Note duplication "We found more than one version..."

[richard-j-c 17]

This has occurred four or five times on Evernote for Mac 10.1 or 10.2 (10.2.4) since v10 went public. When editing a note, some error in syncing will cause the note to be duplicated and I receive the notification "We found more than one version of {Note Title}. You can view the alternate here." This then requires me to compare the notes to establish the desired note with all edits. 

Never had this problem in the <10 version. Long-time heavy user. I have minor complaints with v10 (the only other major one being it's relative slowness), and really appreciate some of the new features, but surely the sync should be reliable!

[Matei Corvin 2]

Same for me. 10.2.4 on a Mac.

[MONIROM 13]

Same for me. I updated to v10.3.6 today and it has gotten exponentially worse. Now instead of creating 1 duplicate it's creating 7-8. Seriously. Many BETA users mentioned this or similar flaws and it still made it through QA?

 

[BClarke 1]

Same issue. Long time user and loved it for well over a year. Just upgraded and am trying to migrate notebooks from other platforms and I'm up to like 10+ duplicates that I keep deleting. It also seems to be dropping the additional content I bring over. It is like it is just refreshing what was uploaded to the server within the first minute of creating the notebook and dropping any additional changes.

[MONIROM 13]

12 hours ago, BClarke said:

Same issue. Long time user and loved it for well over a year. Just upgraded and am trying to migrate notebooks from other platforms and I'm up to like 10+ duplicates that I keep deleting. It also seems to be dropping the additional content I bring over. It is like it is just refreshing what was uploaded to the server within the first minute of creating the notebook and dropping any additional changes.

I understand performance issues because I have 8.000+ notes (been with Evernote for a while) but my content is already synced locally. ALSO - Evernote is actively reverting all my changes/formatting. I've tried multiple/different notes as well as copy/pasting content from old note to new note, and it's just untennable.

[crpeng 0]

I am experiencing the same issue on Evernote Windows.  I want the old Evernote back!

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Voila: 

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

[crpeng 0]

I later found out that I was using Evernote  10.3.x

For whatever reason, it didn't get updated.   So I uninstalled and reinstalled it.

And so far so good.

 

Thank you!

[Lorraine94588 1]

 I am a long time user and the duplicate note issue has happened several times since updating to 10.  I use on Mac and iPhone.  I have Evernote 10.5.7.  This is really making the app unproductive for me.  

[01011000 0]

On 12/4/2020 at 7:34 AM, PinkElephant said:

Voila: 

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

Thank you! The Windows and Web versions are completely un-usable. Reverting now...

[robotlemon 0]

same here. just today, actually, "we have found more than one version..." EN business in mac

[HyperCycles 1]

It's now 2021, September, and I've now seen this and have two copies of the same note (mod some changes). What was the fix? Thanks!

[Randall v. 31]

Happening for me too, at least once a week. Sync must be borked.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Once a week does not point to a basic problem with sync - sync happens hundreds of times a day.

Once a week points more to an issue with the usage, like keeping a note open and editing it on more than one device at the same time. Maybe there are other drivers for duplication. Always keep in mind that EN treats the whole note as one sync entity - the larger it gets, the more likely are syncing problems.

[Randall v. 31]

On 9/24/2021 at 7:18 PM, PinkElephant said:

Once a week points more to an issue with the usage, like keeping a note open and editing it on more than one device at the same time

That's just it, I don't keep notes open for editing on more than one device at a time. Typically what happens is I edit a note on my Mac, and when I leave the house and check the note later on my iPhone (bearing in mind that EN is typically not running in the background), I get a note conflict. This also happens in reverse.

Mind you it doesn't happen every time, but often enough (which is why I said 'at least once a week' - it can and has been more) that the persistence becomes a bit of an irritant.

At home I use  wifi with VPN; outside mobile service with VPN. Shouldn't make any difference, and as far as I can see when closing EN, it indicates sync has been completed.

I now sync the iPhone before leaving the house to cut down on the conflicts, but even then there are times that after desktop sync, the iPhone doesn't receive the edited note when EN is launched. If that occurs, I have to kill and relaunch the app, which usually fixes that issue.

FWIW

[PinkElephant 8,088]

My experience with syncing was that if there was a lag, it was in downsyncing. A note that had synced to the server took a while to reach the other devices.

I have not observed this in the last weeks any more, and EN staff said they improved something about it.

Did you try the syncing option of the iOS client to encourage a server communication ?

