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Daily backup of bookmarks & notes

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Saturday, 23. June 2007, 05:07:20

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

Daily backup of bookmarks & notes

Unfortunatley, backup of bookmarks & notes were removed from version 9.

From Where did the bookmarks .bak file go?

Originally posted by haavard:

Seems to have been removed on purpose, since file writing is a lot safer now.

But there is lot of threads regarding lost bookmarks or notes.
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=170082
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=190928
http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=194216

Losing of bookmarks or notes causes frustration and spoils Opera reputation. A daily backup of bookmarks & notes is needed.

Monday, 25. June 2007, 16:35:47

tunayx

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Posts: 118

Two months ago I have lost my bookmarks ( I didn't knew that they removed this function so I hadn't backuped my bookmarks) and I got very angry to Opera Team skipping this issue. Also settings should be backuped too.

Tuesday, 3. July 2007, 14:59:18

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

From http://my.opera.com/community/forums/findpost.pl?id=2128696

Originally posted by Zerotrek:

Even worse I lost my bookmarks completely.

Tuesday, 3. July 2007, 20:31:59

serious

a concerned citizen

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Posts: 2341

Austria

also for Feeds list pls. lost my whole list just today, as a faulty app crashed win (imho because of that)

Friday, 13. July 2007, 04:37:01

AyushJ

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Posts: 4754

Schedule this bat file in Windows by going to Control Panel > Scheduled Tasks
CD "C:\Program Files\Opera\profile"
md Backup>nul
set log=Backup\log.log
CD backup
copy opera6.bak /v /y opera6(2).bak >> %log%
copy notes.bak /v /y notes(2).bak >> %log%
cd ..
copy notes.adr /v /y Backup\notes.bak >> %log%
copy opera6.adr /v /y Backup\opera6.bak >> %log%
echo ----->>%log%

Friday, 13. July 2007, 04:53:46

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

@AyushJ, backup of bookmarks & notes by Opera is needed because most users don't backup.

Monday, 3. September 2007, 09:23:37

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

From http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=203010

Originally posted by Malek Deneith:

I have a problem - just today my opera "lost" bookmarks - they are empty despite the .adr file still beeing in place.

Tuesday, 20. November 2007, 12:21:54

Pesala

Reclining Buddha

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Posts: 12771

UK

I don't know how many threads there have been on this topic, and related ones. I posted this one in 2003. Not much to ask, IMO, to have a simple one-click backup solution for all vital files — bookmarks, contacts, notes, email, profile. Sure, we can do it all from Windows Explorer, or use a third-party utility like Opera Backup, but I prefer to have the convenience of doing it directly from Opera, preferably without closing it.

Friday, 23. November 2007, 05:53:45

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

From http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=213993

Originally posted by wader:

As I posted recently in the more technical Opera forum, for the second time in two years Opera munched my bookmarks. A runaway program was eating space from the C: drive and Opera apparently saved the last few bookmarks I made during the then-active session, but all else was lost. It committed the save with only 5 recent bookmarks, then couldn't make a backup of the prior file version.

Tuesday, 27. November 2007, 04:54:09

cathode23

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Posts: 50

I too lost all my precious bookmarks! All of them, amassed over many many years of opera usage... years of saved info/time , all gone. I can't belive how it just vanishes. After an opera crash I found an opera6.adr replaced and i had no bookmarks at all !!! :frown:

After being such a big/ardent fan of opera, I am really dissapointed. After a crash, I feel having multiple files (1 per bookmark) might have been better to avoid a single point of failure!

If the backup feature was removed, then during installation itself, Opera should inform the users!

This is a serious issue and I hope it is addressed!

Wednesday, 5. December 2007, 14:15:53

TaranQ

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Posts: 44

Belgium

Strange people talking about precious bookmarks, but seemingly never have saved them?? The first thing that comes to mind when I am working with 'precious' stuff is backup - backup - backup - backup - backup - backup - backup !! All user created stuff should be backed up regularly! (bookmarks, feeds, mail accounts, maybe even complete profile dir) Guess thats something to learn the hard way :wink:

Wednesday, 5. December 2007, 15:57:25

TheAtilla

A Link person

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Posts: 621

Opera Software
Shoulda, coulda, woulda. The simple truth is - people just don't backup. Including myself. I am just trying to write a high-availability service that keeps some things I need for me in a place I know they won't dissapear :smile:

Wednesday, 5. December 2007, 16:00:14

Which brings the question, how can you guarentee that Opera's servers won't crash and die and take the HDs with them? :smile:
Unless you're doing some sort of backup-on-backup and etc...

