Hello, I am frequently experiencing a bug that is causing changes made while building apps to not be saved. The changes show in history, however after exiting and resuming work the next day, many of the changes do not persist. Last night there was no problem with my internet connection, and the changes even showed in the app when hitting the play button from the editor by another user.
For context, last night I had a dashboard where I extracted 2 components into a tabbed container. Each tab contained one of the 2 components, and in a third tab I created a view to show some data. I showed this to someone in the organization by having them go in and hit the play button. They checked it out a bit and then we both exited. I just logged in now and none of that work saved!
Please advise, as this is not an isolated incident and has happened to me on another organizations Retool account. All I can do for now is religiously export my project to json in case it happens again. I really enjoy using Retool, but this bug is literally causing my work to disappear.
I understand the issue you're facing. To ensure that your work is not lost, it's important to save your changes immediately after making any modifications. You can do this by pressing Ctrl + S. This way, even if something unexpected happens, your progress will be saved.
If you continue to encounter issues or need further assistance, feel free to reach out. We're here to help!
I imported the backup json file which I had the foresight before to make, getting my work back.
I pressed Ctrl + S as you recommended, and looked at the history to see that my changes were registered. (Note that pressing ctrl s does not indicate anything on my machine)
I powered off my machine.
The app has once again reverted to where it was before, all changes lost.
Hi @Joseph_Cileo, I'm sorry you have lost your progress multiple times. Here is some context on what could have caused this, how to prevent it from happening in the future, and how to recover your work if it ever happens again:
Don't make any changes when using the 'historyOffset,' this can lead to losing previous app states.
Thanks Paolo. I do have multiple projects open in the same browser (firefox) but for different organizations using different Retool accounts. For now, I will sandbox each Retool editor in it's own browser and see if the problem goes away. Do keep me posted on this issue, as it's much more convenient not to have to isolate Retool projects per browser (assuming this is even the fix!)
I'd like to also request that some sort of indicator show in the editor for when saves do not result in a success response. That would be a great reminder to us, the users, that we should export the project or attempt some sort of manual save. Something as simple as a red dot near the history would be great!
You are welcome! Unless we are experiencing a new issue, all saves should be successful. The loss of progress happens when changes made on one tab are automatically saved but the second tab has not registered these changes yet. The second tab then makes an automatic save, bringing the state of the app back to how it was before changes were made on the first tab. This is why we can recover our progress using 'historyOffset.'
We have an existing feature request for notifying when multiple editor apps are open for the same app. I added your experience to the report.
One way that is easy to get in a multiple editor tab situation is clicking Preview, which opens a new tab, then clicking 'Edit App' on the new tab, which opens the Editor on that tab. I recommend not clicking 'Edit App' on a preview, just close the tab and use the existing Editor tab.
That being said, we will continue monitoring the forum to see if what you experienced is related to a new issue. Please let us know if the issue persists with only one editor tab open at a time.
Hi, please can you work on making this more robust. I seem to be endlessly losing work and having to look at older versions which then if you edit you of course lose the other progress. I'm a single editor on these apps and only ever have one open in one tab at a time, but still run into the issues above. There must be a smarter way at doing this. I am even committing my work to GitHub.
Do you know what would have caused all my changes to be lost? I had created. I created a new release, then went to view it in my browser and the changes were not there. So I reloaded the page in retool and the changes I had made were gone. Very frustrating.
Hey @tomm, I totally feel your pain—I ran into this issue just this morning as well.
To help avoid future headaches, I’ve started creating pre-releases more frequently. The version history feature has been a lifesaver for restoring previous changes when things go sideways.
You might want to check out this thread; it seems related to what you’re experiencing. When I checked this morning, I didn’t see a "Run Migrations" entry in the history, but I also experienced some weird reverted changes.
Fingers crossed it gets fixed soon—it’s super annoying!
Hi @tomm, I’m sorry to hear you’ve also experienced a loss of progress while working on your apps. Although we haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact cause, we’re actively working to reproduce the issue. Additionally, we’ve raised this concern internally, and our engineers are investigating to identify and resolve the root cause.
I’ll consolidate all topics where this issue has been reported to ensure everyone stays informed as we make progress toward resolving the bug.
Hey @Paulo! I’ve run into this issue as well. I’ll make some changes to an app, step away for a bit (with no other windows open), and when I come back, there's a "Run Migration" in my history and some recent changes are missing. I can restore them from previous history, but it’s definitely something I’ve been experiencing more recently. I’ve started creating pre-releases more often just to be safe, since the history hasn’t been 100% reliable.
Thanks for sharing your experience, I'll try reproducing on my end.
Do you remember what changes were made on the app (JS/Resource queries, new components)?
Hey @Paulo! No specific patterns come to mind, I’ve had query modifications just disappear. Also, renamed buttons or newly added components seem to vanish sometimes too. It's honestly a bit of a mixed bag.
Sorry I can't be more precise, but hopefully that helps confirm what you're seeing!
I am having a storing issue since weeks. My changes are lost each time. I am an admin, so I should have all access rights. And I am not having my app opened in multiple browsers or tabs. Why does that happen each time?
