Working in offline mode

As suggested, Iā€™ve also got a support ticket open for this here (https://support.postman.com/hc/en-us/requests/67559?page=1)

In it, the person helping very kindly provided links to the last version of version 7 (7.36.3 I believe), so people might find that helpful.

Iā€™m going to get one of the IT guys where I work to disabled Z-Scaler for me so we can see if that fixes the issue (Rule 3 - make friends with people in Infrastructure), so once that happens Iā€™ll update this again.

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Apparently the new version (8), Postman is basically useless unless you have internet connection.

The ā€œScratch Padā€ is so pointless as using the Postman without an environment.

Thank you for screwing up so many people.

Regards

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Hey @konkoutros

Could you expand on the reasons why you feel using the Scratch Pad is pointless - If you elaborate more on your context and current workflow, it will help us to better understand.

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@konkoutros is right. Postman v8 seems to be useless and even scratchpad is not useful. Itā€™s not loading my workspace data in scratchpad mode then whatā€™s the point.

If I want to test a one-off request I will use curl not the postman.

Even after adding the proxy details it not working.

How can you release a version with no local backup and works only when connected to the internet?

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Hi @danny-dainton not the person you asked, but for me personally, I can use scratchpad ok. Having to specifically change to it every time I open postman is a little irritating (a whole extra button click), but more than that, itā€™s the fact that all my saved requests werenā€™t imported from the previous version.

APIā€™s is something I was very interested in using, and potentially getting the rest of my team to use as well, but now I canā€™t use it at all as it requires a workspace to use.

Unfortunately, I havenā€™t yet been able to bribe someone to help me turn off the proxy my company uses to see if that fixes the issue, but as someone else in this thread said, theyā€™re having issues with Z-Scaler as well, so is it possible itā€™s actually an issue with Postman handling 307 redirects?

In the latest version - 8.0.6 - there is a new option to move your data from scratchpad to workspace while creating an account.

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Appreciate that, but the original issue of not being able to use Workspace while being offline kind of renders this a little useless :man_shrugging:

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Just to clarify, do you mean multiple Workspaces or a single Workspace?

The scratchpad is essentially a single workspace.

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For me, I need multiple workspaces, partially because thatā€™s the way I already have it setup and also because I have enough unrelated projects that I have to keep it organized somehow.

I donā€™t understand that feature. I have my synced workspace, it canā€™t update if Iā€™m offline (or behind a proxy/vpn), fine. I often connect to VPNs for work, and if by any chance I forget to start postman before connecting to the VPN I have to disconnect, repoen postman and reconnect.

I donā€™t want a separate offline workspace, I just want my workspace, saved locally and backed up/updated when I connect to the internet.

This feels like when Ubisoft started to require internet connections to play local videogamesā€¦ You donā€™t need a DRM, whatā€™s the point?

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Many companies have a ā€œno data must be saved in public cloudā€ policy for security reasons. If you canā€™t work offline in Postman and have to sync all your work into the cloud, this app is now useless for many developpers. We need a way to ā€œnotā€ sync our workspace into the cloud and to be able to fully work offline or we will need to stop using the app.

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This issue is so frustrating. All my collections are saved locally, why do I have to connect to the internet to view my workspaces. I have to disconnect from the corporate vpn before being able to access my local content. Now i have to receive OTPs again, relogin to the vpn before being able to continue working again. It is honestly a frustrating update. Please do something about this guysā€¦

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Yeah, exactly my pointā€¦ Why do you prevent me from accessing the data I have locally cached on my machine?
Especially because it does not stop working once it connects, itā€™s just a ā€˜internet at connectionā€™ kind of thingā€¦
@danny-dainton any insight into what pushed Postman toward such a system? Also, is it something that will be looked at?

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Unable to load data as youā€™re offline

I got the same problem, is there a way roll back to v7 ?

thanks

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v7 links were provided in the accompanying support ticket I raised here

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Hey @wesley_zh! Welcome to the Postman Community :rocket:

You can download the latest version 7 from the link posted in this thread:

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Hey folks. Thanks for all the great feedback, and keep it coming! I work with the product design team at Postman, and I thought I could provide some perspective on where this feature is heading in the long run.

Postmanā€™s mission is to improve your API workflows by providing collaborative tools that help maximize your efficiency. Iā€™ll stress on the collaborative part, because workspaces are a feature that help drive this collaboration. Every feature we build on top of workspaces will be to enable these collaborative workflows.

We completely understand that some of our users cannot access online features due to restrictions imposed on them by their organizations, and there is no reason for us to not allow our non-collaborative features for you all. For this reason, we continue to support every feature that does not require collaboration or an active internet connection. With v8, the only thing thatā€™s changed is the way we handle this. The scratch pad is meant to be inherently offline, and anything you create here stays offline and will never be confused with the online experience within workspaces. This distinction allows us to support both sets of features, without one affecting the other.

The transition to v8 for those of you who might have previously worked offline in workspaces would have been less than ideal. Youā€™d have to export your data (https://learning.postman.com/docs/getting-started/importing-and-exporting-data/#exporting-data-dumps), and reimport it back into the Scratch Pad, but once thatā€™s done, you should be able to work offline without any issues. If this isnā€™t working or is tedious for a reason that wasnā€™t mentioned here, weā€™d love to hear from you and iterate on this to improve your experience.

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Hi,

I think you should differentiate between online/offline and collaborative/non-collaborative. Just because I donā€™t collaborate, does not mean I donā€™t need online and sync features. If I collaborate, does not mean I am not allowed to do anything if Iā€™m offline.

If I do want to collaborate with other people, I would clearly create a Team Workspace. Otherwise, I would create a Personal Workspace. If I create a Personal Workspace, it means I work alone, and sometimes I would be offline, but it does not mean I donā€™t want the sync features. Why else would you have Personal or Team Workspace? Besides, using Scratchpad means my old multiple workspaces all have to be merged into 1 workspace, and it wonā€™t be synced, right?

Thatā€™s why this online/offline decision in v8 is a big mistake, because your basic idea that ā€œcollaboration = online and non-collaboration = offlineā€ is totally incorrect.

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So the ā€œofflineā€ people only get one workspace - the scratchpadā€¦ Meaning that they have to lump many unrelated APIs into a single workspace and can no longer organize them in a sensible way. I fail to see how that improves my API workflow, which was already great in 7.x but pretty poor in 8.x.

I am also in agreement that the old Team/Personal workspace was clear enough in terms of ā€œcollaborationā€ vs ā€œnon-collaborationā€, much clearer than the updated version which unnecessarily conflates the issue with ā€œonlineā€ and ā€œofflineā€.

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Hello, I am also facing the same issue with the postman. I also tried with scratchpad mode but once I get there it open and then black screen appears. It was working fine day before and since yesterday evening saysā€¦offlineā€¦ So all this days is it online or any other issue

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