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I experienced different and in some ways more pernicious data loss with Google Drive several years ago: I was writing a novel, and Drive simply erased random pa

I experienced different and in some ways more pernicious data loss with Google Drive several years ago: I was writing a novel, and Drive simply erased random paragraphs of text. Just poof, gone. I could find neither rhyme nor reason for it, either. Some had been edited in after the fact, while others were present in the original draft. All told, it equated to around 8K words over the course of the novel. Granted, you usually want to pare down your words during the editing process, but I'd rather do it manually rather than have some malfunctioning computer system prune random blocks :) I sent a support email, but it will surprise no one to learn I never heard anything back. Needless to say, I haven't trusted Google Drive since.

rattray 3y ago
OOC, was this a google doc or a docx file uploaded?
jacobyoder 3y ago
"but it will surprise no one to learn I never heard anything back" (surprisingly?) ... I have colleagues that, even in 2023, will express genuine (not sarcastic shock) when a megacorp doesn't reply or provide decent support. I've only got a few, but the refrain will be something like "wow, I'm kinda surprised google's cloud support doesn't get back to us - sometimes for days. they've always had such a good reputation for support... i hope this is a blip". It's as if they've only ever read marketing/sales leaflets, then really are genuinely surprised when things are 'normal' (meaning poor performance, non-responsive support, bad/wrong documentation, broken SDKs, data loss, etc).
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > they've always had such a good reputation for support I'm genuinely curious as to what group they have a good reputation for support with.
  - mulmen 3y ago
    People who have not yet had a problem.
- Pxtl 3y ago
  Well, everybody assumed that was the norm for non-paying customers. It's surprising when you're paying to be ignored.
  - jacobyoder 3y ago
    That's my point though, was that there are still folks who assume "support" for everything (paying/non) is just "going to be good" ("because it's google/ms/etc - they have a reputation! they wouldn't want to jeopardize it!"). I realize I'm talking about a small number of folks, but even after these folks have been in the industry 10-15 years, their ... naivete(?) - is surprising. And... I'm not even generally surprised when I get no support on paid for services. Indeed, I'm generally shocked when I get good and timely support from a paid service. Now... that's less shocking when it's "small startup X"; we've all seen small companies get big/acquired and the very thing that got them there - good service/support - is what is thrown out to start squeezing out profits. Staff get overworked, pissed off, leave, quality plummets, people move to the next small startup service, and it starts over again.
- bell-cot 3y ago
  A trick I've used a few times, in similar situations: Suggest that they look back in their notes / emails / whatever, find the specific MegaCorp support rep. who was so helpful the prior time, and ask that person to help.
KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago
Same, I have had years of photos in google photos simply go missing when they transitioned from Picasso to photo albums
qingcharles 3y ago
I paid for Google support. That way you get a human tell you to just try it again, rather than a computer.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
This is pervasive on browser based O365 apps like PPT It will literally delete a sentence immediately after you write it Infuriating and absolutely no fixes - this is a core issue with write priority and where “canonical” data lives.
orionex_sigma 3y ago
Using google docs (or any web based office apps) to write a novel (or do any other serious "heavy" work) is a terrible choice for a writer to be fair.
- tentacleuno 3y ago
  On the face of it, I can definitely see the upside: "the cloud" is typically synonymized with safety ("your data is backed up on our secure servers", etc.), not to mention the fact that you can edit your data from any of your devices logged into Google. Heck, you don't even need to install Office anymore: you just go to https://docs.google.com https://docs.google.com and it's all there. I do agree with you, though: one of the most important rules for computing in general is to keep multiple backups of everything. A while back, a friend of mine made a habit of emailing herself drafts of her work, and kept multiple copies on her computer. It did save her once or twice.
- tiltowait 3y ago
  Out of the interest of brevity, I didn't want to go into my full setup. However: 1. I write locally and have both manual and automatic backups (local and remote) 2. I upload drafts online for beta and alpha readers to leave comments 3. My group used to use Google Docs for this but stopped once I discovered the data loss Happily, because local is the source of truth, I didn't lose any of my writing. I did, however, lose some feedback, and reconciling things was a pain.
- callalex 3y ago
  That’s not a fair statement at all. A writer isn’t a computer expert, and shouldn’t have to be. Google Docs specifically positions itself as a product that takes care of all the data handling for you, and they market that fact quite heavily.
- Tempest1981 3y ago
  Can you enlighten us as to an ideal choice?
  - SpaceManNabs 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

rattray 3y ago

OOC, was this a google doc or a docx file uploaded?

