What happened
Between December 1 and December 15, 2025, an issue affected the display of per-NotePart authorship and modification timestamps on certain Entries. This issue applied to Entries originally created prior to December 1, 2025 that were edited at any point during the affected window.
Each Entry is composed of individual components called NoteParts. A NotePart is an individual piece of content within a Notebook Entry, such as a text block, header, or table. Each NotePart maintains its own author and modification timestamp, visible in the left-hand margin when Timestamps are enabled via the gear icon. When a user edits a specific NotePart, only that NotePart reflects the updated author and modification timestamp. This is separate from the Entry version history, which displays successive Entry versions and reflects the most recent edit at the Entry level.
During the affected period, if a user edited a single NotePart within an existing Entry, the autosave process created a new NotePartVersion for every NotePart in the Entry. As a result, prior NotePart-level authorship appeared masked in the timestamps view on the latest version, even though only one NotePart had actually been modified.
Importantly, no Entry data was altered. Historical versions of affected Entries remain unchanged and continue to display the correct per-NotePart authorship and modification timestamps.
Example of impacted timestamp display
When users enable timestamps in an Entry or Template (via the gear icon in the upper-right corner), each individual content component displays its own author attribution and modification timestamp in the left-hand margin (Image 1).
Each individual content component within an Entry is considered a NotePart. Every NotePart maintains its own authorship and modification timestamp. When a user edits a specific NotePart, that NotePart reflects the updated author and timestamp.
In the example shown in Image 2, five different NoteParts are displayed, each with its own timestamp. Two NoteParts are attributed to one user, while the other three are attributed to another, reflecting independent edit histories.
During the affected window, if a user modified only one NotePart within an Entry, the autosave process created a new NotePartVersion for all NoteParts in the Entry. As a result, the authorship and modification timestamp were updated across all NoteParts in the latest version.
As illustrated in Image 3, if a user modified only the NotePart containing the Plasmid Prep registration table (for example, changing the dropdown value from “Maxi” to “Mini”), the newly created version would display all NoteParts as updated by that same user at the same time, even though only one NotePart was actually modified.
Current status
A fix was deployed on December 15, 2025 to prevent recurrence. Historical per-NotePart authorship and modification timestamp metadata for impacted entries will be restored through a separate remediation process.
Remediation approach
Benchling will proceed with a remediation process to restore the correct per-NotePart authorship and modification timestamp metadata for impacted records.
Key details:
- Remediation updates metadata only
- Scientific content is not modified
- Reviewed and approved entries are included
- Remediation applies only to production tenants
Remediation sequencing
Notebook entries and related notebook models (Entries, Templates, Worksheets, and similar content) will be remediated first.
Folder Items (such as Description panes and folders) will be addressed after other notebook models.
Opt-out process
Benchling will proceed with correcting the affected metadata by default.
Customers who do not wish to have this remediation applied may opt out.
Customers have until March 17, 2026 to opt out of the remediation. If no opt-out is received by this date, Benchling will proceed with applying the correction.
To opt out, please submit a ticket to support@benchling.com and include “NoteParts Issue” in the subject line.
Opting out will result in the affected entries retaining the current authorship and modification timestamp metadata.
Instructions for opting out are included in the customer communication associated with this notice.
Need help?
If you have questions about this issue, need assistance understanding the remediation, or would like to opt out, please contact Benchling Support at support@benchling.com or reach out to your Benchling representative.