Lost all my bookmarks - thank you very much, f**king Opera Link

Lost all my bookmarks - thank you very much, f**king Opera Link

yesterday, when i tried to synchronize my bookmarks via opera link service on a new computer, i lost all my bookmarks. during the process my internet conection broke, so it loaded only few of them. after the connection was re-established, it successfully deleted all the rest, except those few that were synchronized.
p.s. when i loaded opera on my home computer, in a blink of an eye all my stored bookmarks were gone too, so i did'nt even manage to backup them.
p.p.s. i guess its time to switch to chrome or firefox. who needs browser that deletes your bookmarks, cannot load quakelive, doesn't allow paying my wow subscription via webmoney, and doesn't have normal plugins. i tried to install google toolbar widget - seriously??? is there anyone who really uses that awful shit?

See my sig for a backup program. Next time you should blame yourself for your own negligence in not keeping proper backups, instead of blaming others. Opera Link was never designed as a backup system.

If you're lucky, you might find your old bookmarks in "bookmarks.adr.pre_sync" in your profile folder.

Originally posted by Pesala:

Opera Link was never designed as a backup system.

oh, really?

the problem is not keeping backups. the problem is the service. designed to keep and share my bookmarks, it actually deleted them all. the problem is that i cannot specify and cannot understand when it is going to update my local bookmarks to the server, or delete my local bookmarks to synchronize with those on the server. and its lame

Originally posted by Pesala:

If you're lucky, you might find your old bookmarks in "bookmarks.adr.pre_sync" in your profile folder.

and thanks for this. sincere "thank you" without sarcasm. though, none of my bookmarks were there. just those stupid opera bookmarks that you you get after browser installation

Errm, surely it's your internet connection that's the fault here, not Opera....

Opera Link has never deleted my bookmarks (though it has added a few it shouldn't have, so it's by no means perfect), but I keep a backup in my Dropbox just to be safe.

Originally posted by Pesala:

See my sig for a backup program. Next time you should blame yourself for your own negligence in not keeping proper backups

Oh, so the user needs to babysit Opera because it's not reliable?

Somehow Opera failed, and it's Opera fault.

Originally posted by mgillespie:

Errm, surely it's your internet connection that's the fault here, not Opera....

It is no use blaming your ISP either. Users are at fault if they don't backup important data, then curse and blame others for their lack of caution. What would you do if someone stole your PC if you have no backups?

If its your own data, and you don't want to be bothered with keeping backups — fine, but be prepared to take it on the chin if you lose it all.

Originally posted by xErath:

Somehow Opera failed, and it's Opera fault.

Opera Link is not a backup program. Its for synchronising two PCs. If Opera failed to transfer your bookmarks, restore them from your backup, then synchronise again.

Opera failed to completely download the bookmarks, but:

A) deleted the local bookmark state in spite of the failed download
B) altered the remote bookmark state in spite of the failed download

It should be doing neither, but doing both is pretty much the worst possible design.

Its a bug, and should be fixed.

Stop blindfold-defending Opera. There is clearly a design flaw here, and it should be fixed in order to make Opera better.

Originally posted by Pesala:

See my sig for a backup program. Next time you should blame yourself for your own negligence in not keeping proper backups, instead of blaming others. Opera Link was never designed as a backup system.

You give a lot of good advice on here, but this is no more acceptable than Windows deleting a file when you try to copy it to a network share - which it wouldn't do, because it should NEVER delete something before it's copied and verified.
A wise power user should keep backups, but it's unreasonable to think that most people would - and almost unthinkable that you'd lose everything you already had just for failing to sync.

Thanks for the warning, sharperenko.

Originally posted by Rockoon:

Stop blindfold-defending Opera. There is clearly a design flaw here, and it should be fixed in order to make Opera better.

That was not the reason for my post. Sharperenko used the f-word in the thread title, and blamed Opera for his/her own failings. There are always bugs in software, if you don't make allowances for this, you have only yourself to blame when it does not work as expected. Read the Terms of Service again:

You expressly acknowledge and agree that use of the software is at your own risk and that the software is provided “AS IS” without any warranties or conditions whatsoever. Opera Software ASA or its suppliers do not warrant that the operation of the software will be uninterrupted or error free. You assume responsibility for selecting the software to achieve your intended results and for the use and the results obtained from the software.

What you're saying, in effect, is that no software should ever be released unless it is 100% error free, which is, of course, impractical. Its not designed to navigate a spaceship to Mars — its just a tool for browsing the internet. Even NASA is not immune from bugs in its software.¹

Originally posted by sharperenko:

the problem is that i cannot specify and cannot understand when it is going to update my local bookmarks to the server, or delete my local bookmarks to synchronize with those on the server. and its lame

Then turn it off and don't use it. Send your bookmark.adr file by email from home to work or whatever. Then you will have another backup on your mail server and in your mail store.

