In an app that Zoho took 3 weeks to recover by repairing a broken backup, I decided to use the Sandbox so I could roll back changes if it broke anything further. Big mistake. Creator could not publish my changes en mass. I had to publish each change one by one. However, Zoho lists changes by type (add, modify, delete) and does not show timing, I could not reapply them in the same order as I made the changes in the Sandbox. This led to numerous inconsistencies and broke forms and reports. The app is completely unusable and so many reports were affected by cascading errors, I decided to fix a different version instead.

Specifically, the version of the app that I was using before the backup/restore. This version had errors that needed repairing before it could generate a viable backup. I made these changes to eliminate the errors that Zoho support had identified in the reports:

I then started trying to clean up unused Workflows, again, trying to reduce potential issues, but this was impossible. I tried clicking on the trash can in the list and they would not go away. I tried opening each one and deleting them using the menu. They still won’t disappear, and if I try opening them again, everything hangs. I get error 500 if I try opening anything else and have to close every tab and then reopen what I need.

Checking the URLs, it seems these workflows are tagged as #Deleted, but are still appearing in the list. I believe these Workflows are the reason why I cannot take a viable backup, but I cannot open them to attempt any further troubleshooting.

Backups run successfully but cannot be restored. I need to make changes to the app but given all the issues I cannot proceed with them until these issues are resolved. My business is hobbled and I cannot wait another 3 weeks for Zoho to fix it. I’m hoping that someone can offer a solution that won’t result in abandoning the application and rebuilding in a more stable system.