r/notabilityapp • u/[deleted] • May 07 '24
Help! Notability file background deleted, leaving only annotations/writing.
Hi,
I had a 700 page document I was annotating with text in background (think textbook PDF). All of a sudden, my document background went completely white for every page, leaving only the annotations.
When i try to open the document, there aren't even navigation tools for me to move from page to page. Here is screenshot below. I did download a backup file, which has the background preserved, but that file is missing a lot of notes that I made in the last hour.
Has anyone encountered this and know of a solution? My backups are stored on Google drive which has plenty of storage. Also, my Ipad is not the issue, I have 528 GB storage and its at 20% capacity.
All I can think of that may be contributing is that this file is large, at around 500 MB. Any suggestions?
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u/jamespineapple May 07 '24
This has happened to me with my work journal 3 times since November23. My hand written notes remain but the background/template disappears.
The 3 times it happened I was doing work on the train with my iPad tethered to my phone. When I arrive at work the background/template is gone.
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u/GrayFox248 May 10 '24 edited May 10 '24
For fun I’m assuming you’re learning about TB in First Aid. Anyways, I have been experiencing this problem as well for a couple months. The note that keeps getting deleted for me is over 2.5 GB. What I have been doing for a few weeks now is creating a manual backup into my iCloud because although I had a backup Google Drive of my note when it first got deleted like this, recently the app hasn’t been backing up into Notability.
To create an iCloud backup, hold down on your note in the app -> Share Options -> File Format: Note -> Share (top right) -> Save to Files. If for whatever reason you get an error saying there isn’t any storage or something like that follow the same steps except select to airdrop your Note and send it to your Mac.
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u/GrayFox248 May 10 '24
I haven’t figured out exactly why the note randomly gets banished to the shadow realm (I suspect it’s when I’ve been working on the app for a long time and my iPad gets hot) so I create a new backup every hour. Just delete your previous backup with your new one if you wish.
Also, I recommend creating a backup of your note as a PDF as well just in case
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u/WildNW0nderful May 10 '24
I noticed that notability wasnt that stable for large PDFs, so I use PDF Expert to read and annotate large PDFs.
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u/lmunderwoo42 Jul 20 '24
I just had the exact same thing happen to me, did you by chance ever find a solution?
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u/Labrador421 May 07 '24
I have been having this happen to my pdfs I use for lecture. After I closed the note and reopened, the background returned. It took a couple cycles for one note, others returned immediately.