MyHeritage Destructive Sync Feature
Comments
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jimmy.zimmerman said: We hope so. This is being taken into comsideration as we look at how to address this incident.0
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Chas Howell said: Jimmy Zimmerman- Maybe my ignorance here, but why could not the “bug” you refer to have been discovered using the FamilySearch Beta site data instead of the FamilySearch Live data?0
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Tom Huber said: Any "beta" test should never involve production data.
Why was MyHeritage allowed to interface with the production data on FamilySearch???0 -
Tamara Lynn Stevenson said: Besides the issues with full tree syncs and the nightmares I see coming with that.
I have another concern. I spoke with a couple of folks at Family Search at Roots Tech and expressed my concern that My Heritage also took of the photos, documents and audio associated with all 8 generations of people and imported them into My Heritage reagrdless of whether I had added them into Family Search or not. I was took that was not supposed to be happening. But it is....
I am not okay with this!
Please require MyHeritage to sync persons one at one as it is with gedcoms and other sites. Faster is not always better!0 -
Adrian Bruce said: I did try to read the above to see whether this was a Beta or a Pilot Scheme, as the 2 concepts are not the same. Since everything is labelled Beta, the answer seems obvious and I must agree with Tom.0
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Gordon Clarke said: On Saturday, a patron sync'ed his MyHeritage tree with FamilySearch which resulted in a bad sync. The sync was affected by the fact that the patron had modified his MyHeritage tree with MyHeritage's desktop software called Family Tree Builder and it had negative effects on the subsequent sync to FamilySearch.
MyHeritage has put a block on any syncs for trees that have been touched by Family Tree Builder. They are also putting in place a block which disallows Family Tree Builder to upload to a tree that came from FamilySearch. This should prevent any syncs of this nature from happening in the future.
Gordon Clarke
FamilySearch Strategic Solutions Manager0 -
Robert Givens said: Gordon - Thank you so very much for this comment. Now the next question is will there be any "fix" for the damage done to the sources that were disassociated from FS and put back in but now are no longer connected to their associated records?0
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Gordon Clarke said: The "fix" is being worked on by both MyHeritage and FamilySearch.
Gordon0 -
Tom Huber said: Gordon, I appreciate all you and the teams at FamilySearch are doing to get this thing fixed, including backing out the bad sync operation and all the damage it did.
My question is will the sync feature stop being applied across the board, and follow the requirements for live changes in FamilySearch by patrons and for changes from the certified family tree management programs, like Ancestral Quest, which I use.
It is very important that this relationship retain original contributor's information, especially when a person is sync'd with changes made in MyHeritage anywhere to the record. The person who made the changes needs to be noted as the contributor, complete with their reasoning for their conclusion.
If that is not in the works, then this is as bad as allowing patrons to use a GEDCOM file uploaded to the Genealogies section to create duplicates in FamilyTree. It should not be allowed, except under the same requirements as the changes made by patrons on FamilySearch.0 -
Robert Givens said: I just want to wrap up this thread with a final comment or two or three.
1. James Tanner - I want to apologize if anything I said to you above offended you. I know you are a strong proponent of MyHeritage.
2. The situation appears to be under control as of now. It was determined that the MyHeritage Tree Builder software was to blame for all of this. Only if a user at MH of this software tried to sync their tree did this problem occur. MH has locked out the ability to sync for anyone of their patrons who have used Tree Builder until the problem can be resolved. The engineers at their end and at the FS end are fully aware of the problem and it's extent.
3. As of now no solution for a restoration of affected records at FS has been suggested. I would suggest if you have corrupted records in the portion of Tree that is your family that you hold off making any corrective changes (especially to sources) until we find out if there is any way the engineers to help with this process. I restored one source on one of the affected records and it took several minutes to go through all the steps.
So there we are - this shouldn't happen again. Too bad this wasn't caught in the sandbox but was allowed to get into the Production database before the problem was discovered.0 -
Paul said: James
Firstly, it seems people weren't getting unnecessarily concerned over this problem, as both MyHeritage and FamilySearch have both needed to investigate and take action on this issue.
Secondly, given your general good knowledge concerning Family Tree, I am disappointed to see this is only your second visit to this forum. I believe your main involvement is with Genealogy's Star, but I'm sure it would be of great help to the FamilySearch / Family Tree community if you could share your thoughts with us here more often.0 -
Melanie J. Fackrell said: To Jimmy Zimmerman - Thanks to you and your team for getting on this so quickly! I for one, appreciate the timeliness of your actions to fix this bug. I, like Robert Givens and others, hope you can undo the Sources mess as easily as it was created. Good luck!0
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jimmy.zimmerman said: As an update to the situation:
#2. MyHeritage has put all sync capabilities on pause for now as an extra precaution.
#3. We are still working on the restoration plan. The process of evaluating all of the affected person records will take some time. I thank you for your patience and I apologize for the inconvenience it has caused.0 -
Robert Givens said: Jimmy - We are thrilled that this has been stopped and a remedy is coming. I heard that if any changes had been made to a record that no fix would be made to it. I would rather reenter a change or two and have all sources fixed than to have to fix hundreds of sources. Realize people are out there noticing this and trying to fix things already. Patience isn't really going to be the issue - rather it is will there be anything left to fix if the record has to be untouched since this sync episode? I am not trying to critical - just trying to state a fact of what is happening.0
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James Tanner said: I am glad this issue was brought up, but I do think that there is a valid point that the BETA test should not have affected live data on the Family Tree. I also think that the complaints should have started with MyHeritage and FamilySearch. Thanks to Jimmy Zimmerman and Gordon Clarke for their responses. Thanks to Robert Givens for being persistent with publicizing the problem.