[ChrisA124 3]

I am getting "more than one version" a lot in the last few days.  If EverNote can identify these, it would be nice to have some help seeing the difference.  Since this problem has been around for a while, it would be nice to see a comparison of the 2, 3 or more versions with changes highlighted.

This happens to me while using the current version.  In some cases there may be another, older (6.25), version, which is running but completely idle.

I'm a long time EverNote user.  Over years I have only had EverNote trash a note once or twice.  It's still very unnerving when it gets mixed up and, in this case, keeps old versions.  Historically, EverNote did an excellent job sync'ing changes.  For one thing, it would be nice to get back the manual Sync option.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

There is no tool to compare versions. If it is a longer text, you could export it to a tool that allows to compare 2 documents. This could be MS Word, Apple Pages or Open / Libre Office, for example.

In general keeping more than 1 client open can lead to syncing conflicts and note duplication. If possible you should avoid it - although I usually have 3-4 clients open when working, and don’t experience duplication.

[ChrisA124 3]

After I posted my above msg, I shutdown the other instance I had running.  A bit later (a few minutes ago), I edited a Note -- as I was doing that, I saw several new instances appear in the list.  I suppose the only thing being sync'ed to at that moment would be the cloud version.  I could see incremental changes in the different duplicates.  It's like they were snapshots taken every few seconds that somehow got promoted to being Notes.

I have been running both instances for years.  I tend to be editing two different sets of Notes.  I do that partially to avoid sync'ing problems, though I don't think I've ever had one.  These duplicates often happen as I'm typing; sometimes I find a duplicate when I've been away and haven't edited anything.

Thanks

[Vivekraj Thakur 2]

Facing the same issue of duplication of notes in the latest version

[JenWhite 4]

I have a Personal (Premium) account. I also have been getting "more than one version" and only have Evernote open/active on my MacBook (M1 Chip). VERY frustrating. Yesterday I deleted 4 "versions" of a note I was working on.

[JMCook 1]

Just throwing my "me too" into the ring.  In my case I rarely use any client other than the one on my mac and can say I haven't used the other's in several months.  So, from a single client I'll frequently (maybe every other day or so, but sometimes multiple times in a day) get this message.  I typically just merge them all and move on, but it is rather annoying when I don't notice it happened.

 

[emtothegee 6]

On 10/12/2021 at 10:18 AM, JMCook said:

Just throwing my "me too" into the ring.  In my case I rarely use any client other than the one on my mac and can say I haven't used the other's in several months.  So, from a single client I'll frequently (maybe every other day or so, but sometimes multiple times in a day) get this message.  I typically just merge them all and move on, but it is rather annoying when I don't notice it happened.

 

Adding my me too to the chorus. Ten year premium user and have never had this happen before two to three weeks ago. Yesterday I realized that EN had created eighteen (!!) copies of one note that I use relatively frequently only on my desktop. Other than that one, in several other instances I've gotten a notification that copies have been created while I'm working on the note. When I check, I find EN has created two or three duplicates of the note. Needless to say, bothersome, although it does appear that the note that I am working in retains all of my edits.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

No idea what is going on.

From my experience (and I nearly never have this issue) it happens more often when there is a long text note that you edit. Especially when you edit it near the end of the note - I think it just does not finish one syncing cycle before the next one starts.

Most of my notes are rather short, and this may explain why I don't experience this problem.

If you are working on long text notes as well, maybe try if it improves when you split them up in shorter segments. You can use a TOC note with links to all others, plus links between the notes to keep them together.

[ChrisA124 3]

This duplication is at least a daily occurrence.

As far as Note size goes - one instance of this was on a note of sparse 10 lines.  The duplicates had captured various versions as I typed.

And, as @emtothegee  experienced, the note I was typing in was fine.  If I see it happening I can safely trash the new duplicates.  If I find them later, I have to work out which to keep.  Bothersome, indeed.

[emtothegee 6]

2 hours ago, ChrisA124 said:

As far as Note size goes - one instance of this was on a note of sparse 10 lines.  The duplicates had captured various versions as I typed.

Same for me re. size -- not related. It's possible that it's occurring only with notes that I have pinned as shortcuts — I've only just realized that and will have to pay closer attention going forward to see if that's true.

 

[Alfonso1556 1]

I have also been having problems for the past month. While I'm working on one note, I will suddenly get a notification that there is an alternate version of a note I'm working on. I will also see that there are at least 5 duplicated notes, which I have to delete to avoid clutter. Is there a fix for this? If there isn't, I hope it gets addressed soon.

