Troubleshooting

My graph rearranged itself

Nothing was lost. Where a node sits is presentation, remembered by this browser — your nodes, links, groups and text are untouched by anything on this page.

The distinction that explains all of it


Your data	Nodes, their bodies, links, groups, relations, facets, cards, review history. Stored in your account. Exported. Synced. Never affected by layout.
Presentation	Where each node sits on screen, and your zoom. Stored in this browser. Not exported, not synced, not part of your palace.

Everything below follows from which side of that line a thing falls on.

Why it moved

You are on a different browser or device

The most common cause. Positions are saved locally, so a different browser, a different machine, a private window, or a cleared cache all start from a fresh layout. Nothing followed you because there was never a server copy to follow.

The links changed

The graph is drawn by a simulation that settles nodes according to what they connect to. Add or remove edges — by importing a batch, by weaving, by writing a link — and things move on purpose: the new arrangement is what the new structure looks like.

This is the case where the movement is information rather than noise. A node that drifts to the centre after an import has become well-connected, which is worth noticing.

You restarted the layout

Restart Layout re-runs the simulation from scratch. On its own it keeps anchored nodes pinned — the ones you dragged stay put and everything else settles around them, which is what makes it useful when a layout has got knotted.

Beside it is a toggle that changes that: with it on, Restart Layout also reshuffles the anchored nodes instead of keeping them pinned. That is the one that discards your arrangement, and it does exactly what it says — a deliberate reset rather than a surprise.

What that costs, honestly

A hand-arranged layout can take a long time to build, and it cannot be reconstructed from anything — there is no undo for it and no copy anywhere else. If you arrange a large lens carefully on your laptop, that arrangement is on your laptop.

The thing that softens it is that the simulation is deterministic about structure: the same graph settles into the same shape, with the same clusters in the same relationships, even when the exact placement differs. What you lose is your arrangement, not your ability to read the graph.

If a particular layout matters, take a screenshot. That is not much of an answer, and it is the honest one — there is currently no way to save or share a layout.

What will not move

Nodes you have anchored.Dragging a node pins it; the simulation settles the rest around it. That is how you build a stable layout in the first place — and it lasts as long as this browser's storage does.
Anything about your content. Bodies, links, groups, colours, relations, cards. Rearranging is a redraw, not an edit; nothing is written to your account when the graph settles.

Things that are not this

If nodes have vanished rather than moved, that is a different problem and this page is not it. Two candidates:

You are looking at a macro lens rather than the lens itself — clicking a lens opens a tray instead of the lens.
The nodes are there but grey, and you are not seeing them as you expect — some of my nodes are grey.

And if you want to be certain nothing is gone, the Library lists every entry without going through the graph at all.

Lenses, nodes and links — why the graph is the default view.
Getting your data out — exactly what an export contains, and what it does not.