App Performance Issues: Slowness/Poor Responsiveness/Lag

[PinkElephant 8,241]

Not my experience. Maybe it depends on some aspects of usage that are hard to isolate.

If you observe anything that can be tracked down, it would be a service to yourself and other users to contact support, including the activity log.

Anyhow, the current workaround is to quit the app and restart it. Not great, but workable.

[Kaven 1]

Can anyone tell me how to rollback to v7? I am using EN on Big Sur in a MacBook Pro (Mid 2015)

I am so exasperated using v10. The old version was super quick while this one is so slowwww. It is so slow that every time I scan something in, I might as well go get a coffee before I can come back to work on the note. Aren't updates supposed to improve a software? 

Is there anything Evernote Corp can do about this state of affair? If performance remain so bad over time, I may consider moving away to other alternatives. EN, if you are not careful, you stand to lose a significant base of your loyal users who rely on this platform for their document and life / business archive.

[PinkElephant 8,241]

Without a lot of words, you can use both clients side by side:

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052560314-Install-an-older-version-of-Evernote

 

For the scanning, have you tried the import folders in v10 yet ? I do my scanning through them, when scanning with my ix500.

[AndyDent 108]

On 10/30/2020 at 2:54 AM, AviDee said:

IMO the problem isn’t necessarily that it’s Electron. Slack’s Electron app is quite zippy.

It’s the speed. It’s the unoptimized nature. It’s the broken integration. I suppose that’s fixable but I’m still waiting for the acknowledgement.

Slack's Electron app had a very checkered history and they deal with rendering that's orders of magnitude easier than Evernote. I can understand the desire to move to a common codebase but it comes with a lot of danger we're seeing here.

IMHO every executive at Evernote should be forced to use the app with it preloaded with an extra 50K of mixed, substantial notes. They should be ahead of the performance issues, not playing catchup.

[Someboody 7]

Almost a year since this thread was created and we're still experiencing lag/responsiveness issues.😂  😢

Pretty much sums up the frustrations loyal users have had with EN and why so many have left in favour of much better apps that are out there.

[fnl 52]

After way more than a decade of Evernote, I left for Joplin and Obsidian, not the least because they both work like a charm on iOS, OSX, and Linux.

 That said, I think EN is the best note taking app out there, but the lag issues converted it to a show stopper. I to this date don’t like/use the “native” (hah!) Slack & Teams clients, or VS Code for those same reasons: If your app freezes, your productivity and flow takes a nose dive, and with a few of them, just plain crashes.

I wonder when the these companies will finally awaken and understand that Electron is crapware…

[PinkElephant 8,241]

If it works for you, you did the right thing.

[fsum 1]

Slowness
Evernote Helper (Renderer) — 100,5% CPU

[PinkElephant 8,241]

Currently the standard workaround is to switch spell checking off. You may give it a try.

[fsum 1]

Quote

Currently the standard workaround is to switch spell checking off. You may give it a try.

It doesn't solve it. The switch is already off.

[PinkElephant 8,241]

If you encounter this, quit the app (cmd-q). After a restart it usually runs better. However, the problem can build again after some use.

[heronlen 1]

I have now resorted to using the Edge web app for Evernote, performance is great but I am not sure what limitations I will face over the week ahead.  I use Evernote every day most of the day so it is vital.  However the main Evernote app is always to of the CPU and Memory activity monitor stats and slows down the Mac too much.

I am using an M1 MacBook Pro macOS 12.0.1 Evernote 10.22.3

[ghon 78]

On 8/13/2021 at 10:24 PM, fnl said:

After way more than a decade of Evernote, I left for Joplin and Obsidian, not the least because they both work like a charm on iOS, OSX, and Linux.

 That said, I think EN is the best note taking app out there, but the lag issues covered it to a show stopper. I to this date don’t like/use the “native” (hah!) Slack & Teams clients, or VS Code for those same reasons: If your app freezes, your productivity and flow takes a nose dive, and with a few of them, just plain crashes.

