WARNING: Don’t restore your google sheets to earlier time

[Rogelio]

I restored my google sheets to an earlier time and it complete wiped some key elements of my app. Relations, Look Up Values etc and as well as calculated columns etc…Hours/Days effort ALL GONE - argh

[Mark]

That’s probably this issue:

Elements and relationships disapearing

Some relationships, lookups and conditionals are disappearing. I’ve redone them. But it’s something you should look at.

We’ll fix it soon. Sorry.

[Rogelio]

@Mark So would everything go back to it’s previous state or would I have to rebuild all over again when it’s fixed?

[Mark]

Unfortunately it won’t go back, you’ll have to rebuild.

[George_B]

Another example of the importance of periodic app backups. At least once a week I duplicate my apps. I select to use existing spreadsheet and then after the clone app is completed I change the name appending a date to the front. Then I open the spreadsheet and make a copy of that, appending the date to the copy as well. If I have a disaster with the original app before I open the backup I make sure to restore the spreadsheet to the state it was in when I backed it up, by copying the various tabs back to the original. Maintaining the original spreadsheet is critical for me as I have multiple apps pointing to the same sheet.

[Rogelio]

is the issue now fixed on the backend?

[Mark]

Sorry, no, this won’t happen until a week or two from now.

[Rogelio]

So what triggers this issue? What should we or shouldn’t be doing so that it won’t happen again?

I’m just concerned that if I rebuild all over again in readiness for a customer presentation (which I’ve had to reschedule due to this) it may happen again.

[Jeff_Hager]

I’d suggest not restoring an old version of your sheet it you know that the layout had changed. I’d suggest making regular backups of the entire sheet instead and only restoring data via copy paste. I run a script on a trigger to create a backup weekly off my entire sheet. There’s just too many unknowns using Google’s restore feature.

Backup My Data In My Spreadsheet

First of all, google does keep a history of any changes. You can access them by clicking the link at the top of the sheet: [Capture] I also use this script to backup my sheet every week. The only thing that needs to change in the script is the destination folder. This gives me a weekly backup with a timestamp attached to the name: // Abhijeet Chopra // 26 February 2016 // Google Apps Script to make copies of Google Sheet in specified destination folder function makeCopy() { // generates…

[Mark]

Don’t rename or delete columns that you’re using in the app. And don’t delete sheets you’re using in the app.

Apologies again. Like I said, Glide will soon be able to handle column renames without disturbing your app.

If you do temporarily put your spreadsheet into a bad state, don’t click “Reload sheet” in Glide until the spreadsheet is back in order.

[Rogelio]

thanks this is what I wanted to know in order to avoid it from happening again.