tomboy: error saving note data

[Andreas Jonsson]

Binary package hint: tomboy

I'm running up-to-date Ubuntu Karmic. This bug started occurring a few days ago.

Whenever I create a new or open an old note in tomboy, a pop-up error message warns:

"Error saving note data. An error occurred while saving your notes. Please check that you have sufficient disk space...". See attached screenshot.

I have plenty of free disk space so that shouldn't be a problem. A new error message pops up every minute or so, essentially making tomboy impossible to use.

I have noticed in ~/.local/share/tomboy that notes are stored in a format typically looking like this:

f52b0f81-b54a-4d44-8629-e72dc854a2d2.note

but the note currently open (and causing the problem described above) will only have two two backup versions, one ending with "~" and on ending with ".tmp", e.g.

f52b0f81-b54a-4d44-8629-e72dc854a2d2.note~
f52b0f81-b54a-4d44-8629-e72dc854a2d2.note.tmp

Over the past several days a few notes have been lost, simply disappeared from my system.

Tomboy panel log (.config/tomboy/tomboy-panel.log) reports

[ERROR]: Exception while saving note: System.IO.IOException: Sharing violation on path /home/user/.local/share/tomboy/a3e6005a-3897-43c6-a217-92781d572707.note
  at System.IO.File.Move (System.String sourceFileName, System.String destFileName) [0x00000]
  at Tomboy.NoteArchiver.WriteFile (System.String write_file, Tomboy.NoteData note) [0x00000]
  at Tomboy.NoteArchiver.Write (System.String write_file, Tomboy.NoteData note) [0x00000]
  at Tomboy.Note.Save () [0x00000]

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Jan 28 14:14:14 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
Package: tomboy 1.0.0-0ubuntu2
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-17.54-generic
SourcePackage: tomboy
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-17-generic i686

[Sandy Armstrong (sanfordarmstrong)]

Have you checked the permissions on ~/.local/share/tomboy and the *.note files that it contains? It sounds like your permissions are messed up.

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

Thanks for the feedback.

Yes I have looked at the permissions and they look OK to me, see below:

andreas@xxx:~$ ls -l ~/.local/share/ | grep tomboy
drwxr-xr-x 3 andreas andreas 12288 2010-01-30 12:37 tomboy
andreas@xxx:~$ ls -l ~/.local/share/tomboy/ | head
total 672
-rw-r--r-- 1 andreas andreas 806 2009-10-01 21:51
008d481a-e9d8-42a4-9252-c4b161e72b4e.note
-rw-r--r-- 1 andreas andreas 4955 2009-12-15 17:05
00a646e8-932b-4ee0-b50e-38806a2ac8a5.note
-rw-r--r-- 1 andreas andreas 3228 2010-01-27 00:52
01f37cf7-9d5e-45b9-83ac-f3a402473361.note
-rw-r--r-- 1 andreas andreas 6500 2009-11-29 19:58
06f4a29a-ad94-4809-9e11-df50f2af6800.note
-rw-r--r-- 1 andreas andreas 979 2009-10-01 21:51
0831873e-808c-47ef-945e-f9ada2a4b21d.note
-rw-r--r-- 1 andreas andreas 1108 2009-12-10 10:50
08abf575-656f-4698-8604-79f9cca90850.note
-rw-r--r-- 1 andreas andreas 24119 2010-01-30 11:53
0956cdcb-f5bf-4833-88fd-ee0de272c08c.note
-rw-r--r-- 1 andreas andreas 14972 2010-01-22 03:46
0b54d8ad-60ed-4de5-814d-23c7e46a5024.note
-rw-r--r-- 1 andreas andreas 860 2009-10-01 21:51
0b579927-051a-47f1-83f2-f16ec79b6144.note

[Sandy Armstrong (sanfordarmstrong)]

Very strange. Is it possible that you have two Tomboy processes running?

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

I can't reproduce the problem at the moment. I'll post again when and
if it reappears.