[Vivekraj Thakur 2]

Now my evernote for windows isnt working ie it just says signing in. I spoke to the customer care via email for the note duplication issue now I have this issue popping after following the steps that they said.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

You can try to completely uninstall the EN client, using an uninstaller app like Revo Uninstaller.

Remove everything, including the data files ! Then restart the computer before installing again.

 

[bob92 0]

Same issue here, I am personal subscription user. latest Evernote is getting more unstable and sometimes frustrated to use. The syncing issue used to happen on long notes, now I see them in a fresh notes with less than 200 words. Notes are literally split up while I was typing 😵

Could Evernote team fix it soon? 

 

10.22.3-mac-ddl-public (2958)
Editor: v132.1.16932
Service: v1.40.3
© 2019 - 2021 Evernote Corporation. All rights reserved

[PinkElephant 8,088]

They are probably working on it since a while - we users can't know for sure, but it is likely this is a top priority.

BTW, check for updates - current version on desktop is 10.23.

[pattiwithers 0]

So I am having the same duplication problem, however it is on my Android app. I have not had any problems with the IOS Evernote. I installed it and reinstalled it. And didn't fix it, just changed the note that was being duplicated. I have had 3 different notes be duplicated none at the same time. 

[emtothegee 6]

I went a week without experiencing this issue, updated to 10.23.7 on Mac desktop yesterday, and it's happening again. 😩

It doesn't seem to be related to file size—or to whether or not a note is pinned to shortcuts, as I thought it might be. And it happens to notes I edit only on desktop.

I've submitted feedback on the issue a few times, and I noticed this morning that there are several different threads here from others who seem to match my profile: longtime users who've only just started experiencing duplication over the last four weeks or so.

Here's hoping engineering has teams on the case. 🙏🏼

[Mettep00 0]

OMG so yesterday I was taking notes and this morning, I found around 50 notes for the same thing!! Is there any way to bulk delete notes - I  am just going to keep the one which is at the top of my list which looks like the most recent version. My notes list is totally polluted. 

[robgul 1]

Another victim of the multiple copies issue here - no logical reason - 8 copies of one note today as I was writing it!  Win 10 desktop/personal account.

Have to say I'm getting a bit fed up with Evernote - been using it for about 7 years - the Android interface, and parts of the PC web interface are just NOT WHAT I WANT - Evernote was simple and great, they're now trying to over-egg the thing with bells and whistles that I don't want . . . with upsells on subscription costs just to get rid of the unwanted "features"

[PinkElephant 8,088]

You can tell what you want to tell - but one time is enough for everybody to read.

[TenPastNine 14]

I've been getting duplicate notes spawned as I am creating and writing text notes too, for the past week or so. Not every time but almost daily. I'm using Evernote web though (albeit on a Mac, in Safari), not an app (Evernote not even installed on my Mac) so this seems to be across platforms. Have created a ticket with support.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Would be nice if you could inform here about the outcome.

[Jeanette Cates 0]

This is getting to be ridiculous! It's been WEEKS that we've had this duplicate note issue. For a company that could come out with a new update every week or two, it's seems we're waiting way too long for a solution to this. It's impacting EVERYONE! Please fix it.

[am.stubbs1986 0]

Signed on today and discovered that two notes I made yesterday have 30+ duplicates. How can I delete these quickly? (I am using the Web version, on Chrome/Windows)

[PinkElephant 8,088]

If they are sequentially (the youngest containing everything you added), sort by modification date, select all but the youngest, and delete them.

[TenPastNine 14]

Support ticket update:

Evernote Support referred my ticket to Technical Support. They got back to me overnight to confirm this is a known issue. The engineering team are investigating but have no resolution date at the moment. Advised using an older version of Evernote until then.

[NormanC994 2]

It's not a feature; it's a bug.  And yes, this is a recurring problem with Evernote.  And it has returned with a vengeance!  They solved this problem (repeatedly) before, but it seems to arise with updates.  Hopefully the next update will solve it once and for all!

[MONIROM 13]

It has been 11 months since I migrated to Notion and I haven't looked back. I've still got almost 8,000 notes in Evernote but shut down my paid account and am taking my time migrating just what I need on an adhoc basis.

