Saving a notebook modifies (e.g. removes) metadata

[shahinrostami]

Bug: Saving an ipynb modifies (e.g. removes) metadata.

Steps to cause the bug to occur

1. Save the following to a notebook (.ipynb) file:

{
 "cells": [
  {
   "cell_type": "markdown",
   "metadata": {},
   "source": [
    "Write your post here."
   ]
  }
 ],
 "metadata": {
  "kernelspec": {
   "display_name": "Python 3",
   "env": {},
   "interrupt_mode": "signal",
   "language": "python",
   "metadata": {},
   "name": "python3"
  },
  "nikola": {
   "category": "",
   "date": "2019-10-13 11:38:58 UTC+01:00",
   "description": "",
   "link": "",
   "slug": "test",
   "tags": "",
   "title": "Test",
   "type": "text"
  }
 },
 "nbformat": 4,
 "nbformat_minor": 2
}

2. Open it in VSCode, make a change (e.g. add the word "test" to the markdown) and save it.

3. View the source for the .ipynb and you will see the metadata is gone:

Actual & Expected behavior

The expected behaviour, ideally, is to leave the metadata alone. The site-generator I use throws an error and exits when it doesn't get the expected metadata.

Your Jupyter and/or Python environment

Please provide as much info as you readily know

• Jupyter server running: Local
• VS Code version: 1.40.0-Insider
• Python and/or Anaconda version: Anaconda 2019.7, Python 3.7.3 64-bit
• OS: Mac
• Virtual environment: conda

[rchiodo]

We should not be removing the metadata. The cause of this is we don't save the metadata internally, so of course we remove it.

[shahinrostami]

We should not be removing the metadata. The cause of this is we don't save the metadata internally, so of course we remove it.

I see - thank you for confirming that. How difficult do you think a fix will be?

[rchiodo]

Not very hard. I'm actually working on this right now.

[IanMatthewHuff]

Validated with a local test file. Metadata is no longer removed.