dear Evernote Windows v10 - offline mode failure, real-use flaws, bugs and instabilities

[ej8899 175]

Dear Evernote.... this is what your average CUSTOMERS are seeing with version 10.0.  We have performance problems, sluggishness and otherwise have questions to the status of our notes.  Things are missing, things are downgraded.  What is going on behind the scenes?  How many times have you watched an Apple announcement saying "Here is the Shiny New Macbook...  BUT... we downgraded the diplay to 1024x768... AND installed a traditional spinning hard disk instead of a superfast SSD?"  "It's worse than last years model, BUT hey  it is shiny and new so enjoy!"

Anyway...  Maybe I'm just old and not understanding how things work now-a-days.

Regardless... some thoughts based on my video which I've linked below.

04:30 - no idea if I'm running Evernote "offline" or not. Can't click in the note.  Is that supposed to be my indication Evernote is offline?  Or should I wait in case it's just a pause in the program running?  Is the note fully sync'd?

05:30 - why so sluggish merely typing text.  This is on an IBM Thinkpad laptop.  Core i7 8th gen processor.  16gb RAM.

11:56 - is this note now synced to the server?  no idea again.

12:03 - note history is broken?  I didn't see that in the 'new features' of evernote.

13:30 - evernote screen shots are gone - maybe they'll make a return?  Hopefully anyway - I use those daily.   Here's what I'll do in the meantime.

14:38 - paste an image into Evernote is slow - this is a simple screen shot - why so slow to paste?

14:56 - why do I have to wait for the menu to turn active?  

16:33 - haven't seen this bug in a while - vibrating images are back!

19:09 - "no notes found" - when offline - really bad wording - Evernote should know it is offline and tell us that - not "No notes" when it really doesn't know!

Anyway.. this is just what your average CUSTOMER - yes CUSTOMER sees.  BUT your average customer is not making a video to tell you these concerns.  They're throwing in the towel and moving to a different application.  They are not renewing after their current period is up.    I'm utterly confused by what seems to be going at Evernote, but hey it's your business model.   Fingers crossed we see some rapid updates and return of missing features very very soon. 
 

 

[laohu 2]

I have been an EN user since 2008. No support for local/unsynced notebooks means I will have to look for another solution. Sad..

[Alxa 479]

On 10/9/2020 at 7:33 PM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

So all this explains the performance issues being reported in the other forum:

No local/offline DB + constant syncing = sloooow perfromance. Of course, I don't see that in the Web client so they must have messed something else up to fully account for the slowness.

Hi, i realized that Evernote 10 actually syncs and stores the whole account to the harddrive. Look at: C:/users/youraccount/appdata/roaming/evernote. The folder ony my computer is as big as the storage folder of the parallel installation of legacy evernote. When cutting of Wifi the client still accesses the downloaded content. So it seems the offline functionality is already included but without any convenience (no status indication of being online/offline, no possibility to mark certain or all notebooks for offline storage).

[Graham Gott 17]

I was beginning to think it was just me until I saw this post.  Downloaded it yesterday with eager anticipation but found my daily journal note in a mixture of various fonts with no way to set them back to what they were. None of my note links worked and lots of other menu functions were missing. No options - at least I couldn't find them.
Above all, it was so slooooow...!!!

Fortunately, I manage to find and re-install v6.25 back with great relief when everything worked again - after I reset the fonts in the notes I edited.

I did however notice v6.25 was running slightly slower than usual which concerned me until I realised v10 was still installed. Uninstalled that and all is well again!!!

I'm sticking with what works and I'm not going near a new version any time soon....

[tommy_ev 4]

19 hours ago, ej8899 said:

Regardless... some thoughts based on my video which I've linked below.

Thank you for your video and thoughts. Kept me from updating and saved my sanity ...

Does anyone know for sure what is the plan for a real offline mode? Will it return (soon)? Is it gone for good? On the release page, it is neither mentioned under "What features are not yet available in the new app?" nor under "What features are no longer supported in the new app?" (except "local notebooks", but that's a different story I think).

It is beyond me to imagine that this "feature" won't return, but I would like to get some (semi-)official confirmation about the status. Else it would spoil every trip outside wifi coverage and make it largely useless for me.

Best regards.

[s2sailor 2,191]

3 hours ago, tommy_ev said:

Does anyone know for sure what is the plan for a real offline mode? Will it return (soon)? Is it gone for good? On the release page, it is neither mentioned under "What features are not yet available in the new app?" nor under "What features are no longer supported in the new app?" (except "local notebooks", but that's a different story I think).

I have read elsewhere that offline notebooks (stored locally for offline access but still sync'd to the cloud) will be coming.  They have stated that local notebooks (stored locally but NOT sync'd to the cloud) will no longer be supported.  Some of us used local notebooks for the security of not having data sitting on a cloud server.  Maybe someday they will implement encrypted notebooks to address security concerns, but until then, some of us are sh%t out of luck and will have a tough decision to make when the legacy version is no longer supported or breaks.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

So all this explains the performance issues being reported in the other forum:

No local/offline DB + constant syncing = sloooow perfromance. Of course, I don't see that in the Web client so they must have messed something else up to fully account for the slowness.

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour ago, s2sailor said:

Maybe someday they will implement encrypted notebooks to address security concerns, but until then, some of us are sh%t out of luck and will have a tough decision to make when the legacy version is no longer supported or breaks.

May or may not help, I've mentioned this before someplace I think. 

I use local notebooks for confidential stuff.  Most of the notes in these notebooks (3) contain a single PDF.  When I first saw this coming with the beta I ran a quick test by putting some PDFs in a simple folder system with an eye to facilitating backup (root folder with year sub-folders) and turning on Windows indexing for the folders.  Windows search worked remarkably well.  The folders can be placed in a VeraCrypt container if need be.  Downside is having to search in two places though not much overlap in search intent.  I 'm pretty sure I could move the 8000 PDFs in my local notebooks in a couple of hours.  Probably more time needed to review that the file names are accurate.

