Sync looks stuck

What syncs, and what does not

Syncs	Does not
Bookmarks	AI chats, projects and artifacts
The non-secret part of Nova’s settings	Your provider list and API keys
Tabs and layouts, one document per Mac, one way	Terminal output, ever

If you are waiting for a chat to appear on another machine, it is not coming: Where your AI data is stored explains why.

Check these first

Are you signed in? Nothing syncs signed out. The workspace works anyway, which is exactly why this is easy to miss.

Was the device revoked? A revoked device’s writes are refused with “This device was revoked. Pair it again to keep syncing.” Check your account page and see Paired devices.

Is the connection blocking websockets? Changes from other devices arrive over a live channel. On a network that blocks it, your own changes still save and other devices’ changes only appear when you reload.

Has anything changed since? A push that fails offline is kept on the device and retried on the next change, not on a timer. If a machine was offline when you edited something, make another small change to trigger the retry.

Is it a one-way document? Tabs and layouts are mirrored from a Mac to your account for other devices to read. Editing them elsewhere does not push back.

How a disagreement is resolved

Every document has a version, and a write says which version it was based on. If another device got there first, the write is refused rather than overwriting, then retried on top of the current version — up to three times.

Bookmarks merge item by item: the newest edit of each bookmark wins, and a deletion is carried as a tombstone rather than a gap. That is the reason a bookmark you deleted on one machine does not reappear from another machine’s older copy — without the tombstone, “I have it” would always beat “I do not”.

The merge is deterministic, so two devices resolving the same conflict independently end up with the same list.

When it is not you

The status page lists sync as its own service. It is maintained by hand rather than by automated probes, so treat it as a statement of what we know — and if sync is broken while that page says otherwise, that gap is worth telling us about: Something is broken — how to report it.