Thanks for your time.

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

The problem has come back after being absent for about two weeks. I get the same error pop-up as mentioned above saying that I have run out of disc space or that I don't have sufficient rights to ~/.tomboy. Message reappears every minute or so.

However, I do have available disc space:

~$ df | grep /home
/dev/sda6 58980508 53915424 2068964 97% /home

And I do have appropriate permissions

~$ ls -l ~/.local/share/ | grep tomboy
drwxr-xr-x 3 andreas andreas 12288 2010-02-16 15:05 tomboy

~$ ls -al | grep tomboy
drwxr-xr-x 6 andreas andreas 12288 2009-10-01 21:52 .tomboy
-rw-r--r-- 1 andreas andreas 5436 2009-10-01 21:48 .tomboy.log

And I don't have two tomboy processes running:

~$ ps -ef | grep tomboy
andreas 2766 1 0 13:09 ? 00:00:00 bash /usr/bin/tomboy-panel --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:TomboyApplet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=37
andreas 2769 2766 0 13:09 ? 00:00:09 mono /usr/lib/tomboy/Tomboy.exe --sm-disable --panel-applet --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:TomboyApplet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=37
andreas 6995 6811 0 15:21 pts/1 00:00:00 grep tomboy

Thankful for any further advice you may have.

The only thing I can think of that may have triggered this bug again, is that I recently rebooted (about an hour before the pop-ups started appearing). I rarely reboot.

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

This bug occurs for me petty much every time I try to use Tomboy now. I'm thinking I have to try and reinitialize Tomboy on my system, so that I can access all my notes, without risk of loosing them (due to the deletion issue, see above).

I tried deleting .config/tomboy and restarting tomboy, but that didn't help. The bug keeps occurring. What else could I do to make my tomboy operate as in a fresh account?

[Sandy Armstrong (sanfordarmstrong)]

You could delete all directories mentioned here (after backing up your notes):

http://live.gnome.org/Tomboy/Directories

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

I'm just throwing this out there as an idea: My home is 98% full. Could that be the reason why tomboy keeps warning me about low disc space? If so, that doesn't make sense since those 2% free comprise about 1.5 GB.

user@xxx:~/.local/share/tomboy$ df -h /home
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda6 57G 52G 1.5G 98% /home

[Sandy Armstrong (sanfordarmstrong)]

Tomboy doesn't actually check to see if you're low on disk space. It just assumes that if it can't write to disk, then a likely culprit could be running out of disk space.

[Sandy Armstrong (sanfordarmstrong)]

If you could post a complete log, that might be helpful. I just found a bug in Tomboy similar to this, and if I saw a complete tomboy log showing your error, it might help me track down your problem if it's similar to the one I just found.

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

Tomboy has been working properly for the last few days, and I don't
know how to trigger the bug. I'll post a log as soon as it reappears.

On Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 10:43 AM, Sandy Armstrong
<email address hidden> wrote:
> If you could post a complete log, that might be helpful.  I just found a
> bug in Tomboy similar to this, and if I saw a complete tomboy log
> showing your error, it might help me track down your problem if it's
> similar to the one I just found.
>
> --
> tomboy: error saving note data
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/513945
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “tomboy” package in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: tomboy
>
> I'm running up-to-date Ubuntu Karmic. This bug started occurring a few days ago.
>
> Whenever I create a new or open an old note in tomboy, a pop-up error message warns:
>
> "Error saving note data. An error occurred while saving your notes. Please check that you have sufficient disk space...". See attached screenshot.
>
> I have plenty of free disk space so that shouldn't be a problem. A new error message pops up every minute or so, essentially making tomboy impossible to use.
>
> I have noticed in ~/.local/share/tomboy that notes are stored in a format typically looking like this:
>
> f52b0f81-b54a-4d44-8629-e72dc854a2d2.note
>
> but the note currently open (and causing the problem described above) will only have two two backup versions, one ending with "~" and on ending with ".tmp", e.g.
>
> f52b0f81-b54a-4d44-8629-e72dc854a2d2.note~
> f52b0f81-b54a-4d44-8629-e72dc854a2d2.note.tmp
>
> Over the past several days a few notes have been lost, simply disappeared from my system.
>
> Tomboy panel log (.config/tomboy/tomboy-panel.log) reports
>
> [ERROR]: Exception while saving note: System.IO.IOException: Sharing violation on path /home/user/.local/share/tomboy/a3e6005a-3897-43c6-a217-92781d572707.note
>  at System.IO.File.Move (System.String sourceFileName, System.String destFileName) [0x00000]
>  at Tomboy.NoteArchiver.WriteFile (System.String write_file, Tomboy.NoteData note) [0x00000]
>  at Tomboy.NoteArchiver.Write (System.String write_file, Tomboy.NoteData note) [0x00000]
>  at Tomboy.Note.Save () [0x00000]
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> Architecture: i386
> Date: Thu Jan 28 14:14:14 2010
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
> Package: tomboy 1.0.0-0ubuntu2
> ProcEnviron:
>  PATH=(custom, user)
>  LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
>  SHELL=/bin/bash
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-17.54-generic
> SourcePackage: tomboy
> Uname: Linux 2.6.31-17-generic i686
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tomboy/+bug/513945/+subscribe
>

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

The bug has reappeard after some time of absense. I attach the complete error log, although it doesn't appear to contain any new information compared to what I included in my original post.

I will soon upgrade to Lucid Lynx, and I am hoping these problems will disappear after upgrade (I will do a clean install and import my old notes). I will post again if similar problems occur.

[Sandy Armstrong (sanfordarmstrong)]

You might want to try upgrading to Tomboy 1.2.1, which should be available for Lucid. I fixed a bug like this in that release, and I'd like to know if the fix makes your problem go away.

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

Sorry, I have already upgraded to Lucid. Fresh install. Tomboy works fine.

On Fri, Apr 30, 2010 at 9:46 AM, Sandy Armstrong
<email address hidden> wrote:
> You might want to try upgrading to Tomboy 1.2.1, which should be
> available for Lucid.  I fixed a bug like this in that release, and I'd
> like to know if the fix makes your problem go away.
>
> --
> tomboy: error saving note data
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/513945
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>
> Status in “tomboy” package in Ubuntu: New
>
> Bug description:
> Binary package hint: tomboy
>
> I'm running up-to-date Ubuntu Karmic. This bug started occurring a few days ago.
>
> Whenever I create a new or open an old note in tomboy, a pop-up error message warns:
>
> "Error saving note data. An error occurred while saving your notes. Please check that you have sufficient disk space...". See attached screenshot.
>
> I have plenty of free disk space so that shouldn't be a problem. A new error message pops up every minute or so, essentially making tomboy impossible to use.
>
> I have noticed in ~/.local/share/tomboy that notes are stored in a format typically looking like this:
>
> f52b0f81-b54a-4d44-8629-e72dc854a2d2.note
>
> but the note currently open (and causing the problem described above) will only have two two backup versions, one ending with "~" and on ending with ".tmp", e.g.
>
> f52b0f81-b54a-4d44-8629-e72dc854a2d2.note~
> f52b0f81-b54a-4d44-8629-e72dc854a2d2.note.tmp
>
> Over the past several days a few notes have been lost, simply disappeared from my system.
>
> Tomboy panel log (.config/tomboy/tomboy-panel.log) reports
>
> [ERROR]: Exception while saving note: System.IO.IOException: Sharing violation on path /home/user/.local/share/tomboy/a3e6005a-3897-43c6-a217-92781d572707.note
>  at System.IO.File.Move (System.String sourceFileName, System.String destFileName) [0x00000]
>  at Tomboy.NoteArchiver.WriteFile (System.String write_file, Tomboy.NoteData note) [0x00000]
>  at Tomboy.NoteArchiver.Write (System.String write_file, Tomboy.NoteData note) [0x00000]
>  at Tomboy.Note.Save () [0x00000]
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> Architecture: i386
> Date: Thu Jan 28 14:14:14 2010
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
> Package: tomboy 1.0.0-0ubuntu2
> ProcEnviron:
>  PATH=(custom, user)
>  LANG=en_CA.UTF-8
>  SHELL=/bin/bash
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-17.54-generic
> SourcePackage: tomboy
> Uname: Linux 2.6.31-17-generic i686
>
> To unsubscribe from this bug, go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tomboy/+bug/513945/+subscribe
>

