Tasks created offline disappear

While flying, I brainstormed an entire new project and all the steps. Upon landing, I had over 130 tasks to sync. Later in the day, I return to the project but many of my tasks are not there. And tasks I deleted/changed are still there/changes not made. And on other tasks, when I click on them, I can see the sub tasks I created disappear before my eyes! So disheartening! Any ideas on what could cause this to happen?

:scream:
Would you say that only a few synced or none?

I am CCing @Alexis and @Craig_Fifer who were discussing offline feature on this thread Force offline sync - #9 by Stefan_Neumann maybe they can help!

It looks like none of them synced. And even worse, they all disappeared from my mobile device. I could use a keyword search to find them, but if I selected a task from the search results, it would disappear and the “Cannot be found” message would appear.

@Alexis any idea who could help?

Thanks for your follow up Bastien!

Using a keyword search, I was able to hunt & peck through the mobile app. When I would find a task, I would type it into Asana via my desktop. But if I dare select any of the tasks from the search results, they would disappear.

I spent about an hour thinking through the project I was working on trying to remember all the tasks I had entered and then just moved forward on the project.

I will not be using Asana again while flying. Was such a loss to have that moment of inspiration, brainstorm an entire project, and capture it in Asana only to have it be gone.

I absolutely love Asana. I’ve been using it for about 6 to 8 months and it’s completely revolutionized my business. This is the first major bug I’ve come across.

1 Like

Looks like a major bug, I hope @Alexis would be able to escalate this to the dev team…

Same exact issue happened with me yesterday. Is there any way to retrieve these missing items?

At the time it happened to me, no. I don’t use Asana offline anymore except if I’m just adding one thing.

1 Like

Hi @Patrick_A and welcome to the Forum :wave:t3:

I’m afraid that if your tasks have not synced, you won’t be able to retrieve them; sincere apologies for the trouble here. This usually happens when you are trying to upload something too big while being offline (ex: videos, projects with hundreds of tasks or containing a lot of attachments).

We’re constantly working on improving Asana’s performances, so hopefully this won’t be an issue in the future, but for the time being, I would recommend uploading large projects or data while being offline.

Let me know if you have any follow-up questions! :slight_smile:

1 Like

I believe what happened is that i opened the Asana site on my computer before opening the app on my phone. The moment i opened the app on my phone, i saw my ~10 tasks (no attachments, very small strings of text) for a split second, then they immediately vanished.

Perhaps the solution is that the phone app is in read-only mode when offline? or the sync doesn’t delete but perhaps marks for deletion? We can’t be the only 2 people that this has happened to, it’s a pretty major flaw in the app. Nonetheless, i will continue to use it because it exceeds expectations everywhere else. Thanks!

Hi @Patrick_A and thanks for the follow-up!

Technically, all tasks you’re creating offline are stored in your mobile’s cache; when going back online the cache should sync with Asana and create your tasks. The fact you’re opening Asana on your browser should not interfere with the cache of your mobile syncing with Asana.

With that said, if one tasks is blocking the sync, all pending tasks will be blocked. I could be wrong, but I believe that what might have happened.

If you come across this situation again, I would advise reaching out to our support team with more details (name of the task, rough time of creation…) so they can escalate the issue to our engineers.

Same thing here. Two hours of very focused work on a plane: gone. I’m so freaking pissed. I also deleted the notes with information that had to be put in Asana. Which I did… but then one sync and you know the rest. All new ideas, projects the information I had in my notes gone.

Hi I don’t have WiFi and have been using the Asana app on 4G.
My phone wasn’t updated For a few years so the app stopped working and I couldn’t update the app until I updated my iPhone.

Last night i updated my iPhone and Downloaded the new app but upon opening I noticed ALL of my lists, years worth of lists are gone!
Is there anyway I can retrieve/restore them?
Does Asana only back up using WiFi? Does 3g or 4g not back up?
I am in Australia.

Thanks

Ouch, that’s painful!! Unless something has changed, your best bet might be restoring your mobile phone backup (if you were backing up.)

@Blanco_Aesthetics, Is there any chance you’re currently in a different workspace/org than the one in which you created your projects/tasks? This happens to folks sometimes; not sure if that’s your case or not but very quick to just try switching workspaces to see. If not, I think you should contact Asana Support.

Larry

2 Likes

This was my thought as well. From your description, seems like your data should be on the Asana servers.

It won’t care about WiFi vs. cellular; if your phone could reach Asana, the data should be there.

1 Like

Thanks so much everyone! Such a simple oversight. I didn’t realize I had two accounts. My old work account had my personal and business emails attached to it, so it seemed I was logged into the correct account.
Such a relief!
Thanks for the support!!

3 Likes

Wonderful!!

1 Like