Sync fails on specific artefact, and keeps failing

[mjkerrison]

Plugin version 2.1.4 / Obsidian 1.7.7

Description:

• On syncing, I would get persistent "File not created" errors for a particular article.
• I suspected it was a filename issue, as the filename included characters that are not permitted in Obsidian (i.e. Windows) file names.
• Renaming the article and resyncing produced the same issue.
• I fiddled with data.json to try to remove the bad item from booksIDsMap and to clear its ID from the failedBooks field.
• However, it seems to return each time I use the Readwise sync command (I'm confident this is not an issue with Obsidian Sync, as the data.json is correct on all devices before using the Readwise sync command).
• I unfortunately don't have console output from that error, as now (after fiddling with data.json) I get a different error (ENOENT: no such file or directory).
• Both before and after fiddling, subsequent manual syncs in the same session just produced a Readwise sync already in progress message. Closing and re-opening Obsidian frees this up but returns us to square one.

data.json sample

With my token suppressed (I don't mind sharing my reading) - the suspect entry is 47524691. At one point I had two entries for the ID, one with this bad filename and one with the new filename.

{
  "token": "...",
  "readwiseDir": "Readwise",
  "frequency": "0",
  "triggerOnLoad": false,
  "isSyncing": true,
  "lastSyncFailed": false,
  "lastSavedStatusID": 17954904,
  "currentSyncStatusID": 18013941,
  "refreshBooks": true,
  "booksToRefresh": [],
  "failedBooks": [
    "47524691",
    "47524691",
    "47524691",
    "47524691",
    "47524691",
    "47524691",
    "47524691",
    "47524691",
    "47524691",
    "47524691",
    "47524691",
    "47524691"
  ],
  "booksIDsMap": {
    "Readwise/Racing Through a Minefield The AI Deployment Problem.md": "22344154",
    "Readwise/Poor Economics.md": "23272996",
    "Readwise/2024-02-02 Contra Scott Alexander on Taste.md": "47344335",
    "Readwise/2025-01-01 H5N1 Much More Than You Wanted to Know.md": "47345388",
    "Readwise/2025-01-01 Good Job Opportunities for Helping With the Most Important Century.md": "47345210",
    "Readwise/2025-01-02 Oh Boy, I Got Nerd Sniped by Isaac's Tweet Because....md": "47364823",
    "Readwise/2025-01-03 The Surprising Power of Next Word Prediction Large Language Models Explained, Part 1.md": "47404459",
    "Readwise/2025-01-03 How Developers Steer Language Model Outputs Large Language Models Explained, Part 2.md": "47404549",
    "Readwise/2025-01-05 AI Regulation’s Champions Can Seize Common Ground—or Be Swept Aside.md": "47461344",
    "Readwise/2025-01-07 Þÿ[website PDF Version] Advanced AI Governance  \u0013 a Literature Review of Problems, Options, and Proposals.md": "47524691"
  },
  "reimportShowConfirmation": true
}

Readwise.io showed it correctly

Log from one loop

As outlined above:

app.js:1 Obsidian Developer Console
plugin:quickadd:73 Loading QuickAdd
plugin:quickadd:41 QuickAdd: (LOG) No migrations to run.
plugin:table-editor-obsidian:183 loading markdown-table-editor plugin
plugin:dataview:20327 Dataview: version 0.5.67 (requires obsidian 0.13.11)
plugin:card-board:1 CardBoard: loading plugin
plugin:obsidian-tasks-plugin:174 [2025-01-10-13:41:35.216][info][tasks] loading plugin "Tasks" v7.14.0 
plugin:obsidian-excalidraw-plugin:6 Initialized Excalidraw Image Cache
plugin:dataview:12894 Dataview: all 244 files have been indexed in 0.312s (244 cached, 0 skipped).
plugin:card-board:1 CardBoard: 244 files scanned for tasks.
plugin:readwise-official:9750 Readwise Official plugin: error writing Readwise/2025-01-07 Þÿ[website PDF Version] Advanced AI Governance  � a Literature Review of Problems, Options, and Proposals--47524691.md: Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open 'Z:\mk-remote\Readwise\2025-01-07 Þÿ[website PDF Version] Advanced AI Governance  � a Literature Review of Problems, Options, and Proposals.md'
    at async open (node:internal/original-fs/promises:639:25)
    at async Object.writeFile (node:internal/original-fs/promises:1212:14)
plugin:readwise-official:9879 Readwise Official plugin: added book id 47524691 to failed books
plugin:readwise-official:9803 Readwise Official plugin: setting interval to  0 milliseconds
plugin:readwise-official:9844 Readwise Official plugin: refreshing books {targetBookIds: Array(1)}
plugin:readwise-official:9844 Readwise Official plugin: refreshing books {targetBookIds: Array(1)}targetBookIds: ['47524691']0: "47524691"length: 1[[Prototype]]: Array(0)at: ƒ at()concat: ƒ concat()constructor: ƒ Array()contains: ƒ includes()copyWithin: ƒ copyWithin()entries: ƒ entries()every: ƒ every()fill: ƒ fill()filter: ƒ filter()find: ƒ find()findIndex: ƒ findIndex()findLast: ƒ findLast()findLastIndex: ƒ findLastIndex()first: ƒ ()flat: ƒ flat()flatMap: ƒ flatMap()forEach: ƒ forEach()group: ƒ group(t)includes: ƒ includes()indexOf: ƒ indexOf()join: ƒ join()keys: ƒ keys()last: ƒ ()lastIndexOf: ƒ lastIndexOf()length: 0map: ƒ map()pop: ƒ pop()push: ƒ push()reduce: ƒ reduce()reduceRight: ƒ reduceRight()remove: ƒ (t)reverse: ƒ reverse()shift: ƒ shift()shuffle: ƒ ()slice: ƒ slice()some: ƒ some()sort: ƒ sort()splice: ƒ splice()toLocaleString: ƒ toLocaleString()toReversed: ƒ toReversed()toSorted: ƒ toSorted()toSpliced: ƒ toSpliced()toString: ƒ toString()unique: ƒ ()unshift: ƒ unshift()values: ƒ values()with: ƒ with()Symbol(Symbol.iterator): ƒ values()Symbol(Symbol.unscopables): {at: true, copyWithin: true, entries: true, fill: true, find: true, …}[[Prototype]]: Object[[Prototype]]: Objectconstructor: ƒ Object()hasOwnProperty: ƒ hasOwnProperty()isPrototypeOf: ƒ isPrototypeOf()propertyIsEnumerable: ƒ propertyIsEnumerable()toLocaleString: ƒ toLocaleString()toString: ƒ toString()valueOf: ƒ valueOf()__defineGetter__: ƒ __defineGetter__()__defineSetter__: ƒ __defineSetter__()__lookupGetter__: ƒ __lookupGetter__()__lookupSetter__: ƒ __lookupSetter__()__proto__: (...)get __proto__: ƒ __proto__()set __proto__: ƒ __proto__()

Resolution

Deleting data.json and reconnecting the plugin to my Readwise account seems to have resolved the issue (across all my devices).