The fact that this note-duplication bug is still occurring is testament to how persuasive this problem is. It's literally been rearing it's head since 2014. The whole "don't edit your notes on more than one device simultaneously" - points to a major flaw in Evernote's coding even as the powers that be are trying to reposition Evernote as a viable collaboration platform. How do you colllaborate remotely if the team can't work the same document/workspace simultaneously?

Notion, MS Office, and GSuite all offer simultaneous, multi-editor collaboration in real-time regardless of device. Notion released their API earlier this year and now also supports Japanese and Korean. Microsoft and Google released their own Notion-Killer (though w/ different answers to the database features) in MS Loop and GSuite Canvas. Obsidian is also available to those who want to host their own second brain. All these advances are game changers. And everytime I return to Evernote to migrate notebooks, I do a few every weekend, I feel as if the product I used to love evangelizing, is stuck in the dark ages.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Nothing is a game changer - not for everybody. This focus on the newest, hottest, whateverishest app is IMHO watching at things from the wrong perspective. It is not „Oh, I took that app and then I finally discovered my wonderful use cases“.

It should be the other way round: „Hey, I really nailed down my most important use cases, then looked at the solutions and decided to get my use cases supported by app A (and maybe B and C)“. Maybe I decide to run with A alone, and accept some restrictions instead of using more apps for a perfect fit.

It many well be that you feel much better today with another app. But you should (self critically) ask yourself if it was not your own mistake to stick with an app for too long for the wrong use case. Then be happy you corrected this error. But IMHO you should not ask others to repeat it by putting the focus on „fantastic“ apps instead of optimal workflows. What counts is knowing the job, and getting it done.

[Rachel Senor 0]

As I keep updating an existing note and it syncs, it creates another version of it. So now I have dozens of versions of each one and I'm losing my mind. I'm on Mac Monteray, Evernote 10.24.3. I'm going to have to use a different program if this doesn't get fixed ASAP.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

AFAIK this issue is still on the level „we are investigating and working on a fix“ with EN support and the devs.

Currently the only things you can do is to keep notes short (especially those with a lot of typed text), watch out for your internet connection and think about using the client offline, if it happens frequently. I think it is related to syncing running wild, so easing the sync load might help. But this is only my idea about it, user2user.

Personally I have never experienced this specific problem.

[MONIROM 13]

On 11/5/2021 at 8:24 PM, PinkElephant said:

Nothing is a game changer - not for everybody. This focus on the newest, hottest, whateverishest app is IMHO watching at things from the wrong perspective. It is not „Oh, I took that app and then I finally discovered my wonderful use cases“.

It should be the other way round: „Hey, I really nailed down my most important use cases, then looked at the solutions and decided to get my use cases supported by app A (and maybe B and C)“. Maybe I decide to run with A alone, and accept some restrictions instead of using more apps for a perfect fit.

It many well be that you feel much better today with another app. But you should (self critically) ask yourself if it was not your own mistake to stick with an app for too long for the wrong use case. Then be happy you corrected this error. But IMHO you should not ask others to repeat it by putting the focus on „fantastic“ apps instead of optimal workflows. What counts is knowing the job, and getting it done.

I’m not chasing the next shiny object. It just so happens that the newer options I chose came with some unexpected benefits that extend my rapid adoption of the new tool. As someone who designs enterprise software for a living I just want the tools I use to do be consistent and reliable in their core functionality. I’m not telling people they have to follow in my footsteps nor am I evangelizing any specific solution or migration. Just sharing my own experience and frustration with Evernote.

No malice was ever intended - I’m just pointing out that this is a recurring problem that has been an issue since 2014. It’s akin to people complaining about the Atlassian product suite. Just because its ingrained and embedded in many dev orgs doesn't mean you can’t do something about it, thats how they lost marketshare to Basecamp, Trello, and LeanKit. (heck Atlassian - IMHO - felt threatened enough to acquire Trello.) Another good example is Microsoft Teams - which wouldn’t be what it is today if they didn’t feel Slack and GSuite was eating into their marketshare.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

I am not against switching applications. I am just against putting the application first. People should look for their use cases, and then pick the best app(s) to support it. Best does not mean „the most powerful, feature rich, benchmark performing“. Often a small focussed App is better, sometimes one general app better than 5 weakly interacting specialized ones. 

I find especially with IT consultants a strong tendency to roll out the same solution over and again. Based on the concept „I have the best hammer in the world, so every client problem is looking like a nail“ - BANG.

[vonstael 2]

Same problem evernote 10.24.3 (Mac and Web). 

I am paying for a professional software and it is not any longer.  

Evernote user for years but really think about switching. 