Wednesday, 5. December 2007, 16:38:23

TheAtilla

A Link person

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Posts: 621

Opera Software
We can - Link runs everything in live replication mode with automated failover, backups are taken hourly, and the snapshots are backed up themselves, data sets are partitioned to be independent, we run nice transactional systems on nice journaling filesystems, and the server room - I guess you've read about it. To put it in a simple way that is.

Saturday, 15. December 2007, 14:21:21 (edited)

bpm

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Posts: 912

Canada

Ayush - the problem is that the idea of a BAT file is completely foreign to most users - and the value of it is not obvious to them. I posted my BAT file here, and tried to walk people through getting the paths & working directory right; not a nibble.

People can't imagine that Opera would be so irresponsible as to leave them thus exposed - and you can't blame them.The removal of automatic backup was close to insane. Haavard (and, I guess, Attila) think it was reasonable? TaranQ winks about the shock and misery which will inevitably result, as unwitting users entrust important pieces of their lives to the good sense of the Opera team? What does Opera think they're saving? My backup\latest folder is 600 kB - it would fit on a floppy disk.

Pesala: how on Earth does anyone write a 3-MB backup program, and why would you use it? What is needed is about a dozen Copy commands. Check out my BAT: it's 11 lines, 788 bytes, and fulfills your wish: runs from a menu item, takes a few seconds, and you don't leave Opera. That's all that's needed, and all that's possible. You make copies of notes, bookmarks and a few other files, or you don't: it really is that simple. (And once you have them all in a backup folder, off-machine backup is reduced to a single copy command.)

Honestly, this seems to me like a situation where some sort of revolt is called for: the technically-informed element of the user community rising up to tell Opera to give its head a shake, and live up to its responsibilities. People, this emperor is naked. (And cheers for Tamil.)

Saturday, 12. January 2008, 19:52:29

Ales_

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Posts: 1

The simplest is backuping data and config files when Opera is turning off. Original files should be tested before next start and if damaged, Opera can offer restoration from backup. It should be quite simple for implementation and no requests to users if all is OK. If something wrong happens with original files, it's one click, or posibility of emergency copying backups to safe place. Simple, reliable and no need of batch, script or 3rd party soft.
//Sorry for my bad English :-)

Monday, 11. February 2008, 17:30:06

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

From http://my.opera.com/community/forums/findpost.pl?id=2446290

Originally posted by Medman728:

Does anyone know if Opera keeps a backup copy of its bookmarks. All of a sudden mine disappeared.

Monday, 18. February 2008, 13:08:29

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

From http://my.opera.com/community/forums/findpost.pl?id=2454375

Originally posted by rosewd2:

Yes I lost my bookmarks also, must be a insignificant bug. Well My bookmarks are improtant and this is the 2nd time this peice of junk has lost them!
I have an ie7 backup. But I'll just switch to Firefox 3.1, bettter faster and it doesn't loose the bookmarks and say too bad you should have backed them up. How can you expect someone to back a file that they don't know if its important. Not like it called opera bookmarks or something!
Solution, I'm deleting Opera 9.25 and making the switch to Firefox. At least I stop having problems with web pages not functioning correctly.
What a peice of junk!

Monday, 18. February 2008, 17:25:26

Also +1 for automatic backup. Recently formatted my hard drive and reinstalled windows. Unfortunately forgot to export bookmarks and they all were lost :frown:

Tuesday, 19. February 2008, 12:30:26 (edited)

Pesala

Reclining Buddha

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Posts: 12771

UK

Originally posted by GravityFX:

You can also use tool created by me ;-)


Beautifully simple, and small, but one fundamental flaw. It doesn't backup email.

One apparent bug. The browse button doesn't work in preferences. My Opera installation is on a different drive to C:\Program Files\Opera\ However, it is easy enough to copy and paste the path into the dialogue.

I think it would be better to archive the files, especially if mail is included.

286 Kbytes becomes only 78 Kbytes in a 7-Zip archive.
My mail folder of 9.53 Mbytes is just 2.62 Mbytes in a 7-Zip archive.

The problem to work around is that the mail files are not accessible when Opera is open. This can be done by copying the files to a temporary folder, creating the archive, then deleting the temporary files.

Of course, this will take a little longer (15 seconds for my mail folder), but it is an option worth adding. Fast compression reduces the time to about 2 seconds and increases the archive to 2.86 Mbytes.

Thursday, 21. February 2008, 23:11:23

ianp5a

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Posts: 261

It is good to see these backup tools becoming available. A very old topic this and a flaw in many popular applications, not just Opera.
Messing around navigating folders and copying files with cryptic names, not being sure if you have backed up the right things.
Of course people don't back up! For many its a near impossibility. And for others its is the most inefficient work possible. And for Opera, it is the easiest thing to impliment.

