Pictures disappeared and messages not sorted

#1

Delta Chat version
1.14.5

Hello I installed DC (yesterday, it’s the third time), everything worked smoothly, it loaded all the old messages.
Immediately I found that the old messages are not timely sorted, but not really important, they are old messages.
But today, when I open DC, the pictures in the messages are disappeared, there is only a blank box insted of the photo.

Today, the first thing I made was a backup of the chats, then I viewed the chats, and the pictures are gone, yesterday they were all there.

What could I do to get the photos back?

#2

Not sure whether related and of help, just remembered it having read once: 🧪 Help testing the upcomming 1.14.X release (download source and different store)

#3

reminds me of a bug I experienced a while back: some avatar images were missing (including the saved messages chat icon).
So it might be a serious bug in the attachment/blobs cleanup logic.
Did the problem appear after the backup?

(you could try file recovery programs, if they are not overwritten with other files yet.)

#4

Only a guess but maybe:

Does it mean you have installed earlier versions?
Is the backup from this older version?
Are you using the option “Disappearing messages” ?
Are the images gone also in the “blob” folder ?

I would recommend to use your first backup and use your first installation version.
Then leave it as is (as the installation only for viewing this old chats)
(Maybe take a desktop version for that step)

Then install the new version as second installation (new folder) and use this from that point on for the new chats. If you want the same keys then export/import the keys from the first installation alone (and then maybe sent needed/wanted messages/images from first(“old”) installation to second(“new”) installation).

Why I recommend that way: Cause though DC is more or less stable, it is still under development. And therefore new versions may not fully compatible with old versions. At least it could be so.

PS.
This fits also to existing feature requests which are:

  • Let me choose an installation path
  • Let me export/import credentials and contacts alone

This would also create a new feature request:

  • Write in the backup file name also the version of the current DeltaChat app used (aside date and time)