My computer that had my most up to date notes is no longer working, cannot sync most up to dates notes that were on that computer

[sethrswenson 0]

I've always had sync issues with evernote between my two computers, but put up with it since I only really used evernote on one of them regularly.  Now that the computer with my most up to date notes is toast, I feel I have lost those notes forever.  Is there there any way to retrieve those notes?  I've tried to do a sync post mortem, and the sync button goes about its merry way without complaints, but no updates (extra detail: the computer with the most up to date notes always showed an error when syncing with the other computer).  

Clarification:

Mac Book: Has old version of notes.  Does not error when sync button is pressed.  Has exact same notes that web version of EN contains. 

PC (Nonrecoverable):  Has the latest version of notes, but is no longer accessible.  Always got an error when I pressed the sync button.  

 

[CalS 5,280]

Notes don't sync between computers, they sync to the EN servers and then to any other devices on which you use EN.  

Go to the web version of EN and sign in.  Your notes should be there.  Assuming they are, remove and reinstall EN on your other computer and your notes should sync at that point. 

[sethrswenson 0]

Thanks for the response.  I see, so I checked and the notes on my working laptop are the same notes as the web version of EN.  My guess is the notes on the other laptop were never able to get pushed up to the server and therefore I was always working with a local copy, and those notes are indeed gone?

[CalS 5,280]

4 minutes ago, sethrswenson said:

Thanks for the response.  I see, so I checked and the notes on my working laptop are the same notes as the web version of EN.  My guess is the notes on the other laptop were never able to get pushed up to the server and therefore I was always working with a local copy, and those notes are indeed gone?

Not necessarily.  

1. You have to create local notebook for notes not to sync, did you do that?  
2. It may be that you accidentally created another account (it happens more than one might think) and the other notebook is signed in to that account.  Check the user id on the other laptop to be sure it is exactly the same as the one on your main laptop (go to File and look towards the bottom of the list).  If you did it is possible though a few steps to merge the notes from the other accidental account to your prime account and get your prime account on the other laptop.
3. It may be that for whatever reason EN on the other laptop has not synced.  What happens when you press the sync icon?  Are any of the notes on the other laptop the same as the ones on your main laptop?

Take a look at the above and advise and we can see what next steps might be.

[DTLow 5,736]

22 hours ago, sethrswenson said:

Now that the computer with my most up to date notes is toast,

How "toast" is it.  Is there any hope of salvage?

[gazumped 11,667]

18 hours ago, DTLow said:

How "toast" is it.  Is there any hope of salvage?

I wondered the same thing.  If this is a Windows computer,  you'd be able to copy the database to an un-toasty computer and reasonably easily export the notes to ENEX,  then re-import them into your current account database

[JohnLongney 83]

My advice would be to remove the harddisk from the defunct machine. Proceed to check whether data can be accessed through USB connection. If that is possible, make sure Evernote is not open on the working machine and that the PC is offline (mandatory!) . Then move the xxx.exb file from the Evernote files (Win10 location -c:\Users\name\Evernote\Databases\ to somewhere else and then copy! the .exb file from old machine's harddisk (do not move- unsafe!).

Go online and start Evernote. To my mind this should very hopefully allow full syncing with the EN server. Check the activity log for any errors.

If anybody here disagrees with my assumptions, pls. do speak up! 

[DTLow 5,736]

39 minutes ago, JohnLongney said:

My advice would be to remove the harddisk from the defunct machine. Proceed to check whether data can be accessed through USB connection. If that is possible, make sure Evernote is not open on the working machine and that the PC is offline (mandatory!) . Then move the xxx.exb file from the Evernote files (Win10 location -c:\Users\name\Evernote\Databases\ to somewhere else and then copy! the .exb file from old machine's harddisk (do not move- unsafe!).

Go online and start Evernote. To my mind this should very hopefully allow full syncing with the EN server. Check the activity log for any errors.

If anybody here disagrees with my assumptions, pls. do speak up! 

A little more detail on the Evernote side, but let's focus on salvaging the old pc first or it's moot

[gazumped 11,667]

From the description so far it sounds like the old computer may have older versions of some notes that were updated on the new device.  If there's a complete database replacement here there may be unexpected results when syncing with the new-version notes on the server.  Better,  I think,  to export and import to new notebooks - there will be a lot of duplicate notes,  but that's fixable over time.

