Your study record got too big for the cloud

One record, with a limit

Everything you do in Handy 990, from the questions you've answered and the words you've learned to your bookmarks, notes and practice streak, is stored in the cloud as one record. When you sign in on another device, the app downloads that record; when you finish practising, it uploads the updated version.

That record has a hard limit of about 1 MB. Most people's records are a few dozen to a few hundred KB, nowhere near it. But the longer you practise, and the more bookmarks and notes you write, the bigger it gets.

This learner's record went over the limit by 231 bytes, about the length of a sentence or two of notes.

What happens once it's over

When a record is over the limit, the cloud doesn't keep part of it. It rejects the whole thing. From that moment on:

• every backup is refused, and each new bookmark or note makes the record bigger and even less likely to fit;
• right after switching to another device, the app waits for your latest progress to download before letting you practise, so it got stuck on that screen;
• all the screen said was a generic "sync failed, check your connection" message, so it looked like a network problem, and the natural thing was to keep tapping retry.

At first we weren't sure this was the cause either. Then, in the error reports (technical records the app sends back automatically when something goes wrong, which don't contain your study content), we found what the cloud said when it refused: this record is 1,048,807 bytes, over the allowed 1,048,576. That settled it.

The fix: two things

One: even if a backup can't go up, you're no longer stuck.

When a record is too large, the app still downloads your other devices' progress from the cloud, merges it in, and lets you keep practising. The progress you add on this device stays safely on the device and goes up once it can. The message on screen now tells the truth: "Your study record is too large to back up to the cloud right now. Everything on this device is safe, and you can keep practicing."

It also no longer retries every few seconds. Each retry used to download the whole record, close to 1 MB, again, wasting your data for nothing. Now it only tries again when you reopen the app, tap sync, or another device has an update.

Two: getting this learner's backups working again.

We looked closely at this learner's record and found that almost half of it was taken up by two duplicate old copies: a list of bookmarks and the notes on those bookmarks. They're in the old format from before an August update. Since that update, every bookmark and note has also been stored in the new format; the two old copies were only kept around for older versions of the app.

So for accounts the cloud has already refused, the app first checks that the new format really does contain every bookmark and every note, not one missing, and only then leaves those two old copies out of the upload. This learner's record drops from about 1.06 MB to about 600 KB, and backups work again.

To be clear: no data is deleted. The only thing left out is what gets sent in that upload. Nothing on your device is touched, and not a single bookmark or note disappears.

Honestly, though

• This buys room; it doesn't solve the problem for good. Bookmarks, notes and practice history keep growing, so the most dedicated learners will hit this limit again sooner or later. The real fix is to split the biggest parts into several pieces stored separately, so the limit stops mattering. That needs a change on the cloud side first, then time for old app versions to be replaced, so it will come over several versions.
• Very old versions of the app lose out a little. Versions from before August only understand the old format. On accounts that have already been refused, they might not show new bookmarks. The data itself isn't lost, and it appears once the app is updated. We checked: right now, no one with a paid subscription or a lifetime purchase is on a version that old.
• Both devices need the update. The fix arrives in the next version. A device still on the old version can't upload its own new progress until it's updated.
• Now we'll know before you do. When a record reaches 640 KB, and again at 850 KB, the app sends us a heads-up. Next time someone gets close to the limit, we hope to see it before they notice anything.

---

This fix started with one report sent from inside the app. Thank you to that learner for patiently answering every question we asked, and for never deleting the app or signing out. Because of that, the progress on both devices is still fully there. To report a problem, use "Report a problem" inside the app: those reports include the app version, which lets us trace the cause directly.