Comment: I try to keep aware of the issues with FamilySearch and the other programs but I am spread pretty thin as it is right now by being on a full-time mission. No excuse, but thanks for keeping me on my toes.0 -
Gordon Collett said:
I also think that the complaints should have started with MyHeritage and FamilySearch.
This is where all complaints for FamilySearch are suppose to start. All feedback links from FamilySearch lead to this page for posting any concerns. More than one person has reported that when they have called support about software problems, they are instructed to post them here so the software designers and engineers will see it.
The nice thing about posting here is that other uses can quickly confirm problems, help diagnose where and when they arise, and add the fine details that lets the programmers quickly determine the magnitude of the problem and gives them the information they need to track down the cause.0 -
jimmy.zimmerman said: Today we finished running the first phase of a data fix-up process to restore data that was corrupted by the errant sync.
This first phase of the data fix-up was run on all persons that had not been updated since the corruption occurred. The data fix-up removed the corrupted information and restored the original facts and source attachments. For the facts and source attachments, the reason statements for the prior values were restored. For the sources, the citations, notes, and tags have been restored. For FamilySearch records, you will notice that the FamilySearch tree icon is back and the record preview functionality has returned.
Please note that the actions of the data restoration show up in the persons' change history as performed by "FamilySearch".
We will continue to investigate ways to restore original information on the remaining persons that were not fixed in this phase.0 -
Robert Givens said: Jimmy - Thank you so very much for this update. The bulk of this issue involves the descendants and ancestors of John Carter and Hannah Knight Libby. I happen to be the president of their family organization and this issue has greatly affected "our" family. I just went in and checked a few people in this line and the changes are wonderful. Thank you to you and MH.
Personally for the ones that I know weren't changed, like my ancestor William Furlsbury Carter, only had one of 97 sources changed so he wasn't fixed. The negative affect of losing one source to gain 96 sources fixed would lead us as users to prefer losing that one source. If you can work out something to fix the 96 fine but I hope I don't have to fix the 96 by hand if you know what I mean.0 -
Robert Givens said: Jimmy - You might want to contact me privately. I am seeing some strange things. Example - Lucinda McKenney Carter 14 January 1831 – 26 January 1904 • KWJX-MV9 - Look at the seventh source down - Lucinda Carter in entry for Lorenzo S. Curtis, "Utah Death Certificates, 1904-1964".
It has a world icon but a FS link - the link does go to a FS linked record so that is good but why is the icon a world icon. It appears that her sources were fixed as others say by FS but this one doesn't but obviously was??? True FS sources should have FS icons in the source list.0 -
jimmy.zimmerman said: This example is not a side-effect of the fix-up. The source was added as a duplicate source by a prior contribution (click the "More" link to view the FamilySearch linked records).
You will notice several of these on that person. If I were you, I would just detach the duplicates. These duplicates likely would have come in during a time when Ancestry's integration was not appropriately matching to existing sources.0 -
Elmer Reagan said: I am late to this discussion.. so don't know where we are now with this.. but.. according to how it seemed to be operating.. if the sources were deleted, doesn't that change still show up in history with the ability to restore or undo?0
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Gordon Collett said: The version of the My Heritage sync being discussed here was pulled back for correction after this disastrous programming flaw involving certain trees modified by My Heritage's Family Tree Builder software was discovered. They have spent the past year fixing this and it was announced at RootsTech that its beta testing phase is pretty much completed. The presenter there gave the people in attendance at the presentation who wanted to test it out the access code required. They kept the code off the recording of the session.0
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Elmer Reagan said: I realized it was pulled since it is not available and the discussion ended.. But I wondered about what appeared in History for each data & sources for FH modified people when they were deleted by FH.0
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Elmer Reagan said: Who was the presenter?0
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Gordon Collett said: https://www.rootstech.org/video/getti...
The title is a bit deceiving. He covered a lot of things about My Heritage besides searching.0 -
Jeff Wiseman said: Elmer, Ill Zink,
As Gordon pointed out, this subject was pretty well resolved already. It was the result of a mistake when the Beta testing of MH's product was used on live data in FSFT. A mistake in the software resulted in many records in FS being damaged. I believe things have improved.
For a more current (4 days ago) discussion related to this, see:
https://getsatisfaction.com/familysea...0 -
JT said: Elmer, Ill Zink - the presenter was Mike Mansfield, MSLIS, Director of Content Operations, MyHeritage.com
The course # was M2939. I got to sit next to him on the front row and talk with him before the class began. He works at the MyHeritage offices in Lehi UT across the street from the new FamilySearch offices in Thanksgiving Point.0 -
Brett said: Jon
Hey, wasn't the "FamilySearch" main office in the "Joseph Smith Building" in "Temple Square"?
Have they moved the main office to Thanksgiving Point, Lehi?
Or, is it a new 'outpost'?
Brett
You know me, just a "Mushroom", from "Down Under"
We do not always hear the latest, over this 'neck of the woods'.0 -
JT said: The main crew of FS software developers have moved into the new 3-story office building built at Thanksgiving Point (west end near the Front-Runner commuter station) from their prior site in Orem (at the old WordPerfect campus). There are still some FS mission-type offices in the upper floors of the JSMB.0
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Michael W. McCormick, AG® said: It has been 2 years since March 2018. Is there any plan to make a feature that can exchange data between these two trees? I know it blew up in their faces which is probably why we haven’t seen anything since, but with all the smart people working on this kind of thing I’m surprised a working version hasn’t come out. Is there software that can let me transfer one person or piece of data at a time from MyHeritage tree into FamilySearch?0
This discussion has been closed.