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

This bug has not been present since Karmic, but it reappeared as soon as I upgraded to Oneiric. I am now getting the "Error saving note data..." pop-up on a daily basis.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

This is the log output that appears when I get the error popup:

.
.
.
[DEBUG 15:54:02.537] BackgroundSyncChecker: Detected that sync would be a good idea now
[DEBUG 15:54:02.644] SyncThread using SyncServiceAddin: Tomboy Web
[DEBUG 15:54:02.644] SilentUI: SyncStateChanged: Connecting
[DEBUG 15:54:02.923] SilentUI: SyncStateChanged: AcquiringLock
[DEBUG 15:54:02.923] Building web request for URL: https://one.ubuntu.com/notes/api/1.0/
[DEBUG 15:54:03.355] Building web request for URL: https://one.ubuntu.com/notes/api/1.0/user/
[DEBUG 15:54:04.541] 8
[DEBUG 15:54:04.541] SilentUI: SyncStateChanged: PrepareDownload
[DEBUG 15:54:04.541] Sync: GetNoteUpdatesSince rev 760
[DEBUG 15:54:04.541] Building web request for URL: https://one.ubuntu.com/notes/api/1.0/op/?include_notes=true&since=760
[DEBUG 15:54:05.806] Sync: 0 updates since rev 760
[DEBUG 15:54:05.807] Building web request for URL: https://one.ubuntu.com/notes/api/1.0/op/
[DEBUG 15:54:07.994] SilentUI: SyncStateChanged: PrepareUpload
[DEBUG 15:54:07.995] Saving 'Notes Clean Up'...
[DEBUG 15:54:07.995] Saving 'Notes Clean Up'...
[DEBUG 15:54:08.522] SilentUI: NoteSynchronized, Title: Notes Clean Up, Type: UploadModified
[DEBUG 15:54:08.523] Sync: Uploading 1 note updates
[DEBUG 15:54:08.523] SilentUI: SyncStateChanged: Uploading
[DEBUG 15:54:08.544] Building web request for URL: https://one.ubuntu.com/notes/api/1.0/op/
[ERROR 15:54:08.677] Exception while saving note: System.IO.IOException: Sharing violation on path /home/andreas/.local/share/tomboy/965900ba-ab15-4e67-8c8e-64b86e9fa9da.note.tmp
  at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean anonymous, FileOptions options) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.FileStream:.ctor (string,System.IO.FileMode,System.IO.FileAccess,System.IO.FileShare)
  at System.IO.StreamWriter..ctor (System.String path, Boolean append, System.Text.Encoding encoding, Int32 bufferSize) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.IO.StreamWriter..ctor (System.String path, Boolean append, System.Text.Encoding encoding) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.StreamWriter:.ctor (string,bool,System.Text.Encoding)
  at System.Xml.XmlWriter.Create (System.String file, System.Xml.XmlWriterSettings settings) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Tomboy.NoteArchiver.WriteFile (System.String write_file, Tomboy.NoteData note) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Tomboy.NoteArchiver.Write (System.String write_file, Tomboy.NoteData note) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Tomboy.Note.Save () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
[DEBUG 15:54:09.262] Saving 'Ubuntu Oneiric Ocelot: Post-install'...
[DEBUG 15:54:12.093] SilentUI: SyncStateChanged: CommittingChanges
[DEBUG 15:54:12.093] Building web request for URL: https://one.ubuntu.com/notes/api/1.0/op/
[DEBUG 15:54:14.269] SilentUI: SyncStateChanged: Succeeded
[DEBUG 15:54:14.426] Sync: New revision: 761
[...

