"Modifications aren't in sync." popup in unsaved file

[ftnt-dspille]

Description

I am occasionally seeing errors in CotEditor that I wasn't seeing a month ago. There will be a popup that states "Modifications aren't in sync. Choose which versions to keep." I see this maybe once a week or so with no direct cause. The file is unsaved, eg "Untitled X". The file hasn't been closed/reopened, and CotEditor hasn't been closed/terminated. So I'm flagging this as a bug since I'm uncertain what could cause the file modifications to go out of sync.

To Reproduce

I don't have any steps to reproduce this since it happens randomly

Expected behavior

Modifications to unsaved files should not cause an out of sync popup

CotEditor version

Version 6.2.6 (798)

macOS version

26.4

Additional context

I have also seen this on MacOS 26.3, i upgraded to 26.4 recently and saw it again.

[1024jp]

@ftnt-dspille It depends on the settings, but by default CotEditor will automatically create a backup document in the CotEditor folder in iCloud Drive even if you haven’t explicitly saved the document. It names these backups “Untitled XX” (where XX is an incrementing number). That dialog indicates that the auto-saved document in iCloud is in conflict between iCloud and your local device.

How do you usually respond when this dialog appears? If you choose Cancel, the conflict may remain and the same dialog could appear again. If there really is a conflict, then the dialog is the expected behavior.

I haven’t received any other reports of this so far, so it might be something specific to your environment. Does anything come to mind? For example, are you using any automation, is your network unstable, do you often work offline, or do you edit the same documents on multiple machines? Just as a guess, this could happen if you work offline on separate Macs and both create an Untitled document with the same number, and then later both machines reconnect and iCloud sync resumes. I’d like to understand your situation a bit better.

[1024jp]

In any case, it’s probably a good idea to first review and clean up the “Untitled” documents in the CotEditor folder on iCloud Drive.

[ftnt-dspille]

Thank you @1024jp for the response.

When the dialog appears, I typically choose the version with the most recent modified date, since that tends to reflect my latest changes. That approach has been working, but I wanted to better understand why the conflict is occurring in the first place.

In my case, I’m not using any automation, my network connection is stable, and I don’t work offline. I also don’t have multiple machines editing the same documents. Additionally, I don’t actively use iCloud for much beyond default system behavior, which is why this was a bit unexpected.

Would it be possible to provide an option to configure where these unsaved or auto-saved documents are stored? For example, allowing them to be mapped to a local filesystem path such as /Users/<user>/Documents/ instead of iCloud.

Anyhow, I appreciate your suggestion and I've gone through and cleaned up any Unsaved files that slipped through the cracks. Hopefully that resolves it.

[1024jp]

@ftnt-dspille Thanks for providing the details. It doesn’t seem to match any of the obvious scenarios I can think of. As the next possible workarounds I can suggest on my side, please try the following:

1. In CotEditor’s General preferences, set “When document is changed by another application” to “Keep CotEditor’s version.” (If you’ve already set this, I’d appreciate it if you could let me know.)
2. Disable CotEditor’s iCloud Drive syncing. You can toggle iCloud Drive per app in System Settings > Apple Account > iCloud > iCloud Drive > Apps Syncing to iCloud Drive.

That said, especially for no. 2, this is more of a symptomatic workaround than a real fix.

From a quick review of the related code, there doesn’t seem to be much CotEditor can directly control here, since the dialog is generated by the system rather than by CotEditor. Still, it’s not impossible that CotEditor is contributing to the issue in some way, so I’ll keep a close eye on any areas or actions that might be involved in iCloud conflicts.

Sorry I can’t offer a more straightforward solution right away.

[ftnt-dspille]

Thanks again for the suggestions. I just now changed the "When document is changed by another application” to “Keep CotEditor’s version.". It was previously set to "Update to modified version". I will give that a shot, while keeping the ICloud syncing enabled. Thank you very much!