Searching for untagged notes in web client

[Px2 16]

When I try to find notes which are not tagged using the following query

-tag:*

a lot of notes show up which actually have tags. This issue exists in the web version but not the Windows desktop client. 

 

Anyone know why this is happening or have some work around to find untagged notes?

[charlieedstrom 31]

I couldn't duplicate it myself. Clear your cache possibly?

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,960]

The Web client beta is known to have some issues with search. Check out its forum, and look there for threads on searching: https://discussion.evernote.com/forum/638-web-client/.

[jeff.kowalski 14]

I believe there is a larger issue in searching for Untagged notes, beginning somewhere around June 2020.

In the webclient, when searching for notes using "-tag:*", I see "focusclient-0.js:15219 XHR finished loading: POST "https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/enweb/notestore" in the console,

and "16 notes" in the top of the note list.   Within the note list, I see slots marked "Loading...", which never fill.  (See screenshot attached).

This is in an account that currently has no untagged notes.

Worse, using the unofficial command-line client against the same account, "geeknote find --tag '-*'" hangs.

Something is wrong.

[CalS 5,280]

11 hours ago, jeff.kowalski said:

I believe there is a larger issue in searching for Untagged notes, beginning somewhere around June 2020.

In the webclient,

If you are on the newest version of the web client go to account settings and go back to the previous version to see if that works.  Issues have been reported with search in the new web client.

[jeff.kowalski 14]

I am using the older version of the web client as you might be able to tell from the screenshot I attached.

[CalS 5,280]

49 minutes ago, jeff.kowalski said:

I am using the older version of the web client as you might be able to tell from the screenshot I attached.

Yeah, good point, my bad.  I don't use the web client much anymore as it takes too long to log in.  Though I'[m wondering if something has changed as to how EN interfaces with my VPN.  Anyway, I waited for EN (9 minutes) to load and using the previous version of the web client:

1. I added a note without a tag and that note appears in a desktop search of -tag:*
2. I do the -tag:* search in the browser version and I get the one note plus a "loading" note, only one.  

Tried to give it a go on new browser version but after 16 minutes I give up.  So it worked okay for me other than the one dummy loading note.  🤷‍♂️

Edit:  Finally got signed in to the New version.  It shows the same note and their is a phantom note beneath it but without the loading moniker. It does say two notes found though clicking on either note in the list returns the same one note which is supposed to be there. 

Don't know what it means but it confirms some of what you are seeing.  I would say BUG.

Edited August 26, 2020 by CalS
Finally signed in with new version

[jeff.kowalski 14]

I can give a little more detail.  In my original post, you can see at the top of the notes panel it says "16 notes", and yet no notes are displayed.  At that time I actually had no untagged notes that would be found by "-tag:*", so the 16 notes is the culprit.

I can verify the error in geeknote, the unofficial commandline client.  There, one would use " geeknote find --tag '-*' ".  It should return "Notes have not been found.", but hangs instead.  Looking inside the code, it's hanging in a loop trying to get those 16 notes, but gets no result each time it tries to get one.  To be specific, it makes the call to findNotesMetadata at geeknote.py:301, which returns a result whose startIndex is 0 as expected, empty notes array as expected, but a totalNotes value of 16, which is in error.   totalNotes should be 0.

Now if I intentionally create an untagged note, then the numbers go up by one.  The UI shows "17 notes", and geeknote's call to findNotesMetadata gives a notes array containing that one note, but a totalNotes of 17, which of course should be 1.

Why is it off by 16?  Are there 16 notes somehow in my notebook that are untagged and also inaccessible? 

[jeff.kowalski 14]

I've made a simple python program to demonstrate the error concretely.  Please see attached.  One must set EVERNOTE_DEV_TOKEN appropriately in your environment.

When I have no untagged notes, running the program gives this:

$ python2 ./untagged.py 
NotesMetadataList(stoppedWords=None, notes=[], searchedWords=None, startIndex=0, updateCount=173443, totalNotes=16)

And when I have exactly one untagged note, I get this:

$ python2 ./untagged.py
NotesMetadataList(stoppedWords=None, notes=[NoteMetadata(updated=None, created=None, deleted=None, contentLength=None, title='test untagged note', notebookGuid=None, updateSequenceNum=None, tagGuids=None, largestResourceMime=None, attributes=None, guid='942fb5ef-9382-4775-a4ec-5289baa6b3ec', largestResourceSize=None)], searchedWords=None, startIndex=0, updateCount=173443, totalNotes=17)

Notice that in each case "NotesMetadataList.totalNotes" is off by 16.  That is the bug.  I do not know what could be the root cause.

( I want to point out that this python script illustrates the problem is now reproducible outside of the webclient, although the problem is still visible there. )

untagged.py

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour ago, jeff.kowalski said:

( I want to point out that this python script illustrates the problem is now reproducible outside of the webclient, although the problem is still visible there. )

Some excellent sleuthing.  I see the same issue in the browser.  Windows and IOS perform as expected.  I just added this thread to a support request.  We'll see.

[jeff.kowalski 14]

@Cals do you have a link or reference # for the support request?  (Thank you for opening one).

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour ago, jeff.kowalski said:

@Cals do you have a link or reference # for the support request?  (Thank you for opening one).

Ticket# 3143235.  For whatever reason support could not replicate.  I did provide screen shots and the rest.  Mystery to me as to why some of us have the problem and they didn't, mystery to them as well.  Anyway, as little as I use the web it's not a biggie.  I went back to the previous for those rare occasions I need the web version as it is more complete and works better than the new and improved for me.

[jeff.kowalski 14]

Thanks, @CalS.  Does that mean they closed the support ticket?  (I still see the problem here.)

[CalS 5,280]

1 minute ago, jeff.kowalski said:

Thanks, @CalS.  Does that mean they closed the support ticket?  (I still see the problem here.)

You are welcome.  Basically yes.  They did say it works for them in Chrome.  I don't like Chrome specifically so I opted not to give that a go.  I prefer Edge and Brave which are based on Chromium for sure, but aren't Chrome.  You could give Chrome a try and if that doesn't work create another support ticket???

[jeff.kowalski 14]

I am using Chrome, but as I pointed out earlier, it's completely independent of the client, as the little Python script shows.  The issue is somewhere on the server side.  It could be the API, or it could be something with my collection of notes.

And, the problem started recently.  It wasn't there a few months ago.

I will open another ticket.  I'm happy to dig into this further.

[CalS 5,280]

18 minutes ago, jeff.kowalski said:

I am using Chrome, but as I pointed out earlier, it's completely independent of the client, as the little Python script shows.  The issue is somewhere on the server side.  It could be the API, or it could be something with my collection of notes.

And, the problem started recently.  It wasn't there a few months ago.

I will open another ticket.  I'm happy to dig into this further.

Cool.  Don't know if this new Conduit sync process is getting in the mix or note?  Let us know.

[jeff.kowalski 14]

As I understand the description of Conduit here, it's a client-side component.  Again, the little python script I included earlier talks directly to the API - no client involved.