I wonder when the these companies will finally awaken and understand that Electron is crapware…

I think your last sentence needs to be reconsidered: Joplin is written in Electron 😉

[fnl 52]

1 hour ago, ghon said:

I think your last sentence needs to be reconsidered: Joplin is written in Electron 😉

Indeed? I’ll be damned. I wonder how a few Electron apps can be so fast, yet so many others have these unresponsive phases in between that make them unusable.

[PinkElephant 8,241]

The current electron version AFAIK predates the release of M1 and is not optimized for the native ARM processor code. So it runs emulated.

Once EN updates it (which must be done for all desktop clients, not only for the few M1 users), it will support the M1 natively.

Other apps may already run the updated framework.

[Jordan Thompson 30]

46 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

The current electron version AFAIK predates the release of M1 and is not optimized for the native ARM processor code. So it runs emulated.

Once EN updates it (which must be done for all desktop clients, not only for the few M1 users), it will support the M1 natively.

Other apps may already run the updated framework.

Are you suggesting that this rebuild will make it run faster on Windows PC's and handheld devices as well? We've all been waiting for EN to speed up their app to previous generation performance! 

[PinkElephant 8,241]

This is about performance on M1 Macs. Since they do not run on an x86 instruction code, all software needs to be adapted - or it needs to emulate an x86 (Intel/AMD) processor, which pulls down performance.

The current framework on which EN is running AFAIK does not support the M1 natively - which creates specific performance problems there.

If an updated framework will as well speed up operations on Windows PCs - no idea. Personally I doubt it, there is no specific issue there when comparing the current and the future framework. Think of the framework as a Chrome(ium) based browser, having the app as front end, instead of a web site. Now exchange the browsers release, but still run the same app /open the same web site. Usually it does not really get massively snappier with a browser update, right ?

But I could be wrong, just my 5ct as a user.

[BklynGuy666 11]

I'm a paid user of Evernote but I will NOT tolerate the slow responsiveness of the "new" Evernote, nor will I tolerate Evernote consuming 1GB of RAM on my M1 MacBook Air even while I'm not using the program.

The leadership at Evernote has FAILED its users so we, the users, MUST make a statement by NOT renewing our paid subscriptions until new leadership is at the helm of Evernote and releases a proper, usable note program.

I cancelled my subscription.

[PinkElephant 8,241]

Your choice.

Just as a matter of fact: When you quit the program, it won’t use any RAM.

As long as you keep it running in the background, it holds everything in memory that it needs to start up immediately when you call it. As I understand the design of Apples M1 chip it swaps unused parts of the RAM to the very fast SSD when in need of RAM. This part of the resources usage is managed for you seamlessly.

So to say „it occupies RAM when started“ is just stating an obvious fact. You won’t complain about paying rent for your living room either just because you are in the kitchen at the moment.

[gafaraha@gmail.com 3]

8 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Your choice.

Just as a matter of fact: When you quit the program, it won’t use any RAM.

As long as you keep it running in the background, it holds everything in memory that it needs to start up immediately when you call it. As I understand the design of Apples M1 chip it swaps unused parts of the RAM to the very fast SSD when in need of RAM. This part of the resources usage is managed for you seamlessly.

So to say „it occupies RAM when started“ is just stating an obvious fact. You won’t complain about paying rent for your living room either just because you are in the kitchen at the moment.

Agree 💯%

[balanga 2]

Evernote uses way too much CPU and RAM on an M1. I'm looking at other note apps. This has been going on for months and still hasn't been fixed.

[sondreaune 1]

Macbook Air 2020:

10.25 has reduces Evernote CPU usage by miles - and both my battery and myself are grateful for your hard work! THANK YOU.

[kuhneng 4]

Brand new Macbook Pro M1 Pro, runs my heavyweight video and photo editing apps like a champ.

Try to open a note taking app I pay for... wait 20 seconds to start and get to the point where it can display a simple note. Search for / click on a note... another 4-5 seconds. All this while eating a gig of memory.

