A few days ago, on my laptop I created a new deck and a new card template for that deck, which I have used to create all cards in that deck. The card template has two fields on the front of the card and three fields on the back of the card. I study using the AnkiMobile app on my phone.
The first couple of days, the deck was fine when studying. But the last couple of days, I have had problems with some (but not all) cards in each study session. On affected cards, only the second of the two “front of the card” fields shows on the front of the card. Then when I look at the back of such a card, I see that same field (in the right location up the top before the line separating the question from the answer) and what should have been the first “front of the card” field (located below the line separating the question from the answer) and cannot see the “back of the cards” fields. A card that is messed up in one study session can be fine in the next study session, and vice versa.
I have checked that I didn’t enter information in the wrong fields when creating those particular cards. I have also run Tools > Check Database, but the problem has continued after that. I have also tried studying that same deck using the Anki app on my laptop, and am having the same issue, so this problem is not specific to the AnkiMobile phone app. I am not having this issue with any of my other (and much older) custom-built decks.
If the same issue is happening on both devices, I suspect there’s something about the HTML/styling in some of your fields that is triggering the issue, such as an unclosed tag. Perhaps there is a pattern to the card that was shown immediately preceding the problem?
Could you explain what you mean by an ‘’unclosed tag’’? When I get home tonight, I will have another run through the deck and look for any pattern on preceding cards.
I have been through another couple of study sessions. Alas, I can’t spot a pattern based on each preceding card (i.e., the card I see immediately before a problem card) that indicates what is happening here. The study sessions now alternate between a series of good cards, then a series of bad cards, then a series of good cards, etc.
Fields use HTML for styling, eg This is <b>Bold text</b> becomes ‘This is bold text’. If the styling markers don’t match (eg “start bold”, but no “stop bold”), it can cause issues.
There may still be a pattern here that we haven’t discovered yet. The next time it crops up, please try undoing a few cards until you’re a few cards back into the cards that showed up correctly. Do they show up correctly when you do that, or do they display incorrectly when you return to them with undo? If they don’t show up correctly when returning to them, please return to the deck list, then go back into study mode again. Are they still showing up incorrectly, or did the problem correct itself?
For testing this, you might want to switch to the v3 scheduler, which should be more consistent with how cards reappear:
There is no styling like that on the card template I use to create the cards for this particular deck. The instructions for the front of the card are:
{{English}}
{{Task}}
The instructions for the back of the card are:
{{FrontSide}}
{{French}}
{{Pronunciation}}
{{Notes/Picture}}
As you suggested, I switched to the v3 scheduler and, each time I struck a problem card, then went back a few cards before moving forward again. The problem cards still displayed incorrectly when I repeated them. I then undid all the cards I had studied, went out to the deck list, then entered the deck again and studied the same number of cards. The problems remain with the same cards. (I had a problem with one other card, but it’s possible that I didn’t notice the problem on that particular card the first time I was in the deck.)
I have also taken a closer look at the problem cards and the immediately preceding card to try to find any pattern in terms of the content of the card, but I can’t see a pattern.
Yep, your templates look fine, I was more thinking of styling inside individual fields.
So to confirm, undoing a batch of reviews, then restarting study caused the issue to start happening again at the same point? That gives us a reproducible test case, and the next time it happens, if you could undo the changes, sync, and then let me know which deck/how many cards I should study, I can try to reproduce the problem locally. Please avoid syncing again after that until I have a chance to copy your collection and get back to you.
The deck is called “3 - VERBES.” In the latest study session, I am having problems with the first five cards not displaying properly (surprendre, rentrer, to try, pouvoir, tomber), then I have two well-behaved cards, then the next card is not displaying properly (boire) and then I have a long sequence of well-behaving cards before I get to the next card not displaying properly (descendre).
I have undone all the revisions and then synced Anki. I am about to go to bed, so won’t be touching Anki for several hours. It is OK to review decks other than “VERBES” when I get up?
FWIW, as this is a recently-created deck without too many cards so far, I could probably build a new deck with the same content in a couple of hours. I’ve been reluctant to do so so far in case I end up with the same problem. But just letting you know in case it’s relevant to how I should proceed in order to end up with a functional deck (e.g., you can identify the problem but it’s not easily fixed in the existing deck).
Ok, it’s safe to sync again. It looks like I was overthinking things here - the issue is that you’ve got Anki set up to create two cards for each input. The first of the two cards includes English and Task, but the second card only has Task on the front. If you only wish to see the former cards, you can select one of the cards in the browse screen of the computer version, then:
Click on Cards…
Select the second, unwanted template from the dropdown at the top
Remove it via the button on the right. That will delete all the second cards.