SB 4.03 loading empty Collections or History after extension repair

[johnswolter]

What appears are like-new Collections & History database listings.  Those are blank, empty. 

I have portable installs of both 32-bit & 64-bit of

.....stable, beta, & dev Chrome versions.  I'm only using

.....the 64-bit Beta.  Later, I'll transition the others as well.

I willing to provide you most any layers of information & debugging you may need.  Here what I've done to investigate this.

1. STOP, don't alter anything

2, Browsed a bit, STOPPED & did nothing in directories

3. Last night

...a) Saw the same blank or empty databases displayed

....b) Rebooted the Windows 10 then started 

....c) Chrome portable...

....Version 126.0.6478.17 (Official Build) (Beta} a 64-bit

....d) Collections or History reappeared.(?)

4. Today

....a)  Windows booted as usual

....b) Started same chrome version

....c) Noticed SB icon missing from the Chrome extension bar

....d)  Browsed extensions list to see if it needed to be 

.....re-listed to the toolbar.  SB wasn't found in that list.

Then

 ....e) Looked in the extension manager

 ....f) Observed @ the top "Better Text View" had an error .....message : "Extension needs repair". (Why?)

....g) Browsed down the list & found a half dozen other...

......extensions with the same message.(?)

     h)  Ran the "repair" process for each such extension.

....i) Ran repair for SB too

....j) Remembered updating Chrome Beta portable 7 days ago

....k) Browsed the Chrome install directories looking for...

.....the directory U mentioned to "about2flip" who

.....reported a lost database V3 to V4 issue.

....l) Found it & some explaining about my portable installs.

..... Where's Waldo's database?

.....C:\Programs-Portable\PortableApps

.....\GoogleChromePortableBeta\Data\profile

.....\default\databases

.....\chromeextension_

......edacconmaakjimmfgnblocblbcdcpbko_0

....j) Attached is the chrome://version file.  Note I have portable & natively installed Chrome versions.  I may send it by EMail as you mentioned.

....k) Here's a C:\ drive setup for both portableapps.com & "non-*.pak" portable distributions I use.

....aa)  First, I created C:\Programs-Portable directory named to be adjacent & just after to the traditional Windows 10 "Program Files", "Program Files (x86)", & "ProgramData".

....ab) Both portable distributions types can be installed

.....into Programs-Portable.  Non-PortableApps 

.....types are usually a kind of compressed distribution

.....file type such as zip or 7z formats. Installing is simply

..... decompressing the archive file into a directory.

....ac) Traditional application installs, like ".msi" files, I 

.....call "Native installs".  These are "locked" into

.....individual Windows computers that can't be copied to

.....a different computer.  They must natively installed.

....ad) I have ported SB V3 databases between different

.....portable Chrome versions but not V4 as of yet. 

.....It may be part of restoring what was lost.

....ae) I'm hoping to better understand the current

.....situation.  

.....af) I need to know what database is used for V4 SB.  

.....ag) Where it's located...

.....ah) Are there utilities like SQLite's

.....ai) If the databases have been deleted

.....aj) I do have some V3 files prior to V4.

....ak) Additionally, I noticed "Protected Folder Protection" .....has been active.  It's new to me.  Checking it has appeared

.....in the Documents directories.

....al) I've performed a Windows update today after the SB issue.

[Session Buddy Support]

Interesting. To troubleshoot it would be helpful to know what errors, if any, are displayed in the console when SB loads.

https://sessionbuddy.com/console/

If you're willing to share your database files, that would be helpful too. You can find them according to this:

https://sessionbuddy.com/data-location/

Zip up both IndexedDB folders and send to sup...@sessionbuddy.com

You can also try executing each one of these lines in the console separately to see if any of them produce an error:

indexedDB.open('nxsCollections')
indexedDB.open('nxsClientHistory')
indexedDB.open('nxsSettings')

Thanks,

Hans

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[Session Buddy Support]

Additional info:

- The v4 database is not externally readable like the v3 database was

- The v3 database may be used if necessary to recover some of your data

Hans

On Thu, Jun 6, 2024 at 8:53 PM johnswolter <johns...@wolterworks.com> wrote:

[Jeff -family of- Stapleton]

@Hans  What I just reported today seems to be something along this same line.

I do not have Microsoft's "Controlled Folder Access" enabled, if that is what John is referring to as "Protected Folder Protection".  However, in my case, I do not have a copy of my Session Buddy files newer than August 2022 if indeed all of my Collections were deleted/purged as it appears.  I allowed Session Buddy to upgrade from the last v3 version to v4.0.0 and it did so without issue.  I've had no issue as I stated in my dedicated post and just saved another collection and named it the other day and all seemed fine.  I've had no browser or Windows crashes that I am aware of, but my Collections are just gone.

Besides manually backing up the data, I guess I had assumed that surely Session Buddy had some redundancy (obviously, keeping its own backup or two is not at all a bad idea) or was going out of its way to protect my data.  Talk about learning the hard way losing all of my important collections going back almost 20 months.

[john s wolter]

Window's "Controlled Folder Access" can affect access to folders & any file.  Much is set by default.  Search on Windows for it with "Ransomware".

"https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/controlled-folder-access-and-microsoft-print-to/da3ac887-042c-4f04-a19c-ceb65648ffbf"

"https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/controlled-folder-access-blocked-problem-in/813c222d-521e-49cf-a60d-ac93b006a61"

This doesn't connect "Controlled Folder Access" to the loss of Collections problem.