I'm tired of waiting for Evernote Corp to get its act together. Can someone show me to the exit? Any reliable ways to move 2500 notes over to OneNote or another platform?

[Peter Olins 66]

11 hours ago, kuhneng said:

Brand new Macbook Pro M1 Pro, runs my heavyweight video and photo editing apps like a champ.

Try to open a note taking app I pay for... wait 20 seconds to start and get to the point where it can display a simple note. Search for / click on a note... another 4-5 seconds. All this while eating a gig of memory.

I'm tired of waiting for Evernote Corp to get its act together. Can someone show me to the exit? Any reliable ways to move 2500 notes over to OneNote or another platform?

If you have a new mac (or a fresh installation on an older mac) EN needs to create a new local database. In my experience this can take many hours (or even days for a large database). At least for me, the key was to leave the app open continuously until the database reached its full size (monitored with app cleaner). My new M1 (in early 2021) used massive amounts of CPU, disk access and power initially—at the same time, slowing functions like creating new notes. I don't know if this problem is true for others, or if it has been remedied in more recent app updates.

As a rule, I just leave the app open all the time, and new notes can be created in a second or less.

FWIW launching EN on my M1 macbook is much faster than on my 4-year old Intel imac.

[Oinksauce 0]

Just checking in on this.  Evernote is still painfully slow on my macbook.

I dislike typing and seeing the letters appear seconds after typing...

[cajazzer 0]

Not to pile on, but I just bought a new M1Max Macbook Pro with 32GB RAM, and the Evernote client I am running (10.31.6) is unusable.  When I load the client, it takes 10-12 seconds before the UI loads (I have gigabit internet) and then roughly 50% of the time the ui hangs in some sort of loading progress indicator.  What has happened to our Evernote?  I have used it for years as a premium subscriber but this is really bad.  

[PinkElephant 8,241]

Have you already tried the options described in this forum post ?

https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/140779-update-apple-silicon-m1-version-of-evernote-10/?do=findComment&comment=647568

 

[Boot17 1,482]

On 2/24/2022 at 2:59 PM, cajazzer said:

Not to pile on, but I just bought a new M1Max Macbook Pro with 32GB RAM, and the Evernote client I am running (10.31.6) is unusable.

Just in case you haven't seen it yet, Evernote released an update yesterday that fixes poor performance on the M1 Macs.

See:

 

[martinewski 12]

Just coming here to say Evernote's last update resulted in amazing results on my MBA M1 2020. The loading spinning thing that showed at every note change is something from the past now.

[sasilk 12]

Just upgraded to Ventura - here's my first impression of Evernote under it.

Utterly broken and useless.

I tried to drag a note from one folder to another. Just one note - about 600kb. it took about 40 seconds to even start the movr, and about 80 seconds for the operation to fail.

The web version works, but as you can only select a single note at a time it's pretty useless.

It's been bad for years - now it's time to abandon it, as the company has continued to focus on new, shiny features and ignore basic functionality. (There's one bug that has been outstanding since 2014, and has had a fix promised multiple times, but is still there.) 

Time to switch to a different solution I think, after 13 years of use and 8 years of frustration.

Evernote version: 10.46.7
MacOs Version: 13.0 Ventura

 

[PinkElephant 8,241]

Let me understand this: You upgraded the OS - so far, so valiant (I will wait until it is Ventura.1-time, but thanks for confirming my decision). Now it seems something is not working as before, after an update. And you blame who ?

The logical answer would be: Apple. Especially because it is well known that they had problems with implementing stage manager, they worked on it even in the last betas, and postponed the release of iPadOS 16 for a full month. All devs had probably a hard time, because every time Apple "fixed" something, they had to check what it does, and follow up on it.

But no, we get some more EN bashing. Pretty twisted logic, if you ask me.

[sasilk 12]

I'm fully aware that it's likely the OS upgrade that is causing the problem, but you obviously missed the bit where I mentioned that Evernote a) has been bad for years and b) has bugs that I reported 8 years ago that are still outstanding. I thus have very little confidence in the current Evernote team to fix this problem, the current performance issues, the notes selection limit (yes, I know it can be increased, but that just means that I have to change one tag at a time instead of three at a time as there seems to be some *other* limitation), or any of the other problems it currently has in any kind of reasonable timeframe. The fact that this topic has been active here for two years is a sad testament to this inability on their part.

