Hello Blocs users,
I’m having an issue with Blocs 6 Plus.
I previously used Blocs 5 and have many projects created with the app. Unfortunately, every project I open with Blocs 6 shows up as “Null.”
On top of that, I have lost all my projects on both my Mac and iCloud…
Unfortunately, I also tried reopening the projects with Blocs V5, but the same issue occurs.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Devices: Mac Mini m2 and Macbook Air m1.
Wow! Sorry to see that, when was the last time you saved these projects?
Did you also take them off iCloud? Blocs can’t do stuff like like without your permission.
Blocs also has a backup vault, did you have it enabled?
Yesterday I opened and saved several projects.
Today I wanted to open one project and it was “Null”, later I tried several others the same thing.
I save all projects in one folder in “Documents” which is automatically synchronized to iCloud and NAS device.
Do you have auto backup enabled in Blocs?
Yes 
Every project have 3 backups. 2=Null and 1 = Works.
I got my projects back. But unfortunately, something like that shouldn’t happen.
Use iCloud as a backup if you want and have no other solution, but never (ever) as a place to save your documents that are a work in progress. I mean, I do use iCloud to save some PDFs, but that particular iCloud folder then is also backed up with Time Machine. Can’t have too many backups 
That’s good.
Totally agree it shouldn’t happen, finding the cause is my job now. Fortunately it’s not a common issue.
But Keep backups of all your projects, this is mentioned in the Blocs 6 migration docs, it’s just common practice.
If you store a copy of your backup that works, duplicate it so you have a test copy and open it in Blocs, make a single edit, save it.
Do you get the white screen?
If you do, repeat the steps, duplicate the working project, open the duplicate edit it and then save it to another location that is not synced.
The issue maybe the syncing happing during file saves and scrambling the file.
I’ve been doing the same thing for the last year and never had any problems with blocs 5 projects
So I still think it’s something with the new version.
Anyway, the software is great!!!
It’s unlikely, the new version uses the same file saving functionality as 5 nothing changed there.
Did you rename the Blocs application when you downloaded it by any chance? To Blocs 6 or something like that.
No, only renamed Blocs (5) to Blocs 5
Could you please try saving to a un synced location with Blocs 6 and see if the project opens fine afterwards?
Just be sure to use a backup.
This was and still is a constant problem with Rapidweaver files and appears as a raised problem many times on the third party support forums. I got burnt badly in the past until piecing together a pattern. The problem with RW files is that the file format is a package file, it looks like a file to us, but is actually an encapsulating folder of many files to form the structure of the project. When using a sync app with OneDrive that I currently use and Dropbox previously it appeared everything would sync. Everything worked fine as the files were still local, but if I ever had to pull the file back from cloud stiorage then bang it was corrupt.
On that basis a few years ago I started to Zip the files up after major changes to the local file and save them as sequential versions, e.g. project 1 V1.zip, project 1 V2.zip so that each was a self contained single file that would sync.
Now, I don’t know if this is related in some way, one of the first things I checked when starting with Blocs V5 was whether or not the project file is a package file or not. It didn’t look as though it is a package file, it wouldn’t show contents suggesting it is a sefl contained file, would that be the case @Norm
I know OneDrive was upgraded a bit ago to deal with package files on a Mac in the same way as iCloud, however on RW test files that were not important I still have had this problem.
This suggests a problem with cloud services and sync, not the app currupting, as I know from forums this has been occuring on all the main cloud services.
I thought I’d mention this, in case it is related in some way, as cloud sync services although great, seems to always be the root of problems with certain file types, everything looks great and synced until you have to recall the file back from the cloud when you no longer have the local file.
Blocs uses a single self contained file. Fortunately corrupted files of this nature have been rare for Blocs since Blocs 3, but in the land of software, cloud services and syncing, anything is possible.
The annoying part is, these issues are very tricky to reproduce.
I’ve personally had issues with iCloud and Dropbox (not related to Blocs), that are resolved by a restart of my Mac never to return again for months.
I’ll keep an eye on this issue and test myself as much as possible, file data loss obviously gets full attention and priority.
I’ve had problems with files I have put into dropbox, placed them on there and then logged into dropbox on another computer, downloaded the files and they were zero bytes.
That’s exactly what happens with the Rapidweaver package files, zero bytes, that was a tough one to stomach when I first got hit with that.
That’s great to hear, I was guessing they were, trying to open the project file to see, but it’s one of those things where you want to say “are you sure? are you sure? are you sure?” I need more reassurance than my rescue dog with such matters 
The file is not 0 bytes, the size remains the same as the file that works properly.
only simple blocs do not display elements. While in the page menu it neatly displays the page preview
I am not seeing projects/documents corrupted, but when I use Blocs 6.0.2 to open a document and then close that document and QUICKLY OPEN another document (via the recently used docs sidebar), more often than not, the document opens completely blank, just as shown in the screenshot in the opening post. Of course, the document is an existing document that is NOT blank, so this is a problem. But if I then close (and don’t save, of course), then wait a few seconds and try opening the same document again, and then it opens as expected and all is well.
So in my case, it seems that Blocs 6 has some kind of caching problem because I never saw this before on earlier versions of Blocs.
Here’s another unusual related thing that happened to me today. No document corruption, mind you. Just very odd.
I am working between two documents, selectively opening them via the right “recent docs” sidebar of the main Blocs window. I am copying Code Widget text content from one to the other. So when I’ve copied something from one document, I close it without saving. I then open my other document, paste in the code, then close and Save it. But then when I click to open my other document again (keep in mind that NO DOCUMENTS ARE OPEN at this point), Blocs suddenly opens a blank document with pure white background and asks if I want to save changes to it!
This is happening repeatedly although not 100% consistently, so it’s hard for me to provide a detailed list of steps to reproduce it. But suffice it to say, it’s happening to me right now.
Oh, and when I click the “Don’t Save” button, Blocs spends several seconds thinking, showing me a beachball during that time, and then the document I clicked on in the right sidebar of the main Blocs window suddenly opens!
Very odd.
Thanks for the heads up, I’ll get this looked at and see if I can find the cause.