¹ One of the subcontractors NASA used when building its Mars climate orbiter had used English units instead of the intended metric system, which caused the orbiter’s thrusters to work incorrectly. Due to this bug, the orbiter crashed almost immediately when it arrived at Mars in 1999. The cost of the project was $327 million, not to mention the lost time (it took almost a year for the orbiter to reach Mars).

This can happen if you delete your local bookmarks. Remember than these delete commands are also synchronized. This is a synchronization service, not a backup service so deleting local bookmarks will synchronize the deletes to all computers.

Additionally, the bookmarks.pre-sync file in your profile directory should contain the bookmarks as they were before sync was enabled.

Originally posted by mitchman2:

Additionally, the bookmarks.pre-sync file in your profile directory should contain the bookmarks as they were before sync was enabled.

This is not what I found — they contained only the default bookmarks that came with Opera. I tried deleting the file, and synchronised Opera 10.51 build 3315 again, hoping that a new pre-sync file would be created, but none was.

I installed Opera using the Classic Installer, and have multi-user set to 0, so that my profile is in the installation folder on a virtual drive: O:\Opera\profile\

Opera 10.52 build 3370 installed in the same way to O:\Opera Beta\ is the same. The bookmarks file is 263 K but bookmarks.adr.pre_sync is just 3K.

The pre-sync file has a list of BMs, but I can't verify at a glance if it's unique to this machine.

Despite some foul language from the OP, please don't discredit this thread entirely (even if it is a duplicate). There's more than one confirmation that there <i>are some</i> issues with at least <i>some</i> Opera Link users when it comes to reverted bookmarks or notes.

I think it's important for all users to get an accurate understanding of how reliable or not reliable Opera Link is for 10.5x because at the moment, it appears to only hit by surprise for many. Anything else would be disinformation.

I'm sure there are fantastic developers carefully working hard on it just as there are all you absolutely wonderful people trying to help rival-browser users through replying; but it's slightly surprising (to me, in my opinion) that no one has yet a) pointed to the standard 'search forums' response b) killed the thread already or c) pointed to one of the various existing constructive topics.

So without sounding like just a passive-aggressive hypocrite, I'll attempt a non-exhaustive list of related threads which may or may not be useful:

Opera Link Problems
How to force a new sync with opera link
Opera Link is removing entries in notes

Apologies if I'm pointing out the bleedin' obvious here, but have you looked in Opera link's trashcan?

Originally posted by Protiotype:

I think it's important for all users to get an accurate understanding of how reliable or not reliable Opera Link is for 10.5x because at the moment, it appears to only hit by surprise for many.

Actually, the guy with the problem hasn't actually responded to the question about whether he deleted his bookmarks on one of the computers..

Adding a new computer to the sync is risky, Murphy's law and all that.
Happened to me once, Opera's default bookmarks replaced all my bookmarks on my computers and Notes also got deleted. Luckily I had an old backup of the bookmarks so I didn't lose all. But now I'm more careful about making backups.

When attaching new Opera to link, it would be nice if Opera would ask if you want to
A) Download link data from the server
B) Replace the data on the server
C) Merge them

I've never had a problem with new computers - except that it adds the default bookmarks to my own the first time I sync. Maybe I'm just lucky, but the number of times I've installed Opera and then used Sync to get my bookmarks is high enough that it can't be too common. I have ... let's see, 2 computers each of which are dual boot, between stable and unstable builds I currently have 7 copies of Opera between the two machines. So you can imagine ...

Having said that, there was an issue they fixed in the upcoming 10.52 that had to do with people losing bookmarks when upgrading directly from 9.x to 10.51. I know, kind of late now, but if any of you are still using 9.x and thinking about trying 10.52 when it comes out (which should be later today) ... well, it should be a lot better than the 10.51 upgrade was (but you may still want to back up your profile just in case).

similar thread...

http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=441901

Originally posted by avaragoulis:

Does anyone know how to use "bookmarks.adr.pre_sync"?

Just rename it to bookmarks.adr.

Opera link is not a backup solution.. It is a synchronization solution. If you want to protect your bookmarks then backup your own bookmarks to a file. It is not rocket science. I have lost bookmarks due to Opera Link but it was my fault, no point in making threads about it. I would worry about the current REAL issues with opera rather than your sole reliance on Link.

I lost all my opera bookmarks -- years worth -- a very curious way:

I was trying to log onto a network device, say a router or network storage, using only the IP address.

I didn't have the address written down, so just typed in the first few numbers, hoping to see if Opera's "memory" would offer me the address I needed.

Only one came up, so hit return.

Turned out to be address of a local machine when I used to stream music using two active opera sessions.

I wondered whether the problem stems from that functionality in the opera unite gizmos of being able to connect within the local network using opera having been deleted in the version of opera I had recently upgraded to.

perhaps this is a furphy, and prob was simply an upgrade issue from something a little bit older, say 9.something, to something more recent.

Unimpressed, anyway. Yes, caveat emptor, but seems to be pretty damm major coding stuff up.

Perhaps time to use open source Firefox again, despite it missing some nice features of opera. Perhaps even chrome from the unknown!

Cheers,

Matthew