[JohnLongney 83]

Strange, my understanding is that the PC that is either forever or at least for the time being out of commission is one with the lastest stand, whereas the current working model is not uptodate, otherwise there would not be any problems anyway.

Whatever the case, if the harddisk in question had a headcrash then any further attempts at using the disk would be most inadvisable.  

Let's  hope it's just the mainboard.

 

 

[gazumped 11,667]

Hmmn.  You may be right - " the computer with the most up to date notes always showed an error when syncing " but we'll see...

[sethrswenson 0]

On 1/24/2017 at 6:32 PM, csihilling said:

Not necessarily.  

1. You have to create local notebook for notes not to sync, did you do that?  
2. It may be that you accidentally created another account (it happens more than one might think) and the other notebook is signed in to that account.  Check the user id on the other laptop to be sure it is exactly the same as the one on your main laptop (go to File and look towards the bottom of the list).  If you did it is possible though a few steps to merge the notes from the other accidental account to your prime account and get your prime account on the other laptop.
3. It may be that for whatever reason EN on the other laptop has not synced.  What happens when you press the sync icon?  Are any of the notes on the other laptop the same as the ones on your main laptop?

Take a look at the above and advise and we can see what next steps might be.

1.  I would just click the new note or new notebook button, was never aware there was a local notebook option.  

2. I was thinking maybe that was possible, but checked the access history in the settings and saw that the account was being accessed by the two different computers.  

3. I do not receive any errors when I click the sync button on the working computer.  Yes a lot of the notes on the broken computer are the same as the one's on the working computer.

 

For everyone else commenting on recovering the broken computer, there is no way of recovering it.  I should have clarified that in the original post, so I will edit it.   

 

 

[CalS 5,280]

 

On 1/23/2017 at 5:43 PM, sethrswenson said:

Clarification:

Mac Book: Has old version of notes.  Does not error when sync button is pressed.  Has exact same notes that web version of EN contains. 

PC (Nonrecoverable):  Has the latest version of notes, but is no longer accessible.  Always got an error when I pressed the sync button.  

Based on your clarification, it would seem your original assessment that the PC did not sync is accurate.  Sorry for putting you through the extra steps.

The EN servers are gospel for notes in an account.  Since the missing PC notes never made it to the servers the only place to recover the notes would be from a personal backup.  Sorry. 

[JohnLongney 83]

7 minutes ago, csihilling said:

 

Based on your clarification, it would seem your original assessment that the PC did not sync is accurate.  Sorry for putting you through the extra steps.

The EN servers are gospel for notes in an account.  Since the missing PC notes never made it to the servers the only place to recover the notes would be from a personal backup.  Sorry. 

Can you please tell me which file on the PC contains any unsynced notes? Is it the .exb file?

[DTLow 5,736]

1 minute ago, JohnLongney said:

Can you please tell me which file on the PC contains any unsynced notes? Is it the .exb file?

On the Windows platform, my understanding is that everything is contained in the .exb file

If you wanted to get technical, you can go into your database and see a metadata flag on your unsynced data

[JohnLongney 83]

Thanks @DTLow for your info.

Unless the harddisk is technically speaking a case for forensic recovery only, data recovery in other cases is often quite easy. Because it is too easy I prefer to give my old harddisks a more lasting treatment by my neighbour's tractor before assigning them to the recycle bin.

[CalS 5,280]

26 minutes ago, JohnLongney said:

Can you please tell me which file on the PC contains any unsynced notes? Is it the .exb file?

Yes the .exb file is your data base file on the PC.  If you are thinking about a backup, consider the ENEX export option as well.   Easier to get one deleted note back, in my view anyway.  

[JohnLongney 83]

13 hours ago, csihilling said:

Yes the .exb file is your data base file on the PC.  If you are thinking about a backup, consider the ENEX export option as well.   Easier to get one deleted note back, in my view anyway.  