Directly after a Chrome update, a number of about 6 extensions had "extension needs repair" messages on them.  Google may report a fix in the next update.  M$ will never take a hit.

It could have been that repair process.  It seems like Chrome's "repair" did a clean reinstall.  That;s my speculation

I'm working on a data bundle to see if that helps.

Cheers, John S Wolter, Johnny 10-Shots, Staying Safe, Immune Challenged, Remote/Hybrid Okay

LinkedIn: johnswolter   Tel : 734-408-1263  no texts available

Also Signed  : "The Vikings || a warning"  "Slava Ukraini"

Squirmy & Grubs, a married couple, (Youtube).

Aerospace Projects for the next generation of Astrophysics  

It's about a simple AI managed Wind-Turbine (VAWT)

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[Ismail]

" The v4 database is not externally readable like the v3 database was" 

How would it be possible to edit the database? I used previously use notepad ++ with v3 to edit the database. Would I need to create a reverse migration tool perhaps? Something that converts the v4 database back into v3 so I could make edits and then convert back to v4. 

[Session Buddy Support]

Not possible, AFAIK.

Hans

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[john s wolter]

What's the origin of the V4 database software?  Is it a known or embeddable database that has a pre-built database editor or manager, published APIs, like a Python list, or has an ODBC interface?  How would you describe the kind or type of the V4 database?  Is it a SQL, key-value pair, vector, list oriented, or other?

Cheers, John S Wolter, Johnny 10-Shots, Staying Safe, Immune Challenged, Remote/Hybrid Okay

LinkedIn: johnswolter   

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/CAAqiLL-ez%3Dzhb4sh2O-ry0UZ%2BOFdHPQycWVu7J40UOctbE88aQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Session Buddy Support]

IndexedDB, backed by LevelDB in the case of Chromium. It’s an object store. 

Hans

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[john s wolter]

Hans,

Okay SB is built IndexedDB  with LevelDB on top.  An interesting NoSQL database stack.   

- Access the SB database by starting SB in a Chrome tab as usual.  Remain in the SB Tab.  

- Using Chrome's dropdown menu choose -> More Tools ->  DevTools opens a separate Chrome window of development tools,

- Then Click "Application" on the top  horizontal menu list.  

- The left-hand navigation list will include "Storage".  Click it,

- A list of storage types should be visible with a '>' triangle for each database type.

- Click the one named "IndexedDB"

- A page with "IndexedDB" appears with "Learn More".  

- If interested Right-Click that link for the "Context" menu & chose "Open in a new tab", a tutorial will appear

- Clicking the '>' triangle next to "IndexedDB" opens database browsing functions each with a triangle

- This indented list appears :

-- nsxClientHistory

-- nsxCollections

== nsxSettings

- Open these using the triangles & into the key-values as far into each level of detail as needed.

Cheers, John S Wolter, Johnny 10-Shots, Staying Safe, Immune Challenged, Remote/Hybrid Okay

LinkedIn: johnswolter 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sessionbuddy-discuss/CAAqiLL_LfCtUo9KFXdF%3DZEyp3X-OpZdvyyc9U2xa%3DmBc%3DCF%3DFg%40mail.gmail.com.

[john s wolter]

I had posted the following in another thread.  Hopefully it will shed light on Collections loss during Chrome updates that compel Session Buddy to require Chrome to need "repair".  It accomplishes this by reinstalling Session Buddy & thus blank databases.

=================================================

Looking at the current "Post Repair" [SB startup] screen picture[, attached below,] there aren't any Collections.  I have used SB since the last repair.  All Collections were removed at that time too.

Therefore, the Chrome update extension repair reinstalled SB.  This installed blank databases as expected.  This likely is similar yet not the same as the SB V3 to V4 conversion.  How are these two processes different?  Why were most database conversions successful while a minority lost data?

This is unlikely to be the only fix needed.  More errors are lurking inside all the parts and pieces making up SB and all other software and any kind of systems.

Keep looking for other problems.

Cheers, John S Wolter, Johnny 10-Shots, Staying Safe, Immune Challenged, Remote/Hybrid Okay

LinkedIn: johnswolter   Tel : 734-408-1263  no texts available

Also Signed  : "The Vikings || a warning"  "Slava Ukraini"

Squirmy & Grubs, a married couple, (Youtube).

Aerospace Projects for the next generation of Astrophysics  

Learning : MOOC, Edx.org, MITx, OCW, MIT xPro, Coursera, Khan Academy, List

A simple AI controlled Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT)

[john s wolter]

One short term solution  is s script of maybe Python to perform scheduled, event prompted, & manual backups of the IndexedDB files.  That would minimize data loss.  

Another useful utility would be automated discovery of where databases are kept.  Then a simple file copy could be performed using.  Installed backup programs can be used too.

Later a backup API and an internal backup module can be added to the SB installation distribution.

Cheers, John S Wolter, Johnny 10-Shots, Staying Safe, Immune Challenged, Remote/Hybrid Okay

LinkedIn: johnswolter   Tel : 734-408-1263  no texts available

Also Signed  : "The Vikings || a warning"  "Slava Ukraini"

Squirmy & Grubs, a married couple, (Youtube).

Aerospace Projects for the next generation of Astrophysics  

Learning : MOOC, Edx.org, MITx, OCW, MIT xPro, Coursera, Khan Academy, List