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Urgent Support Request – Lost Student Submission Records in Space

Hugging Face Forums [Unofficial] June 18, 2026
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Hmm. In that case… if we are talking about salvaging the data from the Space itself, I think there is very little more that can be done from the user side at this point. But if we look outside the Space, there may still be a few possible recovery paths. The remaining part is probably the human/admin side of the incident:

I’ll avoid repeating the full storage explanation from my previous reply. The practical answer is:

From the Space itself: probably no normal user-side recovery path remains. Outside the Space: there may still be recoverable copies. Before reopening the form: persistence needs to be fixed first.

What I would still try now

1. Keep the Hugging Face support request open

Since you already emailed Hugging Face, I would wait for their answer.

If there is any infrastructure-side recovery path, only Hugging Face can confirm that. But practically, I would not plan around that being possible. I would start the external-copy search immediately.

2. Search for previously downloaded admin reports

If anyone downloaded the Excel report before the data disappeared, that file may still exist outside the Space.

Search admin machines, synced folders, and shared folders for names like:

specialization_report
submissions
specialization
.xlsx
.csv

Places worth checking:

  • browser download history
  • local Downloads folder
  • Desktop / Documents
  • OneDrive / Google Drive / SharePoint
  • Teams / WhatsApp / email attachments
  • departmental shared drives
  • backup/sync history, if available

3. Ask students for acknowledgement files or screenshots

The app appears to generate downloadable acknowledgement HTML files. If students saved those files, they may contain their submitted choices.

Ask students to search for files like:

acknowledgement_
acknowledgement_<student_id>.html
.html
specialization

Also ask for screenshots, printed pages, browser download history, or any saved acknowledgement page.

This may not reconstruct the original CSV perfectly, but it may recover enough records to reduce the damage.

4. Keep a reconstruction log

If you start recovering records from acknowledgements, reports, screenshots, or emails, I would track where each reconstructed record came from.

For example:

Student ID Source Confidence Notes
<student_id> downloaded acknowledgement HTML high student sent original file
<student_id> screenshot medium manually transcribed
<student_id> previous admin Excel report high report downloaded before loss
<student_id> recollection / message low needs confirmation

This helps separate confirmed records from uncertain ones.

Why Space-side recovery is hard

The key problem is not simply that the file is missing. The problem is where the file probably lived.

A committed file in the Space repository has Git history.

A file written only inside the running Space container is runtime state. It is not automatically committed to the Hub repo, not automatically versioned, and not necessarily visible in the Space file browser.

So once that runtime state is gone, the user normally has nothing to roll back to.

Data path What it means User-side recovery expectation
Committed Space repo file Stored in Git/revisions Maybe recoverable
Private Dataset repo Stored as a Hub dataset repo Maybe recoverable
Attached Storage Bucket Persistent object storage / mounted volume Maybe recoverable, depending on what happened
External DB / Forms / Sheets Stored outside the Space runtime Depends on that system
Local file inside Space container only Runtime-only state Usually not recoverable after the runtime is gone
Downloaded report / acknowledgement file Copy outside the Space Possibly recoverable

So for the lost submissions.csv, if it existed only as a local file inside the Space runtime and disappeared after restart/stop/rebuild/sleep/container replacement, then there is probably no normal user-side recovery path.

That is why the realistic remaining technical paths are:

  1. wait for Hugging Face Support to confirm whether they have any internal recovery option;
  2. search outside the Space for exported reports, acknowledgements, screenshots, or synced copies;
  3. fix persistence before collecting anything again.

Human/admin side

I cannot really advise what your institution should do. That is outside the technical side and should probably be handled by the department, course coordinator, IT/admin staff, or the relevant committee.

But I would document the incident clearly:

  • what data was collected
  • when collection opened
  • when the data was last visible
  • when the loss was noticed
  • what recovery attempts were made
  • which records were recovered from reports or acknowledgements
  • which records remain missing
  • whether a re-collection process is needed
  • what technical change will be made before reopening the form

If the official record cannot be restored, the institution may need to decide whether to accept acknowledgement files, re-collect submissions, or use another official process.

Do not reopen the same workflow before fixing persistence

Before using this Space again for real student submissions, I would not rely on a local file inside the Space runtime.

The Space can be the UI, but the official record should be written somewhere persistent.

How persistence should be implemented next time (click for more details)

Discussion in the ATmosphere

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