While syncing my cookbooks and recipes, it started deleting them from MasterCook on my computer. How do I fix this?

Whenever you have a syncing problem, the first thing you should do is log out of your account in the sync manager. So, immediately go to the My Account screen and press the Logout button.

There are a few things that cause this problem. You should walk through each one listed below before you sign back into the sync manager again.

1. If you are not using the latest version of MasterCook 24, you most certainly will have syncing problems. Please follow these instructions: MasterCook 24 Updates
2. If you have duplicate online cookbooks, that will prevent that cookbook from syncing properly since none of the Windows programs allow duplicate cookbooks. It can only sync with one of those online duplicate cookbooks. So, use a web browser and go to your My Cookbooks web page in your account. Check to see if you have more than one copy of that cookbook online, such as My Cookbook and My Cookbook 1 with your recipes split between them. If you do, that also caused your problem. To fix duplicate online cookbooks, you can either:
         (a) Open one of the online duplicate cookbooks with the fewest recipes and edit each recipe to assign it to the other cookbook and repeat with each recipe until the duplicate cookbook is empty and you then delete that empty duplicate cookbook.
         (b) Or, you can use the download link next to each duplicate cookbook to download them as a file to your computer. Then open each one to add them as new cookbooks to MasterCook 24. Then create a brand-new cookbook and copy/paste the recipes into that new cookbook and use the new cookbook going forward. Do not sync though until you follow Step 3 below to reset the sync files on the computer.
3. If you have corrupt sync files on the computer, it will cause syncing problems. You should refresh the syncing files on the computer as explained below. You can do this in the future if wanted/necessary as well. It does not harm anything.

If you want to review the actions that happened when you sync, you should view the sync log files that MasterCook creates. See the screenshot below. It creates one for each day you sync, so you can review them whenever you wish. Sync log text files are created at this location if you used the default installation: C:\ProgramData\MasterCook 24\SyncLogs. See the screenshot below. These are plain text files that can be opened with any text editor, like Notepad or Word.

RESETTING SYNC FILES FOR MASTERCOOK 24

First, make sure you have a recent backup copy of your MasterCook files on your computer. Please backup your files on a regular basis.

Next, please restart your computer and do not use MasterCook yet. Open this folder on your computer:
 
C:\ProgramData\MasterCook 24

If you do not see the ProgramData folder within the C drive, that means Windows is hiding it from you. See this article: How to Show Hidden Files on Windows 11
 
Then delete the JSON files and the MCW file from that folder. If there are several MCW files, delete all of them. See the screenshot below. Then startup MasterCook and launch the sync manager and sign into your account. Make sure things look as expected before you sync.

PREVENTION

1. Please backup your files on a regular basis. See these instructions: MasterCook 24 Backup
2. Please always follow the instructions in this article when syncing from now on: MasterCook 24 Sync Manager
   The above article also lists things that will cause syncing problems (see the Encountering Problems section within that article), so please review those before you sync.

The same MasterCook 24 Sync Manager article includes a section for Best Practices as well as Error Message Explanations.

RELATED ARTICLES

Clear Recipes from MasterCook.com -- Something to consider if you wish to start anew with syncing.

Recover Deleted Recipes within the Sync Manager -- You are able to use the sync manager to recover recipes that were deleted from your online account.