[Bug] DDG bookmarks disappeared - or did they?

[slade-cj]

Describe the bug

With a number of tabs open and moving a bookmark folder to the top, the bookmarks just kept scrolling and never reached the top of the list. Exited out of bookmarks and re-entered - the app indicated that there are now NO bookmarks - there were hundreds with a few dozen folders.

An existing open tab shows that a bookmark for it exists and 'edit bookmark' indicates as available.
When a new tab is opened and a URL keyed in that WAS bookmarked, it too shows 'edit bookmark' as available.

If the bookmarks file is empty / gone - why is DDG offering to edit (at least 2) bookmarks that are somehow now in the same folder?

How to Reproduce

Not sure this fluke could be reproduced other than as outlined above.

Will attempt to retain the current config as long as possible to answer any forthcoming questions / provide files / screenshots.

Expected behavior

As always experienced before, the top of the bookmarks list should have eventually shown up.

Environment

- DDG App Version: 5.220.0
- Device: Pixel 4a
- OS: Android 13 + SU Aug 5, 2023

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[0nko]

Thanks for reporting the issue, @slade-cj!

Just to verify that I understand the steps to reproduce your issue correctly:

1. You accessed the bookmarks screen
2. You moved a bookmark folder up but it never reached the top because you had too many boorkmars
3. You exited the screen
4. You reentered the bookmarks and there are no bookmarks anymore
5. Afterwards, when you visit a site that used to be bookmarked, the overflow menu shows "edit bookmark"

Can you please confirm that’s what you’re experiencing?

When you kill the app and run it, are the bookmarks still missing? Also, how many folders & bookmarks did you have, roughly?

[slade-cj]

Thanks for your response. The listed steps above are essentially correct.

To add some extra detail, the bookmarks had been manually sorted with folders at the top. A recently added folder was observed at the bottom of the unfiled bookmarks and favourites. While moving that folder to the desired location in the list of folders at the top of the bookmarks, it was noticed that as the unfiled bookmarks & favourites kept scrolling by, it seemed to develop a repeating pattern, but I never did see the folders grouping of icons appear.

Doing a "Force Stop" on DDG from the Android apps settings had no effect on the lost / edit bookmarks observations.

As for size, I can't even guess, but a backup from 8 months ago was 491kB and it would have grown since then. It has not yet been restored.

[cmonfortep]

Hi @slade-cj I'm sorry but I don't fully understanding the issue and what do you mean by backup. When following the steps to repro in our side, we can't reproduce your issue.

So just to confirm, you don't see some sites in the bookmark screen, but when visiting those site, in the browse menu you see "Edit bookmark", is that the case? If you click on Edit bookmark, which folder is the bookmark located?

[slade-cj]

Hi @cmonfortep , sorry for the confusion. The backup that I referred to in my earlier reply is the 491k bookmark file that I exported 8 months ago.

I'm not surprised you can't reproduce the experienced issue - I have performed these steps hundreds of times without issue and this is first time it 'blew up' on me.

To provide a visual answer to your questions about what I'm seeing, please refer to the following DDG screenshots ...

Website showing existing bookmark:

After selecting Edit Bookmark for a few different ones, the bookmark appears to (erroneously) be saved in the Health folder:

After clicking on the 3 dots from the home screen and selecting Bookmarks from that menu, apparently there are no bookmarks:

[cmonfortep]

Thanks for sharing so detailed info, and sorry you are on that scenario. I'm really curious about what could be happening.

Do you recall any moment when that stopped working for you? any specific site you added as a bookmark? any chance there's a bookmark with a really long url or name?

I know is hard to response to those questions if you are unable to see them, but trying to understand this scenario. Thanks.

[slade-cj]

It was such a bizarre failure I had to at least mention it - if for no other reason than to make it known. To answer your questions, the website in the screenshots was one of the last ones to be bookmarked. I don't recall any really long URLs or names. There were a lot of folders, a lot of bookmarks with about 40 (wince) tabs open at the time.

I've seen crazy stuff like this happen with process control code. We knew what the controls thought they saw - but that did not really happen. Restart the process - and its all good - until the next transient. Changed the master reset latch to a flip-flop and hoped for the best. No good reason to build it that way, we just knew it would now filter out the random transient state changes of that one particular input.

Not knowing the DDG code, I too am trying to understand (in an enduser kind of way) what happened when it all went poof leaving very few pieces of evidence. Maybe I hit some upper limit - kind of like adding 1 to FFh in the 8 bit realm ...

[slade-cj]

Addendum - I've been avoiding using DDG in case there was some useful information still hanging about. Just noticed - many of the Favourites if not all of them are still there!? What could make the bookmarks vapourize but leave the favourites?

[cmonfortep]

@slade-cj my hypothesis is neither of them have disappeared, both bookmarks and favorites are still in the app database, but the problem relies on the bookmarks screen when displaying them. Bookmarks screen is failing somehow, but favorites showing without issues.

Few tests I suggest for us to understand this better:

1. In that "empty" bookmarks screen, if you click on the 3 dots menu. Can you confirm "export" option is disabled? If not, can you try exporting them?
2. When browsing, if you start typing in the url bar the domain of one bookmark (e.g: make-it), does that bookmark suggestion appear in the autocomplete?
3. Again, from the "empty" bookmarks screen, click on the "folder +" icon, can you add a folder? does it appear?

[slade-cj]

Thanks for the questions ... screenshot answers follow ...

1. From the empty bookmarks screen, export not available:
   

2. Typing in a URL that was bookmarked. It takes a long time for the suggestion to come up, like it did before the incident (supporting your hypothesis that the bookmarks are still there):
   

and another just to check:

3. After clicking on the 3 dots from the empty bookmarks screen, clicked + to add folder:
   

Test folder name keyed in and created:

Checked typing in URL that was bookmarked to see if it still comes up (and it does, slowly):