So if local notebooks never come back I think I have a viable alternative, though not happy.  OTOH, improvements have to be made to the V10 versions for EN to be of value for cross platform work.  Hoping the around the corner stuff materializes quickly.

[s2sailor 2,191]

2 hours ago, CalS said:

So if local notebooks never come back I think I have a viable alternative, though not happy.  OTOH, improvements have to be made to the V10 versions for EN to be of value for cross platform work.  Hoping the around the corner stuff materializes quickly.

Same here.  Local notebook use for me was work related.  For home use, I use encrypted PDFs for the few items I want secure.  At work we use Microsoft Office 365 so OneNote is the likely home for my local notebooks.  I started transferring some of my archive notebooks into OneNote today and the process was pretty painless.  The OneNote Outlook plug in looks to do what I need so this likely will be an ok work solution for me.

I will likely stay with Evernote for home use.  I don't renew until April and will wait until then to decide whether to stay premium or not.  

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

I guess, then, that for those who have been in the good habit of backing up their local Evernote DB, the answer will be to export it (notebook by notebook)?

[CalS 5,280]

3 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

I guess, then, that for those who have been in the good habit of backing up their local Evernote DB, the answer will be to export it (notebook by notebook)?

I've been using Backupery which takes a backup at 1 AM everyday of all 8 of my notebooks.  So as long as I am on 6.25 no issues.  Per the above if local notebooks don't come back I will port the 8000 PDFs to a simple set of folders.  I will put the folders on a cloud drive in an encrypted container to provide backup.  Don't want to do that but if need be....

[Henzing 0]

I suggest everyone just stay put at v. 6.25 until Evernote gets their act together and gives us a roadmap with details on when (and which) features will be back. No need to jump ship until we know how all of the complaints will be addressed. Just … chill? I’ve used Evernote since 2010, and won’t change until I know things are not getting better or more like the way they were earlier. 

Evernote: Just not change what’s working, OK? Add features, that’s great, but DO NOT release a version that isn’t finished or lacking! But I guess this message already have reached you, loud and clear?

I just got a new computer at work and installed the new version, and even though there is a lot of new features that are nice to have, there is some basic functionality missing. What’s with the fonts, for instance?! Most acutely annoying: The spell check. It’s not in the preferences, and I understand Evernote uses the system spell check. I use Evernote in a language different from the OS, and somehow something thinks I write in English, even though I’ve turned system wide spell check OFF. And all my notes are red. Super annoying!

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,957]

18 hours ago, Alxa said:

Hi, i realized that Evernote 10 actually syncs and stores the whole account to the harddrive. Look at: C:/users/youraccount/appdata/roaming/evernote. The folder ony my computer is as big as the storage folder of the parallel installation of legacy evernote. When cutting of Wifi the client still accesses the downloaded content. So it seems the offline functionality is already included but without any convenience (no status indication of being online/offline, no possibility to mark certain or all notebooks for offline storage).

Thank you, @Alxa. This is really important information, and actually rather reassuring. I only wish that Evernote itself had communicated this.

[DTLow 5,736]

20 hours ago, Alxa said:

Hi, i realized that Evernote 10 actually syncs and stores the whole account to the harddrive. Look at: C:/users/youraccount/appdata/roaming/evernote.

Thanks @Alxa   
Can you tell us anything about the format; I gather it's not the legacy .exb file

[TonyLim 49]

It is not.  It is in cache format.  The files are in C:/users/youraccount/appdata/roaming/evernote/resource-cache/User1234567.  I think each of us is assigned a 7-digit user id.

[CalS 5,280]

3 hours ago, TonyLim said:

It is not.  It is in cache format.

What does that mean in the scheme of things?  Word is disconnected search will work so this must be the file that is used for that?

[DTLow 5,736]

On 10/11/2020 at 4:27 PM, TonyLim said:

It is not.  It is in cache format.  The files are in C:/users/youraccount/appdata/roaming/evernote/resource-cache/User1234567.  I think each of us is assigned a 7-digit user id.

Thanks - I took a peek
This is nothing I can work with using my back-end processing 😕

[wbrett30 0]

Just re-installed Evernote Legacy (MacOS).  It was like coming home!!  Please evernote make sure legacy works until your new version is as good as or better than the legacy version.  Don't make me switch!!!  For anyone looking for legacy version its here: https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052560314-Install-an-older-version-of-Evernote

[NanaPam 1]

A million thanks to those who told me how to go back to v. 6.25! I thought I was losing my mind! The crowning blow with v. 10 was when all my notes disappeared..........blank, zippo, gone, though the notebooks remained. Fortunately, I was able to confirm on the website and my phone that they truly still existed. That's when I went looking for others' comments on v. 10.

Big sigh of relief - I can get rid of dark mode in left panel. All the options are back - why would they remove all options??!! - so I can specify notes to work the way I want, and most important of all, I can put my shortcuts back on a toolbar across the top. And note titles are back where they belong, not as the first item in a note.

Hope you're listening Evernote. You're about to lose another customer of 10+ years who has been an evangelist for the program. Waiting to see what happens next...

Meanwhile, a million thanks to forum users!

[Don Reba 32]

On 10/11/2020 at 8:18 PM, CalS said:

What does that mean in the scheme of things?  Word is disconnected search will work so this must be the file that is used for that?

The main implication is that this cache does not have any forward compatibility guarantees and could be deleted at any moment. It is currently purged whenever you sign out of Evernote and is likely to be purged after updates, as well.