Shared Brain Test Summary

Shared Brain Test Summary

Feb 2020 Update: Recent fixes have been reported to resolve most of the synced access sharing bugs. Will update this and any related thoughts after testing . . . .

02.12.20: This afternoon Mark Trexler and I continued testing the process of privately sharing synced brain access between a Pro account and a Free account owned by another brain user on another computer.

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We tested 3 different sharing options:

• Brain (with notes and attachments) shared from my pro account with Mark's free account
• Brain (with notes and attachments) shared from Mark's Pro account with my free account
• Later, in subsequent testing, identical results were confirmed when sharing between 2 Pro accounts.

Auto-sync was turned OFF, and all syncing was initiated manually.

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The results of our tests are summarized below.

• These results are based on what the Reader observed after (1) initially downloading the shared brain or (2) subsequently syncing this brain manually.
• During this testing process we confirmed several different, but potentially related, bugs.

Test Results

• When the shared brain is initially downloaded to the free account, the contents seem to be accurate in the Reader's brain.
• During the 1st round of testing, synced changes (specifically, the addition of new thoughts) seemed to be visible immediately in the Reader's brain.
• [Bug #1] Synced Changes in Shared Brains are Not Immediately Visible: During the 2nd round of testing, the sync process seemed to be working properly, but NO changes to the owner's brain were accurately reflected in the Reader's brain until the Reader closed and reopened the shared brain. These changes included:
  • Newly added thoughts
  • Updated attachments
  • Forgotten thoughts
  • Deleted thoughts
• [Bug #2} Forgotten thoughts did NOT disappear in the majority of the testing we did, even after closing and reopening the shared/synced brain.
• [Bug #3] In-app Error Messages in Reader's Brain: Whenever content was deleted from the owner's brain, a series of error messages was triggered every time the Reader tried to interact with a thought that was still visible in the Reader's brain after having already been deleted from the owner's brain.
• [Bug #4] .03 Attachments Dumped on Reader's Desktop (Again & Again): It appears the attachment dumps do NOT always occur during the sync process. Instead, these dumps may also occur when the Reader interacts with a thought that has already been deleted from the owner's brain (but is still visible in the Reader's brain).
• [Bug #5] Reader Email Address List is Neither Scrollable nor Searchable. This makes it impossible to see or search through the full list of email addresses of individuals who have been given read-only (email / synced) brain access.

Previous Test Results

In addition to today's sharing tests with Mark, results from my earlier bug reports and sharing tests are documented on the following 2 child thoughts:

• Synced Changes in Shared Brains are Not Immediately Visible
• .03 Attachments Dumped on Reader's Desktop (Again & Again)

These previous bug reports and tests indicated several additional bugs occurred when I logged out of my Pro account and then logged into my free account as a Reader on the same computer. I don't yet know if these bugs might also show up for a Reader who is on a different computer, but if this is even a remote possibility, it would certainly merit additional testing:

• Attachments that are dumped are NOT always from the thought that was deleted.
• Attachments may be dumped even when NOTHING has been deleted from a shared brain.
• Dumped attachments can include the default notes in a brain, not just secondary notes and attached files.
• In a few cases, the dumped attachments were actually deleted from the original brain after having been automatically moved out of the Reader's desktop brain. This type of data loss will be an deal killer for shared/synced access, even if it happens only rarely.

Mobile Brain Sharing

• iPad & iPhone Share Test Summary
• Android Share Test Summary (Pending)

See related help desk ticket and forum discussion on tabs above.