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Sync requires opening the same document on both devices #210

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Description

@frandavid100

In my testing, documents (pads) only seem to synchronize if Reflection is open on both devices and I open the same document on both devices. If the app is open but the document isn’t currently opened in the UI, changes don’t appear to sync. This makes multi-device use and collaboration more cumbersome than expected, because it requires manually opening each document to “trigger” syncing.

Steps to reproduce

On Device A, open Reflection and open Pad X
Make a change in Pad X
On Device B, open Reflection but stay on the document list (do not open Pad X)
Observe that the change doesn’t arrive (or only arrives once Pad X is opened on Device B)

Expected behavior

Sync should happen at the application level, as long as Reflection is running, without requiring users to open each document individually. Ideally, the document list should reflect incoming updates even if a given pad is not currently opened.

As an extra improvement, it would be great if Reflection could keep syncing while running in the background after closing the main window (tray/background mode), so it can behave more like a “sync client” when desired.

This would make everyday usage smoother across multiple devices and reduce friction for asynchronous collaboration, since updates would propagate without extra manual steps.

Environment

Reflection (Flathub Beta preview)
OS/DE: GNOME (Wayland) on Linux

Activity

  1. jsparber commented on Feb 11, 2026

    @jsparber
    Collaborator

    Thanks for the report, this in the intended behaviour, but we already noticed that this makes it much harder to collaborate. We definitely want to change the current syncing behaviour to something you are describing.

  2. frandavid100 commented on Feb 11, 2026

    @frandavid100
    Author

    That's great to hear. Thanks for your hard work.

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