And so I have decided that, instead of throwing good money after bad, I will simply move to a different solution. I've wasted enough time and energy om a product that has consistently failed to get the basics correct. Which is a pity, because it once was really good. but those days are sadly long gone.

[PinkElephant 8,241]

Actually you don’t need an excuse to move to another solution (except maybe for yourself).

Its a free choice, and if you like something better, why should you shelf out money with a grudge ?

[sasilk 12]

It's because I'm disappointed.

[FarmingMinute 0]

I have been a user since sometime around its beginning.  I think 2004.  Evernote has been a great thing.  Slowness is making it difficult to use.  Specifically, I am having trouble scrolling through notes that contain images.  This is especially true on my Mac.  The scrolling hangs when it tries to move past an image.  My work around in the past was to move over to the right scroll bar and move past the images.  The scroll bar movement tab disappears quickly.  I am running Evernote on a new MacMini with a lot of memory.  I cannot find a place to report bugs directly to Evernote.  Would anyone have a suggestion on where to go to report bugs directly to Evernote?  When you go to their location for reporting bugs, you end up back here at the message board.  Even if they fix nothing, how will they ever know about their biggest bugs?

[sasilk 12]

On 11/20/2022 at 3:28 AM, FarmingMinute said:

I have been a user since sometime around its beginning.  I think 2004.  Evernote has been a great thing.  Slowness is making it difficult to use.  Specifically, I am having trouble scrolling through notes that contain images.  This is especially true on my Mac.  The scrolling hangs when it tries to move past an image.  My work around in the past was to move over to the right scroll bar and move past the images.  The scroll bar movement tab disappears quickly.  I am running Evernote on a new MacMini with a lot of memory. 

This has been my experience as well. Slowness, search not finding all instances of something, having to make changes to a maximum of50 notes at a timf. Yes, I know I can increase that, but other bugs stymie that. or examole, you can't add morethan one tag at a time to 500 notes without Evernote erroring out after taking ages. And try moving 1000 notes between one folder to another 50 notes at a time with each 50 taking 20 minutes. The backend of Evernote is a database - these kinds of operation should *not* take this long or just not work. Have your developers ever heardof indexing? I have 64GB of memory, which doesn't seem to make any difference. (That being said, that may not be an Evernote problem. Macs don't seem to use memory very well.)

[PinkElephant 8,241]

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new

The forum is user2user. Support on technical issues is for subscribers, just to mention.

For bulk changes you can try to go offline before you make the changes. On a Mac, the App TripMode is a good option to selectively set certain apps into offline mode, while the rest continues to use the web.

Being offline removes the background syncing, and runs on the local database only. Background sync is the main reason why bulk changes are sort of slow - if you mean, you can try to index the internet to speed it up 😉

After going back online, keep the app open for a while, because it will sync the changes then to the cloud server. If you start using EN on another device meanwhile, you will likely produce note conflict errors and duplicates.

A little OT: Macs are VERY efficient with memory, compared with Windows. This is deeply rooted in the OS. The new Macs run circles around Windows machines on many jobs, with appr. half of the RAM, and less on battery consumption. One must remember that the Mx Macs have shared memory, which means the memory serves the CPU, the neural engine and the GPU. To compare with a traditional layout, one must count the main RAM plus the GPU RAM on a Windows machine to get the total of RAM memory installed.

What makes Windows look good on RAM use in some cases are old, outdated 32bit apps that were developed when RAM was much more expensive. They will still only use very little of it, for a very specific job. But you can‘t maintain them any more, because they don‘t work with modern software libraries, SDKs and the like. Windows still maintains backwards compatibility to old code (which is one reason why it is the #1 target for malware and ransom attacks). MacOS has cut the support for 32bit code 3 years ago.