Notes, highlights and tags deleted

[jstobbe]

I opened up the gospel library app this morning and all of my previous notes and highlights and tags were gone. I believe the app updated automatically sometime recently. Any idea why that is happening and if I can get them back?

[sbradshaw]

First, are you signed in with your Church Account in Settings?

If yes, try going to the main library screen, then force-close and reopen the app (you can force-close the app by swiping it up out of the recent apps list).

If that doesn't work, you may need to sign out and back in, in Settings. After signing in, wait for the sync to finish (it shows the sync status under your username), then go to the app home screen and force close / reopen the app again.

Let me know if that works!

[jstobbe]

I got it to work! I tried the force-close(didn't fix it), then I logged out and in twice and then I did the force-close again and it worked. Thanks for your help!

[sbradshaw]

Great news! Thanks for reporting back.

[karenzmoos]

Just bought a new iPad. I told apple rep the most important app to transfer over was the Gospel Library App because of my extensive notes. When he transfered all my apps to the new iPad NONE of my notes, highlights transferred. I"M SICK about loosing all my study notes. When we check my old iPad all notes/highlights were gone as well. NONE of this makes any sense. Why is nothing backed on the cloud? Apparently I have two different accounts. Are all my notes lost? Can someone call me and walk me through this? I'm not tech savvy enough to spend hrs reading forums. How can I talk to a human?

[rmrichesjr]

... Apparently I have two different accounts. Are all my notes lost? Can someone call me and walk me through this? I'm not tech savvy enough to spend hrs reading forums. How can I talk to a human?

If the problem is caused by having multiple Church Accounts, then your ward clerk is the human to talk to. He can arrange contact with the Global Service Center to merge the accounts. You can find the account that is connected to your Membership Record Number by attempting an account recovery by MRN. Hopefully, you know the username of the other account.

[russellhltn]

If the problem is caused by having multiple Church Accounts, then your ward clerk is the human to talk to.

I'd be careful about that. If they merge two accounts, you'd want to make sure they merge the notes the right way.

How Notes were intended to be backed up is by logging into GL with your Church Account so it would be backed up there. I'm not sure how GL plays with the iCloud system. Hopefully out resident GL expert will chime in.

[sbradshaw]

As mentioned by russellhltn, Gospel Library syncs with your Church Account, which requires you to be signed in with your Church Account in Gospel Library settings. If you're not signed in, or if your app is having trouble connecting to the Church servers to sync, your notes won't be synced. iOS Gospel Library doesn't use iCloud to sync annotations.

When the Global Service Department merges Church Accounts, they transfer basic information (like a membership record number) from one to the other, then delete or deactivate the old one. I'm not sure which data is transferred, but Gospel Library annotations are among the data that is not automatically transferred when accounts are merged, so it's possible for the account that had your annotations to be deactivated in a merge, cutting off access to your annotations. Luckily, similar to accounts that become deactivated when a member passes away, the annotations attached to the old account aren't deleted right away, and it's possible for annotations to be transferred from the old account to the new one. If you have two accounts that were merged, and the one with annotations was deleted, you can initiate a request to move your annotations over to the other account, by using the Send Feedback form in Gospel Library. They will need the Church Account username for both accounts.

[darenstegelmeier]

I have a situation where from time to time several of my notes will go blank. Originally i thought it was just my oldest notes, but now I hve a whold series of notes from 2018 that are now showing as just empty notes. (See the attachement) Is there a way to fix or at least to prevent this from happening in the future?

[sbradshaw]

I have a situation where from time to time several of my notes will go blank. Originally i thought it was just my oldest notes, but now I hve a whold series of notes from 2018 that are now showing as just empty notes. (See the attachement) Is there a way to fix or at least to prevent this from happening in the future?

It looks like you're using Gospel Library for Windows. You may be able to find a feedback link in the app to contact the developers.
Are you able to see those notes on another platform (in a web browser, or in the iOS or Android app)? It's possible that the notes are there, they're just not displaying correctly in the Windows app.