Clip to Devonthink from Safari only saving links

This is weird bug and I don’t have quite enough yet to document or explain it.

On Wednesday when I first started using DevonThink in earnest I installed the webclipper. Based on earlier comments on the forum I decided to clip to PDF (over RTF or Markdown). My first few attempts to clip always resulted in just a bookmark being saved - no matter what setting I used for the clipper (PDF/Markdown - shudder RTF). I read the suggestion on the forum that a reboot had fixed this for someone else. Wunderbar. I rebooted. Clipping to PDFs worked and I was happy.

Yesterday I didn’t use my computer at all (taking a child to University).

Today, I clip again and the problem is back. I will try restarting Safari in a second however this is unfun. I don’t want to reboot every 2 days to keep the clipper working :cry:

Has anyone else experienced this?

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Restart Safari - no good.
Reboot MacOS and it works. I will go mad if I need to reboot everyday. Why is rebooting working?

MacOS 11.5.2
MacBook Pro M1 2020
DevonThink 3.7.2

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When clipping web content, a bookmark is created as a fallback if an error occurs. That way at least something is captured.

If you consistently get bookmarks from other sites as well, quit DEVONthink and reboot the machine.
In an upcoming release, we are making some modifications to the code to force the clipping process relaunch itself.

  • What URL are you trying to clip?
  • What browser are you trying to clip from?

Failed urls:
The Human Work Machine and Likeonomics with David Mantica and 3 Elements Of A Great Team Culture - David Burkus David Burkus

Browser Safari.
MacOS 11.5.2
MacBook Pro M1 2020
DevonThink 3.7.2

It can’t be the URL as rebooting the machine allows me to clip the articles to PDF and/or markdown successfully.

The two challenges:

  • I don’t like having to reboot my Mac every two days to keep software working
  • Clipping isn’t fire and forgot, its fire and check - since I don’t trust the clipping function to work I do it and then watch the inbox before moving on. I would be better off with a warning: “can’t clip to PDF/Markdown” than getting a bookmark.
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  • I don’t like having to reboot my Mac every two days to keep software working

There’s no indication you’ll haev to “reboot every two days to keep software working”.

  • Clipping isn’t fire and forgot, its fire and check - since I don’t trust the clipping function to work I do it and then watch the inbox before moving on. I would be better off with a warning: “can’t clip to PDF/Markdown” than getting a bookmark.

This issue isn’t necessarily being able to clip to a specific format. It could be a network glitch or a hang from a bit of JavaScript on a page, etc. The bookmark is clipped so at least there’s something captured.

Would you ever be clipping bookmarks to the Global Inbox?

@BLUEFROG

True. However that is my experience so far.

Background I’m a recovering software developer and recovering Dev Manager. I still code for fun: https://teamsgame.agilepainrelief.com - so I’m as technical as it gets.

The bug isn’t a problem clipping to a specific format. The first time it happened I tried clipping to all the different formats. This feels very much like an application state bug. I can’t characterize more accurately yet.

From this thread (and looking inside the activity monitor) I’ve learned the app I need to restart isn’t Safari, but ClipToDevonThink - which is controlled by … (DevonThink?).

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Update. This is bug is now a daily and sometimes more frequent occurrence.

I capture a document with the Clip to DevonThink functionality. It’s set to Clip to PDF - one page. Most of the time after the first attempt I see that it clipped a weblocation and not a PDF. So I try again. Restarting the app, allows me to Clip to PDF. Some days I’ve had to restart the app several times a day.

Please provide some specific URLs for us to test.
The issue could also be network related.

This time round it was: re:Work

However it’s not associated with any specific page.

Steps:

  1. Leave DT running for a few hours
  2. Decide to clip something to PDF like the rework article above
  3. Check the Inbox to see if it clipped successfully? No it didn’t it clipped to a web location
  4. Restart DT - I have a KM macro this now
  5. Clip a second time
  6. Check the Inbox and this time I get a PDF.

The next you do these steps, immediately hold the Option key and choose Help > Report bug to start a support ticket. This will send us machine info and logs to inspect. Perhaps there’s something useful there.

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Well it was easy to reproduce. If needed I can spend 5 minutes on zoom with you. Doing a ScreenShare.

Cheers
Mark

A reboot has helped for the moment. The challenge as I quipped a while ago, it feels like I need to reboot a couple of times a week just to keep my tools running.

Cheers
Mark

Did you initiate the support ticket as I instructed? I haven’t seen one yet.

FWIW Catching everyone up DT v3.8 appears to have fixed this problem.

3 Likes

Thanks for the follow-up!

Most of the time after the first attempt I see that it clipped a weblocation and not a PDF. So I try again. Restarting the app, allows me to Clip to PDF.

I realize I’m replying to a two-year-old thread, but updates of DevonThink have not helped. Running Monterey on an M1 Mac, DT 3.9.2.

I usually clip as a web archive, but the same thing happens to me. However, I’ve noticed that if I immediately try to clip the page again, I get the correct format. This is without restarting the browser or the computer. So I end up clipping most things twice and then deleting the bookmark version. Using the History view in DT is invaluable for this workaround.

Incidentally, the specific webpage or site has nothing to do with it. It happens everywhere.