Linkwarden: Can't get past repeated failsafe errors

[networkr0]

Which version of floccus are you using?

5.9.1

How many bookmarks do you have, roughly?

600

Are you using other means to sync bookmarks in parallel to floccus?

No

Sync method

Linkwarden

Which browser are you using? In case you are using the phone App, specify the Android or iOS version and device please.

Firefox/LibreWolf/Brave

Which version of Nextcloud Bookmarks are you using? (if relevant)

No response

Which version of Nextcloud? (if relevant)

No response

What kind of WebDAV server are you using? (if relevant)

No response

Describe the Bug

I keep getting failsafe errors similar to this one:

E043: Failsafe: The current sync run would increase your links count on the server by 1198%. Refusing to execute. Disable this failsafe in the profile settings if you want to proceed anyway. If you didn't cause this, you can use the manual sync buttons to override the local state on this device with the state on the server. If you believe this is a bug, please reach out to the developers with the debug log of this run. | Last synchronized: 0 seconds ago

Expected Behavior

Since I made sure not to nest on either side, creating an endless loop, I expect not to get this warning.

I would prefer using an extension that was optimized to work with LinkWarden, but I'm afraid at present, Linkwarden's browser extension does not actual synchronize the browser bookmarks across various browsers, it forces the user to discretely add each bookmark to Linkwarden rather than a true, browser bookmark merge sync.

To Reproduce

Every time I've tried to set this up across browsers it's come up with this error. I've changed target folders

Debug log provided

• I have provided a debug log file

[github-actions]

Hello! 👋

Thank you for taking the time to open this issue with floccus. I know it's frustrating when software causes problems. You have made the right choice to come here and open an issue to make sure your problem gets looked at and if possible solved. Let me give you a short introduction on what to expect from this issue tracker to avoid misunderstandings. I'm Marcel. I created floccus a few years ago, and have been maintaining it since. I currently work for Nextcloud which leaves me with less time for side projects like this one than I used to have. I still try to answer all issues and if possible fix all bugs here, but it sometimes takes a while until I get to it. Until then, please be patient. It helps when you stick around to answer follow up questions I may have, as very few bugs can be fixed directly from the first bug report, without any interaction. If information is missing in your bug report and the issue cannot be solved without it, I will have to close the issue after a while. Note also that GitHub in general is a place where people meet to make software better together. Nobody here is under any obligation to help you, solve your problems or deliver on any expectations or demands you may have, but if enough people come together we can collaborate to make this software better. For everyone. Thus, if you can, you could also have a look at other issues to see whether you can help other people with your knowledge and experience. If you have coding experience it would also be awesome if you could step up to dive into the code and try to fix the odd bug yourself. Everyone will be thankful for extra helping hands! If you cannot lend a helping hand, to continue the development and maintenance of this project in a sustainable way, I ask that you donate to the project when opening an issue (or at least once your issue is solved), if you're not a donor already. You can find donation options at https://floccus.org/donate/. Thank you!

One last word: If you feel, at any point, like you need to vent, this is not the place for it; you can go to the Nextcloud forum, to twitter or somewhere else. But this is a technical issue tracker, so please make sure to focus on the tech and keep your opinions to yourself.

Thank you for reading through this primer. I look forward to working with you on this issue! Cheers! 💙

[marcelklehr]

Hi @networkr0
Thank you for taking the time to give feedback by opening this issue.
This is more of a warning than an outright error. It appears that you have some bookmarks in linkwarden already and a lot more in your browser. Now, in this sync run floccus would create all your bookmarks from the browser on the server. So far so good, however, floccus has a built in heuristic failsafe mechanism that tries to detect unwanted changes. This is what's happening for you here. If you have 10x more bookmarks in your browser than on linkwarden and do want to upload them all, you can quickly disable the failsafe in the profile settings, press sync again, and after successful sync enable the failsafe again, and all should be good. I hope this helps.
Also, If you have an idea how to make this interaction better from a UX perspective I'm all ears :)
Cheers

[networkr0]

The failsafe warns about expanding the bookmarks, when the two sets of bookmarks being synchronized are already the same, not because they synchronized successfully, but because I exported from one to the other, in the exact same folder configurations. I maintain that there is a bug in the failsafe warning, because the bookmarks are already identical. I'd encourage you to look into this further and when testing, test between a Chromium-based browser and Firefox, as the differences in the code syntax and/or formatting behind the bookmarks may be suspect in this instance, causing the failsafe to flag a duplication where none exists.

All the best..

[marcelklehr]

when the two sets of bookmarks being synchronized are already the same

Aha! That's curious.

I maintain that there is a bug in the failsafe warning, because the bookmarks are already identical.

It seems that way indeed. Would you be able to send me the debug log (possibly redacted) of such a sync run that ends in the fail safe error?

[marcelklehr]

Thank you! So, based on the log file, from floccus point of view, your linkwarden server seems to be missing bookmarks in various folders, e.g. for some subfolders of Computer Research, Finance as well as for House, Entertainment Politics, LXCpve, and some others. So, it decides to create a bunch of folders and bookmarks, you can see the list of everything it wants to create on the server in the log, if you search for serverPlan. That's 374 items, but a dozen of these are folders, so I suspect they contain some more bookmarks.

The question is now, is floccus' point of view correct? Are you missing these bookmarks/folders on your linkwarden server, or not?

If you are missing them and you want to upload them, you can disable the failsafe, let the sync run, and then enable the failsafe again.

[networkr0]

Those variances do not show up in my browser bookmarks OR from the Linkwarden web page, so not sure if there's anything I can do to fix the problem. What is really needed is a high quality dedicated LinkWarden Extension that operates similar to Floccus in that it actually mirrors/synchronizes actual browser bookmarks across platforms and/or browsers. I recommend those that authored the current Linkwarden extension consult with the Floccus team to improve it's own dedicated LinkWarden browser extension. Thanks for the review.

[marcelklehr]

Those variances do not show up in my browser bookmarks OR from the Linkwarden web page,

Ok, then there's a serious problem somewhere, either in floccus or in linkwarden. Which linkwarden version do you have?

[networkr0]

Those variances do not show up in my browser bookmarks OR from the Linkwarden web page,

Ok, then there's a serious problem somewhere, either in floccus or in linkwarden. Which linkwarden version do you have?

v2.14.1

[marcelklehr]

@daniel31x13 Hey there, is there anything obvious here, that I'm missing? Floccus is using the search endpoint to retrieve all links from linkwarden exhaustively, but it seems this didn't work in this case. The folders/collections are there, but the bookmarks are not retrieved 🤔