Internal Links expire upon merge

[Schooner 26]

Annoying:  Internal links are destroyed by appending to target via merge.

Undermines value of internal linking & TOCs.

/Schooner

[DTLow 5,736]

Confirmed: When merging notes, a new note is created - the original notes are moved to the Trash
The link is a reference to the note-id; format evernote:///view/nnnnnnn/snn/<note id>
Since the original note has been deleted, the link is no longer valid

>>Undermines value of internal linking & TOCs.

fwiw  I find search to be more failsafe than internal links. 
For example, inserting ^{keyword_201812081307} in your content ensures the note can be located in the future.
                                                                                                                     

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,954]

I can see how that would be a problem, but it seems to me like it's inevitable. If note B is merged into note A, there is no longer a note B to which its link could point. So also with the former version of note A. The only valid link is to the note A newly created by the merger.

[Schooner 26]

I see your point(s) - mine is simply that linking is wholly unreliable in a merge-tolerant EN.  (Of course mere text/attachment updates don't have the same effect).  The fact remains: the elephant goes amnesiac upon merge if user exploits the internal link function.  Strikes me as a design flaw that even the "parent" note-id in a CTRL-select-merge expires.

/Schooner

 

[DTLow 5,736]

7 hours ago, Schooner said:

linking is wholly unreliable in a merge-tolerant EN

It's sort of like saying mailing addresses are wholly unreliable because people move.
If you move, you need to let people know your new address.
Don't get me started on phone #s

Back to Evernote notes; you could post this as a feature request.  
I'm currently updating the links manually, assisted with some script automation.

[jefito 5,589]

3 hours ago, DTLow said:

It's sort of like saying mailing addresses are wholly unreliable because people move.
If you move, you need to let people know your new address.

The analogy is true enough, but in this case, the problem becomes one of finding all of the notes that link to a particular note (which is going to disappear after the merge takes place). That's not easily done by hand, but Evernote could surely do it more easily and reliably (and this might be a  handy tool to add to Evernote's filtering capabilities), and warn if a merge was going to create dead links, and even better, help to resolve them.