ChatGPT Messages Disappear When Switching Between Web and Mobile Without Refreshing

ChatGPT Bugs
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Error Report: Synchronization Issue Between Web and Mobile Applications of ChatGPT

Problem Description:

There is a synchronization issue when using both the web application and the mobile application of ChatGPT. The issue occurs as follows:

  1. Context:
  • A conversation is started on the web application (e.g., on a computer).
  • The computer is left idle without refreshing the webpage, and the conversation continues on the mobile app.
  1. Action:
  • Additional messages are sent from the mobile app, and these appear correctly on the mobile device.
  1. Problem:
  • When returning to the web application and sending a message without refreshing the page, all the messages sent from the mobile app in the meantime are deleted. The messages sent from the mobile app effectively disappear and are no longer visible on either platform.

Impact:

  • Data loss: Messages sent from the mobile app are permanently lost.
  • User experience: This issue causes confusion and frustration, as the conversation history does not remain synchronized, which is a core expectation for a multi-platform service.

Steps to Reproduce the Issue:

  1. Start a conversation on the web application.
  2. Continue the same conversation on the mobile application without refreshing the webpage on the computer.
  3. Return to the web application, and without refreshing the page, send a message.
  4. Observe that all the messages sent from the mobile app in the meantime are deleted.

Proposed Solution:

  • Implement a two-way automatic synchronization system to ensure that messages sent from any device are reflected in real-time across all platforms.
  • Add a notification or reminder in the user interface when there are unsynchronized messages on a device, prompting users to refresh before proceeding.
  • Create a temporary backup mechanism to prevent data loss in the event of synchronization conflicts.

Priority: High (this issue impacts conversation integrity and user trust in the system).

1 Like
2

+1 - I just lost an hour of work

1 Like
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I had something similar happen today, but between the web and Windows application instead of web and mobile.

I have a week-long journal-like chat on the web, and today I tried opening it in the Windows app. I noticed that the last two days of history weren’t visible in the Windows app, but I figured it was just a sync issue.

To test if it would sync properly, I sent a message from the Windows app within the same conversation. Unfortunately, instead of pulling in the missing messages from the web version, it synced in the wrong direction—overwriting my web chat history with the outdated version from the Windows app. As a result, I lost two full days of messages on both platforms, and it seems like they are now unrecoverable.

It sounds like there’s a broader issue with how different platforms handle syncing when chat histories are out of sync. If anyone from OpenAI is looking into this, it might be worth checking how sync conflicts are resolved across web, mobile, and desktop versions to prevent data loss.

4

Similar issue here. My app, web, and PC aren’t sharing most of my chats. My PC gets all of them synced, but my Android apps don’t get anything from the PC unless I put it in a project folder. I uninstalled the app on one of my phones and when I reinstalled it there were a bunch of conversations missing. Looks like I’m archiving everything.

My phone does access my full chat history if I login through Chrome, though. These issues didn’t used to happen. WTF is going on?