sync had happened.

It looks like part of the problem was that the synchronization attempts were getting far enough to add some new items on the computer with the problem, at least those near the start of the folder list on the server, but not far enough to delete a significant number of the old ones.

Suggestions for a more permanent fix:

1. If there are duplicate nids for an item with both the name and the URL matching, put up a message window asking the user if it's OK to delete the local one; if the user approves, this is equivalent to downloading just that item from the server and replacing the old one. This loses the local item's history, but since the two items are otherwise equivalent, most users would approve.

2. In order to handle similar conflicts for items not quite so equivalent, either allow the user to give the local item a new nid, or move it to a different folder, or at least the ability to look up the entire folder path to the item given the nid from the error message.

3. If you prefer, just modify the error messages in the log file to include the entire folder path of the item the error is about, but make sure that users can still see the relevant part of the logfile even when the logfile is too big to open in Notepad.

I don't think I mentioned that a day or two ago, I walked away from my laptop for an hour or two, and when I came back, it had synchronized successfully. Therefore, all three computers are synchronized again for now; we'll see how long that lasts.

I am able to reproduce it that way.

I see nothing of the Advanced window or in the logfile indicating that the Download actually did anything to remove the old database or create a new one; you may want to have the Download code send messages to both marking when it started and when it ended.

Perhaps I've set my Internet Explorer screen wider than you have; I wouldn't call that the top left corner, since it's closer to the top right corner for me, but still not as far to the side that I'd call it the top right corner..

Finally found it. – milesrf, on November 17, 2009 23:10

I am. What Welcome link in the top right corner? I don't see one.

I saw the notice that the new 1.1.3 version is now available, and installed it on two of my machines. Apparantly, it does not handle the duplicate nids problem any better, at least if installed when the previous version has this problem.

The following was AFTER a reboot, a Clear Logfile, a Download, and a Synchronize Now:

An error occured during synchronization. If the error message below doesn't
explain how to fix the problem, please note the error's source and click Help for
additional support.

Unexpected error during synchronization: XmarksException [source: internal, id:
-50]: Conflict: duplicate nids detected on insert S7hm82 , bnid:, name:A
comparison of the insulin sensitive transport of... {J Inorg Biochem [...],
bnid: SV8Ew1, name:A comparison of the insulin-sensitive transport of... [J Inorg

For this error, the logfile was too large for Notepad to open it.

An error occured during synchronization. If the error message below doesn't
explain how to fix the problem, please note the error's source and click Help for
additional support.

Unexpected error during synchronization: XmarksException [source: internal, id:
-50]: Conflict: duplicate nids detected on insert U7hm82: , bnid:, name:[Chromium
as an essential element][Cas Lek Cesk. 2003] - Pubmed resul [...],bnid:SV8Ew1,
name:[Chromium as an essential element][Cas Lek Cesk. 2003] - Pubmed result

Again, the logfile was too large for Notepad to open it.

From a different occurence of the problem:

Tue Nov 17 06:46:39 2009: Detector [insert_reorder]: localID: T7hm82, serverID: xfx86
Tue Nov 17 06:46:39 2009: Detector [insert_reorder]: localID: T7hm82, serverID: 3iFXj1
Tue Nov 17 06:46:39 2009: Detector [insert_reorder]: localID: T7hm82, serverID: PbLXK3
Tue Nov 17 06:46:39 2009: Detector [insert_insert]: localID: T7hm82, serverID: U7hm82
Tue Nov 17 06:46:39 2009: Detector [insert_insert]: localID: T7hm82, serverID: S7hm82
Tue Nov 17 06:46:39 2009: Detector [insert_insert]: localID: T7hm82, serverID: T7hm82
Tue Nov 17 06:46:39 2009: Synchronize failed
Tue Nov 17 06:46:39 2009: Unexpected error during synchronization: XmarksException [source: internal, id: -50]: Conflict: duplicate nids detected on insert T7hm82: , bnid:, name:Chromium, glucose intolerance and diabetes. [J Am Coll Nutr. 1998] - P (...), bnid:JAIX71, name:Chromium, glucose intolerance and diabetes. [J Am Coll Nutr. 1998] - PubMed result

From another try:

An error occured during synchronization. If the error message below doesn't
explain how to fix the problem, please note the error's source and click Help for
additional support.

Unexpected orror during synchronization: XmarksException [source: internal, id:
-50]: Conflict: duplicate nids detected on insert T7hm82 , name:Chromium,
glucose intolerance and diabetes. [J Am Coll Nutr. 1998] - P [...], bnid:JAIX71,
name:Cnromium. glucose intolerance and diabetes. [J Am Coll Nutr. 1998] -

Tue Nov 17 09:15:48 2009: Detector [insert_reorder]: localID: S7hm82, serverID: xfx86
Tue Nov 17 09:15:48 2009: Detector [insert_reorder]: localID: S7hm82, serverID: 3iFXj1
Tue Nov 17 09:15:48 2009: Detector [insert_reorder]: localID: S7hm82, serverID: PbLXK3
Tue Nov 17 09:15:48 2009: Detector [insert_insert]: localID: S7hm82, serverID: U7hm82
Tue Nov 17 09:15:48 2009: Detector [insert_insert]: localID: S7hm82, serverID: S7hm82
Tue Nov 17 09:15:48 2009: Synchronize failed
Tue Nov 17 09:15:48 2009: Unexpected error during synchronization: XmarksException [source: internal, id: -50]: Conflict: duplicate nids detected on insert S7hm82: , bnid:, name:A comparison of the insulin-sensitive transport of... [J Inorg Biochem (...), bnid:SV8Ew1, name:A comparison of the insulin-sensitive transport of... [J Inorg Biochem. 2004] - PubMed result
Tue Nov 17 09:15:48 2009: Attaching observers

Looks like the end of the logfile is no longer matching up with the error message, at least after the rather long time needed to display the logfile. Could we have an option to tell it to display only so many lines at the end of the logfile, so Notepad can open this faster? I'm now getting logfiles often over 100,000 KB, even when they're small enough Notepad can open them.

Also, I've spotted a possible cause for getting multiple bookmarks pointing to the same URL. Some versions of either Xmarks or IE appear to have been sometimes adding an invisible character, and not always the same one, to the bookmark name when producing an abbreviated name if the original name was too long to display. The check for duplicate bookmark names does not appear to ignore this invisible character; neither does the IE code for editting the bookmark name.

Also, the IE8 option for displaying the installed add-ons cannot find a company name and version number for Xmarks; therefore I cannot use this to check for signs that at least part of the previous Xmarks version is still installed and causing the current problems. Could this be added?

The increased variation of error messages I'm getting suggest that Xmarks for IE v1.1.3 MAY be assigning a new nid when it detects duplicate nids, but only one for each synchronization attempt. If so, could it be modified so that after this nid change, it immediately does another synchronization or download attempt, unless it is then able to continue with the previous attempt?

Needs an option to tell it to wait until the bookmarks has been unreachable for a certain length of time before moving it, in order to handle sites that don't run 24 hours a day.