Beware of Google's new Docs and Spreadsheets!
 

Not ready for prime time!
I was trying to use it yesterday for compiling insurance readjustments for my Katrina losses. I liked the idea that I could have the spreadsheet on my desktop and be able to take my laptop out to the house and wherever I did the entries the other would update as well.

Nice concept, but there is a serious problem. I had it set to auto-save and it would confirm the saved data. I could go to the window I had left open on the other computer and see that it had indeed updated without user manually refreshing. Nice. Unfortunately it will occasionally pop up a window saying you have lost connnection to the server and it is attempting to reconnect (which it never does). On the popup you have 2 buttons, Refresh and lose saved data (wherever it had decided to stop auto-saving, which is well before the popup) or go into View Mode. View Mode will bring up the data you were working on and the only way to save it is to open another window, log back into Spreadsheets and copy and paste all the entries individually from the View window back into the spreadsheet.:mad:

I tried the Refresh button the 3rd time it happened and that would bring up an error saying it couldn't connect to Google and try again in 30 seconds, which I tried a dozen times. At this point I was through with Google Spreadsheets and exported what data I had remaining to my desktop to use on a local spreadsheet program.

Lesson learned: Don't use Google Spreadsheets except for small amounts of data, or on anything terribly important.:warning

holy shit long ass explanation but hopefully i will remember this someday

i loved the idea, but I too lost a heap of data with the exact same problem

i am sure G will sort it one day

LOL, sorry for "bloviating":upsidedow
Hope I saved someone from the headache:)

Was wondering if it was just a temporary problem, I didn't want to try again:upsidedow

Guess that's why it's tucked under "more" on their site. Would be an excellent thing to have. In the meantime I'm just going to continue jump driving docs between PCs.

I have been using with it with a partner in Cali for quite some time and have yet to see that issue....you make me worried now :(

The error seems to pop up when you attempt to add in new info while it is in the process of saving the previous info you entered.
There is this small lag when you change data in a cell. (autosaving)
If you move quickly to next cell, it occassionally looses the connection. Even if it is something trivial like making something bold text or whatnot.

It no longer happens with me after I figured this out. I just learned to wait a few seconds between entries or changes.

I doubt there is a problem with documents you have saved and closed.

Several times when the red "updating" bar came up it never went away. Must have been those times that caused it to disconnect (although it waited awhile to pop up the disconnect). I wonder if when it's stuck like that if you can "save and close" or would that data be lost anyway?

they are still working on it and its in beta. i wont be using it until its a full release.

I'm too paranoid to use that service. i just don't trust that fucking company one bit.