All of my messages have dissappreared from the Signal desktop version. This has happened multilple times. They do not sync, then i have to uninstall from desktop. I did this and now i have reinstalled and linked and i have no messages. How do I fix this?

[forestsw]

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Bug description

Steps to reproduce

1. step one
2. step two
3. step three

Actual result:

Expected result:

Screenshots

Platform info

Signal version:

Operating System:

Linked device version:

Link to debug log

[wesQ3]

Hi, this sounds frustrating, but without debug logs it may be difficult for the devs to diagnose the problem.

Debug logs are available on Signal Desktop under the View menu.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@wesQ3 Is right. Please install Desktop and link it to your phone again, and supply the logs and we can try to diagnose why the initial synchronization isn't happening. It sounds also like messages disappear for you sometimes? Or only once? Can you talk a little bit more about that?

[github-cygwin]

Same problem here. For some reason Signal came up as unlinked this morning. I relinked with my device. My contacts came up (but see below), the messages did not.

Debug log is available at
https://debuglogs.org/ac19157254e9cb0274535202045c9fdfb2d46a809c70fa9d3fa2d9cf1493878f

Most notable probably:
ProfileDecryptError: Failed to decrypt profile data. Most likely the profile key has changed

How can I fix this?

In terms of contacts: After the sync all contacts were restored, but there's one entry which doesn't make sense. It's the entry for my own phone, with no name connected (despite the fact that it is in my contacts). The entry has been created by an SMS from my provider. I unlinked signal-desktop from my phone, deleted all data on signal-desktop, deleted the conversation and relinked. The contact with just my phone number shows up again.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@github-cygwin Looking at your log, your SQLCipher database was at schema version zero, which means it was starting over from scratch. Similarly, all migrations needed to run for IndexedDB, which means that it was starting over empty as well. Is there any chance that your ~/.config/Signal directory was moved or erased?

(also, the ProfileDecryptError just means you can decrypt one of your contact's profiles - nothing serious)

[github-cygwin]

@scottnonnenberg yes it did start over from scratch, but without the ~/.config/Signal directory being moved or erased. It worked the day before and came up as unlinked the day after.

In trying to get my messages from my device back I also removed that directory, as described in my previous mail, but to no avail. Even cleanly starting from scratch, with no ~/.config/Signal dir, only the contacts are synced to my desktop now, but none of my messages on the device. Very disappointing.

Corinna

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@github-cygwin Another thing - looking at your log there's no history from your previous install. The log starts over fresh. Most of the time when people lose data but the directory is intact, we have logs from that previous run. But in your case we don't. It really looks like the entire directory was erased or moved.

The big question is: what happened to your computer, to that config directory, between your last run of Signal Desktop and the startup where everything was empty?

[github-cygwin]

As I wrote: I switched off the machine over night. The next morning Signal-desktop was not connected to my device anymore.

But that's not the problem. The log is from a subsequent try with a removed ~/.config/Signal dir. The real problem here is that a clean installation with no ~/.config/Signal residue does only sync the contacts, but not the messages from device to desktop.

And that's what the debug log shows.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

@github-cygwin From my perspective, the bug really is that you lost data. :0) Because it's by design that old messages are not synced between devices. I think there's another feature request asking for that, if you'd like to weigh in there.

Perhaps you have a log from the installation that came up no longer connected?

[github-cygwin]

No, sorry

[github-cygwin]

Which issue is that? There should really be a message history transfer between multiple devices.

[scottnonnenberg-signal]

Here's the duplicate: #444

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[stale]

This issue has been closed due to inactivity.