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ToDoist Is (Was) Down

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FINAL  UPDATE: Todoist is back up: time to immediately save my data!

UPDATE: Todoist tweeted and posted about the problem at 1:35 EST: see http://todoist.com/Support/showQuestion/255/ . They say that their database became corrupted for unknown reasons and that they’re fixing the problem. They also apologized for the outage. I’m no longer worried about having to switch systems, but will take my own advice (below) and start backing up.


In my post “Why Organization Improves Motivation, and Some Organization Tips” from a couple of years back I extol the virtues of Todoist, a free online task tracking system with a modestly upgraded, slightly less free version available as well. Today I’m not so much in an extolling mood. I can open Todoist, and each of the categories shows the proper number next to it showing how many tasks I have in that category, but clicking on the categories themselves opens up a screen with no tasks except for (bizarrely) the completed ones.

I have a work account and a personal account for Todoist, and I’ve tried them both, on different computers and browsers, with the same results, making me think it’s a universal problem. ToDoist Mobile on my smartphone is giving me even more flack, claiming I have no projects (categories) at all.

To my surprise, Google reports that no one has blogged about this, and there appear to be no news articles on the subject. If you’re experiencing this problem, though, I’m here to tell you it’s not just you.

Oh, and did I mention that their support site times out? I can’t even ask what’s going on.

I understand it’s a free service, but it’s still very damaging to have a large amount of critical information disappear on you and to not know whether or when you might ever get it back. Being able to access Todoist on my phone as well as on computers wherever I may be has been terrific, but going forward I may give that up just to get some peace of mind that I won’t lose it all. Losing my task list would set me back enormously and cause problems in many areas of my life.

The moral? Back up your data. In my case, it would have been smart to get into the habit of at least once a week (and preferably more often) entering “view all” in the search box on todoist and saving the resulting page, which lists all current tasks in all categories, but I’ve tended to think of backup as only applying to data on devices I own–bad mistake. If my data does reappear, I’ll certainly get in the habit of doing this. If you’re not in my position, may I please very strongly recommend regularly backing up your task list (and calendar, for that matter)?

And if you are on Todoist, like me, could you comment on whether you’re experiencing the same thing today (Thursday, July 28th) or not?

Update: I should have thought to check the Twitterverse; when I did, I found others experiencing the same problem. Not long ago, @JB66 reported “It’s still mostly down, but if you view Completed Tasks it shows your current tasks as well buried in there.”

8 Comments

8 Comments

  1. kim rody  •  Jul 28, 2011 @1:07 pm

    i’ve been trying to get my stuff all morning…. also was surprised no one reported it. it does say that they back everything up over there… wish there was some way to contact them and find out, or i wish they would post something.

  2. Leah  •  Jul 28, 2011 @1:11 pm

    I, too, am having this problem. I was able to access the support site via a link on some email that they once sent me about a topic I was following. It doesn’t work directly from the Todoist site.

    When I looked at Completed Tasks, as per your update, it took me a while to realize that somehow all of my current tasks had been marked as complete and they’re scattered throughout the list. If I “uncomplete” them by unchecking the checkbox, they go back to where they belong.

  3. jsalvatier  •  Jul 28, 2011 @1:13 pm

    ditto

  4. rraborar  •  Jul 28, 2011 @1:24 pm

    Luc, I’m so glad you blogged about this. I am having the exact same problems on my desktop and mobile. As a premium user and LONG time todoist fan it’s frustrating because all my work tasks are on Todoist and because I didn’t back this stuff up, I’m floundering. Please post again if you find the todoist site up or the get satisfaction support site working.

  5. janogarcia  •  Jul 28, 2011 @1:28 pm

    I got into the habit of doing weekly “manual backups” (saving the “view all” page as you described) long ago, after Todoist lost some important data while reordering a project.

    Todoist has had some serious issues today, again. The tasks are not lost, they are marked as completed, a giant mess. Todoist is a great tool but with a horrible support and some serious bugs and upgrade/update issues. This is far from a reliable service.

    Long ago I said that Todoist needed some love by Amix… http://getsatisfaction.com/todoist/topics/cancel_todoist_premium_subscription_until_its_given_the_love_and_care_it_deserves Nothing seems to have changed since then.

  6. Joe  •  Jul 30, 2011 @11:01 pm

    If you’re worried about losing your data, move to serious task management tool: hitask.com. They have enterprise-grade security, backups and support.

  7. Daniel  •  Aug 18, 2011 @9:16 am

    Well, the site is down again!!! 🙁 – Aug 18, 2011

  8. Graham  •  Nov 21, 2011 @9:16 pm

    Yes, I had the same problems, all my data was restored after four or five days. Since then sporadically it fails to load my data. This usually happens first thing in the morning, I suspect because I live in Australia and they are doing maintenance or backups when it is night time in the northern hemisphere. This probably is fine for most people in the northern hemisphere, but it gives me the shits. It shows a total disregard for millions of people who just happen to live in the wrong time zone.

    Nov. 22, 2011

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