Thx for your confirmation as well. As a matter of fact I have found my own personal solution to automated backup in the form of a paid service that also converts the EN content - if applicable - to pdf format, all very neatly transferred to my Dropbox web account. In other words, full replication of my Evernote web content. Alterations made to notes are available in Dropbox in less than 3 - 4 minutes, sending the older versions to the recycle bin. Basically I feel on the safe side and only an absolute worst case scenario would mean one or two notes lost.

[DTLow 5,736]

7 hours ago, JohnLongney said:

paid service that also converts the EN content

Need for backup I understand.  Why the need to convert your note format?

The native html (mostly) format works for me

[JohnLongney 83]

First of all I prefer a format which, independent of viewer looks the same, has all content embedded, easy sharing, easy encryption, scaleable without quality loss, batch printing no problem. It is currently the accepted standard format for document storage past editing stage. 

btw: it took me a long time to warm to this format.

[DTLow 5,736]

1 hour ago, JohnLongney said:

has all content embedded

That's what I was concerned about.  In Evernote, you can have attachments of various formats; pdf, images, office/iWorks ....

Not clear on embedding these in a PDF 

In Evernote's HTML export, the note retains its format.  A folder is created for the attachments and they retain their format

[JohnLongney 83]

21 hours ago, DTLow said:

That's what I was concerned about.  In Evernote, you can have attachments of various formats; pdf, images, office/iWorks ....

Not clear on embedding these in a PDF 

In Evernote's HTML export, the note retains its format.  A folder is created for the attachments and they retain their format

I am somewhat puzzled at your question. Chrome for instance allows saving of web pages, printing as well. By way of a virtual pdf printer driver the same pages can be saved as pdf.

What is different to html? Once you have access to an html file you can fiddle with it. Pdf can be made read-only, can be digitally validated (= digital signature). Pdf has everything embedded, including fonts and will look the same, regardless system or viewer. 

[DTLow 5,736]

36 minutes ago, JohnLongney said:

I am somewhat puzzled at your question. Chrome for instance allows saving of web pages, printing as well. By way of a virtual pdf printer driver the same pages can be saved as pdf.

What is different to html? Once you have access to an html file you can fiddle with it. Pdf can be made read-only, can be digitally validated (= digital signature). Pdf has everything embedded, including fonts and will look the same, regardless system or viewer. 

I was thinking of attachments in relation to embedding.  

For example, if I had a note with two PDF files, a mail file and a word file; how would this look  in your PDF export

[JohnLongney 83]

12 hours ago, DTLow said:

I was thinking of attachments in relation to embedding.  

For example, if I had a note with two PDF files, a mail file and a word file; how would this look  in your PDF export

No different to the evernote 'composite', simply merged into one file. Merging, splitting and more are common edits. Why else would there be so many basic pdf editors on the market? Don't know whether you shop with Amazon and the like, but some 2 or 3 years ago they decided to dispense with inclusion of invoices in the parcels and make you download them,  in pdf format. These pdfs, being legal documents, cannot be altered content-wise. For most of my stuff, I do know need legal-grade pdfs, but I prefer to have finalised work in one document, also applicable for the interim (backup up) stage. I also prefer to have relatively stringent filing. Alphanumerical still rulez. Where document title and date of creation is insufficient I add keywords (tags) to my own pdfs. 

Btw, for me, there is no point in using Evernote as my multimedia organizer/backup store. I have dedicated software for that and what with the throttled upload speed to Evernote my TBs of collections would never get there in my lifetime.

OT//   As for tagging, I regret to say, Evernote's handling could be a lot better. Adobe Lightroom, both for tagging and query, is professional by comparison. And yet Lightroom is by no means premiere class in that field. 

[DTLow 5,736]

56 minutes ago, JohnLongney said:

No different to the evernote 'composite', simply merged into one file. Merging, splitting and more are common edits.

The "evernote composite" maintains attachments in their native file format.  
I've used embeded images in a pdf document; never tried other file formats

>>Btw, for me, there is no point in using Evernote as my multimedia organizer/backup store.

That's exactly the way I use Evernote - it's my digital filing cabinet
I convert most of my static notes to pdf format; but I keep other documents (doc ...) in their native format

>>OT//   As for tagging, I regret to say, Evernote's handling could be a lot better.

There always can be improvements, and some platforms have better feature
Many people don't use tagging; they use notebooks, or demand Folders