jacobyoder 3y ago

"but it will surprise no one to learn I never heard anything back" (surprisingly?) ... I have colleagues that, even in 2023, will express genuine (not sarcastic shock) when a megacorp doesn't reply or provide decent support. I've only got a few, but the refrain will be something like "wow, I'm kinda surprised google's cloud support doesn't get back to us - sometimes for days. they've always had such a good reputation for support... i hope this is a blip". It's as if they've only ever read marketing/sales leaflets, then really are genuinely surprised when things are 'normal' (meaning poor performance, non-responsive support, bad/wrong documentation, broken SDKs, data loss, etc).

JohnFen 3y ago
> they've always had such a good reputation for support I'm genuinely curious as to what group they have a good reputation for support with.
- mulmen 3y ago
  People who have not yet had a problem.
Pxtl 3y ago
Well, everybody assumed that was the norm for non-paying customers. It's surprising when you're paying to be ignored.
- jacobyoder 3y ago
  That's my point though, was that there are still folks who assume "support" for everything (paying/non) is just "going to be good" ("because it's google/ms/etc - they have a reputation! they wouldn't want to jeopardize it!"). I realize I'm talking about a small number of folks, but even after these folks have been in the industry 10-15 years, their ... naivete(?) - is surprising. And... I'm not even generally surprised when I get no support on paid for services. Indeed, I'm generally shocked when I get good and timely support from a paid service. Now... that's less shocking when it's "small startup X"; we've all seen small companies get big/acquired and the very thing that got them there - good service/support - is what is thrown out to start squeezing out profits. Staff get overworked, pissed off, leave, quality plummets, people move to the next small startup service, and it starts over again.
bell-cot 3y ago
A trick I've used a few times, in similar situations: Suggest that they look back in their notes / emails / whatever, find the specific MegaCorp support rep. who was so helpful the prior time, and ask that person to help.

KRAKRISMOTT 3y ago

Same, I have had years of photos in google photos simply go missing when they transitioned from Picasso to photo albums

qingcharles 3y ago

I paid for Google support. That way you get a human tell you to just try it again, rather than a computer.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

This is pervasive on browser based O365 apps like PPT It will literally delete a sentence immediately after you write it Infuriating and absolutely no fixes - this is a core issue with write priority and where “canonical” data lives.

orionex_sigma 3y ago

Using google docs (or any web based office apps) to write a novel (or do any other serious "heavy" work) is a terrible choice for a writer to be fair.

tentacleuno 3y ago
On the face of it, I can definitely see the upside: "the cloud" is typically synonymized with safety ("your data is backed up on our secure servers", etc.), not to mention the fact that you can edit your data from any of your devices logged into Google. Heck, you don't even need to install Office anymore: you just go to https://docs.google.com https://docs.google.com and it's all there. I do agree with you, though: one of the most important rules for computing in general is to keep multiple backups of everything. A while back, a friend of mine made a habit of emailing herself drafts of her work, and kept multiple copies on her computer. It did save her once or twice.
tiltowait 3y ago
Out of the interest of brevity, I didn't want to go into my full setup. However: 1. I write locally and have both manual and automatic backups (local and remote) 2. I upload drafts online for beta and alpha readers to leave comments 3. My group used to use Google Docs for this but stopped once I discovered the data loss Happily, because local is the source of truth, I didn't lose any of my writing. I did, however, lose some feedback, and reconciling things was a pain.
callalex 3y ago
That’s not a fair statement at all. A writer isn’t a computer expert, and shouldn’t have to be. Google Docs specifically positions itself as a product that takes care of all the data handling for you, and they market that fact quite heavily.
Tempest1981 3y ago
Can you enlighten us as to an ideal choice?
- SpaceManNabs 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]