Collaboration snapshots
When an editing session ends, a collaboration snapshot is created. It includes all the necessary data for debugging and retrieval of the document when required. The snapshot data is encrypted with a key unique for each environment. Snapshots and related data are permanently removed after 30 days.
The collaboration snapshots feature can be helpful when solving difficult-to-reproduce cases related to documents. For example:
- When data is stored on the user’s side, relying on webhooks. When an issue occurs with webhook delivery, the data might be potentially lost.
- Issues related to the use of an erroneous editor bundle.
- Issues related to operation corrupting the document.
- Other cases introducing irreversible changes to the document.
collaboration-document-session-ended– Use these snapshots when you want to recover the document from the given state before session has ended, for example, when the document was accidentally deleted or its content was overwritten.collaboration-document-worker-evaluation-failed– Use these snapshots when an issue occurred during the editor bundle evaluation on the Cloud Services side, for example during the document export, or compression. The snapshots contain all the details regarding the respective operations, their input, as well as the exact error that occurred.collaboration-editor-script-evaluation-started– Use these snapshots when an erroneous script was used during the Server-Side Editors API evaluation, for example, if its results produce unforeseen or accidental changes.documents-document-saved– Use these snapshots when you want to get or restore the content from any previous save to the document storage, in case of accidental deletion or incorrect overwrite.
The collaboration snapshots are available by using the REST API.
You can also browse and download collaboration snapshot debug bundles directly from the Cloud Services Portal (or the Management Panel when using On-Premises) – see the Document observability hub guide for details.
To debug and/or retrieve the document, the CKEditor team needs you to provide a zip containing these 3 files:
- The document snapshot
.json - The editorBundle
- The config
To retrieve your document’s snapshot, follow these steps:
- Get a list of snapshots existing for the selected document. Use the REST API GET metadata endpoint.
- Use the selected snapshot’s metadata to retrieve it and save it as
.json. Use the REST API GET snapshots endpoint. - Get editorBundle. Use the REST API Get editor bundle endpoint.
- Get config. Use the REST API Get editor bundle config endpoint.
- Send editorBundle, config, and snapshot to our team.
Please note that in some cases the document might not be recoverable completely. In that case, the CKEditor team will analyze the problem and provide the reason and potential solution or remedy steps.
When the CKEditor team retrieves operations from your document, you will receive a file with your document’s content in HTML. Use the retrieved data to create a new editing session by sending a request to this REST API endpoint.
Make sure that you are using the same documentId/channelId for Collaboration snapshot creation that was used for the original document you are trying to recover.
If you have any feedback regarding this feature, feel free to contact us.