Saturday, 8. March 2008, 03:03:05

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

From http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=225744

Originally posted by Katakana:

Bookmarks dissapeared for 2 times now...very frustrated

I had my first dissapearing some month ago. Shutdown opera. Open opera. No bookmarks.
The bookmarks profile from about opera was all the same. Only opera6.adr was 1 KB. No opera6.bak file.
Now I logged into opera 9.5 beta where I did a previous synchronization online and I resynchronized my adr file. I then copied the file to opera 9.25 profile dir.
2 weeks ago...the same thing.

Tuesday, 25. March 2008, 21:32:15

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

From http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=227395

Originally posted by anderssorensen:

All my bookmarks are gone for the 2nd time.

Thursday, 10. April 2008, 05:04:32

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

From http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=228984

Originally posted by blackjax99:

The problem is, that when I started it back up, all my bookmarks were gone, the only thing I had in my bookmarks list anymore was 'Trash'.

Originally posted by blackjax99:

I love opera but this really shakes my faith.

Sunday, 13. April 2008, 05:27:51

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

From http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=229265

Originally posted by epilos:

I restarted opera and 90% of my opera6.adr bookmarks are MISSING!!!

as you can imagine, this data was so essential and I took much time to gather it

Wednesday, 18. June 2008, 17:47:09

You might be interested in this backup tool for Opera http://my.opera.com/VJgamer/blog/operafly see what you think.

Wednesday, 18. June 2008, 18:06:51

Tamil

Opera :-(|)

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Posts: 110325

Heaven

Originally posted by John164:

You might be interested in this backup tool for Opera http://my.opera.com/VJgamer/blog/operafly see what you think.

Originally posted by Tamil:

backup of bookmarks & notes by Opera is needed because most users don't backup.

Saturday, 28. June 2008, 20:48:51

bpm

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Posts: 912

Canada

His point, indeed rather curtly signified, being that the wish is not for a way for motivated users to implement backup (which many understand) - but for Opera to implement backup done automatically on a regular basis even for those who don't think about it. Without which regular diasters are inevitable, because people just assume that obvious important needs will have been dealt with by the provider.

Current setup could be likened to a national park with a cliff, and no fence or warning signs: there will be bodies at the bottom, accruing at some steady rate.

Saturday, 28. June 2008, 21:05:32

Pesala

Reclining Buddha

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Posts: 12771

UK

Originally posted by bpm:

Pesala: how on Earth does anyone write a 3-MB backup program, and why would you use it?


I don't care if it is 3 mbytes or 3 Kbytes, as long as it does the job well, which it does.

Clear the Cache, Close Opera, Run Opera Backup, and a ZIP archive is created on my USB drive. It takes less than a minute.

Wednesday, 9. July 2008, 15:59:56

element119

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Posts: 15

USA

i use the sync function of opera. if opera crashes and loses my .adr file will it delete the bookmarks in my.opera.com?

Sunday, 7. September 2008, 22:17:37

Operetta

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Posts: 610

Originally posted by Tamil:

Unfortunatley, backup of bookmarks & notes were removed from version 9.



Maybe because I've never backed up and I've never lost any of my settings. :smile:

Saturday, 13. September 2008, 04:50:02

cooolway

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Posts: 27

I really want this too. Opera programmers should have done this long time ago if they are going to make unstable browser like Opera. We all know that no IE or FF user would really ask for backing up settings.

Wednesday, 19. August 2009, 11:08:56

Lost bookmarks? Odd, in all the years that I've used Opera (at least from v3 and maybe even older versions!) this never happened to me!

I even used Beta's, had Opera on an USB stick for a while (before the synchronisation of bookmarks etc), moved Opera around from old to new pc's etc. Never lost anything...

So this makes me wonder: apparently a lot of ppl came across this problem, loosing some or all bookmarks. Why did it not happen to me? Normally I'm not a person that's considered 'lucky' so I don't think luck has anything to do with it.

I think it would be a smart idea if ppl could post as much information about their Opera setup, what they were doing etc etc. Anything to help the Devs to tackle this problem. There must be something that all ppl that lost bookmarks have in common (besides an empty bookmark-list).

For those that lost their bookmarks: I hope the Development Team will take action to solve this!

Thursday, 20. August 2009, 02:39:18

TommyVee

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Posts: 88

Italy

Originally posted by Pesala:

to have a simple one-click backup solution for all vital files — bookmarks, contacts, notes, email, profile


+1 I totally agree!!! Really needed.

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