[Andreas Jonsson (sonofjon)]

I also have another Tomboy bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tomboy/+bug/890837. I am mentioning it since perhaps they could be related.

[Ellis Rahhal (elrah)]

I have also lost a note, only one though. But it was a very important one :-( I'm also getting the constant errors writing to disk after upgrading to Oeneric from Natty.

[Alan Goldblatt (alan-b-goldblatt)]

I'm having the same problem now. Oneiric. Lots of disk space, permissions look fine. Tomboy log attached. Suggestions?

Thanks!
Alan

[LinuxN00b92 (altekrusejason)]

I am having the same problem, I have plenty of disk space. Attached a log file, looks a lot like what has already been posted. Mostly just a bump post.

[LinuxN00b92 (altekrusejason)]

Tomboy has been crashing constantly, I'm going to have to install something else until it is fixed. Please someone find why this bug is happening!

[Paul Phillips (paul-gs-phillips)]

I've been having similar crashes - just today it has happened three times.

This bug could also be related
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/tomboy/+bug/834247

[Paul Phillips (paul-gs-phillips)]

BTW - I'm also using Ubuntu 11.10 64bit; Tomboy 1.8.0

[Diogo Matsubara (matsubara)]

I had a similar problem after the disk was full. Once the HD was full I started getting this message that Tomboy couldn't save the the note. I cleaned up some disk space and I keep getting the error message.
Attached is my tomboy.log

[Diogo Matsubara (matsubara)]

Oh, I forgot to mention, I'm running Precise and Tomboy 1.9.9

matsubara@tancho [~]$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu precise (development branch)
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise

[Diogo Matsubara (matsubara)]

Btw, I think I workarounded the problem by deleting the .tmp in ~/.local/share/tomboy. It seems tomboy is saving notes correctly now.

[rs232 (vincenco)]

I just had the same problem. I did have my disk fill with .xsession-errors up to 100%. I was getting this message over and over again. I just moved all the .tmp files out of the directory, and it seems to work fine now.

[Kees van den Broek (kvdb-kvdb)]

Some problem here (harddisk full, after regaining space, unable to save), but a slightly different error.

Running: tomboy (1.10.1-0ubuntu1) precise; urgency=low

[ERROR 17:22:54.022] Exception while saving note: System.IO.IOException: Invalid handle to path "/home/user/.local/share/tomboy/fb094aa4-6bbe-405b-9e60-c87ee6343d2b.note.tmp"
  at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share, Int32 bufferSize, Boolean anonymous, FileOptions options) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.IO.FileStream..ctor (System.String path, FileMode mode, FileAccess access, FileShare share) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.FileStream:.ctor (string,System.IO.FileMode,System.IO.FileAccess,System.IO.FileShare)
  at System.IO.StreamWriter..ctor (System.String path, Boolean append, System.Text.Encoding encoding, Int32 bufferSize) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at System.IO.StreamWriter..ctor (System.String path, Boolean append, System.Text.Encoding encoding) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.StreamWriter:.ctor (string,bool,System.Text.Encoding)
  at System.Xml.XmlWriter.Create (System.String file, System.Xml.XmlWriterSettings settings) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Tomboy.NoteArchiver.WriteFile (System.String write_file, Tomboy.NoteData note) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Tomboy.NoteArchiver.Write (System.String write_file, Tomboy.NoteData note) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0
  at Tomboy.Note.Save () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0

Suggested workaround fixed issue for me too:
rm ~/.local/share/tomboy/*.tmp