[Mel Matsuoka 18]

I constantly have this issue, across multiple instances of Evernote on macOS and iOS. It's truly infuriating. I would occasionally have this issue with the Legacy app, so I switched to the current version of the desktop app, hoping that the issue would go away. But alas, the note duplication is significantly more frequent with the Evernote 10 desktop app on macOS.

[Beta_tester 0]

I have this issue in 9/10 cases during last year when editing my notes from iphone, as Evernote doesn't have any diff tool to easily fix the problem - I'm trying to use the IOS client only in R/O mode and use OneNote or Google Keep for that purpose. 

 

"You’re up to date!
Evernote 10.28.3 is currently the newest version available."

 

[For the Trees 1]

I don't know why I'm paying Evernote for a subscription when they can't fix a basic problem like this in over a year. And it's core functionality -- it never should have happened in the first place.

[DanielHaaf 7]

I have the same problem. It's kind of annoying that I have to remove duplicates every day. Makes it hard to use Evernote on both computer and mobile since the app obviously don't understand how to update and sync content on more than one device.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

It is not advisable to use EN on two devices at the same time, especially when there is a risk to alter the same note on both.

This will create sync conflicts - EN does not know at that moment which change of the server data gets priority, so it will keep both, one as a duplicate.

Personally I have more than one client open as well - but due to my use cases, I do not touch the same notes. No duplicates !

[ssr_marius 2]

I have been following this thread for some time, and it baffles me how this issue has still not been fixed, and at the same time, the users are at fault for not using the application 'correctly.'

The syncing between devices, using multiple apps is a basic Evernote feature, so I do not understand why the 'It is not advisable to use EN on two devices at the same time' is still acceptable after all this time.

Suppose Evernote does not support using the application on two devices at the same time. In that case, it should specify this officially and throw a warning if I try and open the app on a device when it's already opened on another.

Also, the issue arises even if you do not use Evernote on two devices simultaneously. At one time, the problem became so frustrating that I deleted my android application entirely, and I still sometimes get duplicate notes after I use Evernote on my work laptop at the office, go home and open Evernote on my home laptop (the work laptop has been closed).

And I did open a support ticket for this issue in January 2021, more than a year ago. The resolution was that the developers were aware of the problem and were working to fix it. I am beginning to think that this might never happen.

[avalon 11]

On 2/9/2022 at 8:26 AM, PinkElephant said:

It is not advisable to use EN on two devices at the same time, especially when there is a risk to alter the same note on both.

This will create sync conflicts - EN does not know at that moment which change of the server data gets priority, so it will keep both, one as a duplicate.

Personally I have more than one client open as well - but due to my use cases, I do not touch the same notes. No duplicates !

I only use the desktop app on mac so there should be no issue determining what needs to sync. Yet I get upwards of 40 copies of notes sometimes.  Hard to believe this company is actually charging people when it cant fix a very basic issue that they apparently created themselves with V10. I mean it's been over a year now. 

[PK_C 0]

I don't get the problem so much on the desktop version (Mac) but sometimes (like now) it happens for days on end, multiple times a day (even if I'm not using Evernote simultaneously on another device). Even when I bin the versions I don't want, Evernote still flags them up as alternate versions - more than 24 hours after I've binned the notes, so this isn't due to a syncing delay. 

On the iOS app, sync conflicts have been happening as long as I've used Evernote, which is years. I avoid creating or editing notes on my iPhone whenever possible because I end up with millions of alternate versions. If I absolutely have to do something on my iPhone I'll manually sync every single time I've made a change. And before I do the manual sync, I'll copy the changes I've made, because sometimes the app freezes when I try to sync. (A side benefit of copying the changes before syncing is that it somehow seems to minimise how often the app freezes.) Overall a very laborious process.

 

[David Sewell 0]

This is sporadic for me on the Mac desktop app (v. 10.47.7 at the moment), but just now while editing a longish note I had four different multiple versions show up out of nowhere. I'm assuming the explanation is server-side issues with the synchronization.

[agsteele 2,944]

There is an issue which some users suffer and report from time to time.  However, this week and until 14 November there is significant server maintenance which means that sync will stop from time to time. These breaks may also cause duplication. I would not be too hasty to assume what the cause is in each case.  Perhaps, though, wait untio after the server maintenance window is over and see if the problem ceases.

[Paul A. 610]

1 hour ago, David Sewell said:

This is sporadic for me on the Mac desktop app (v. 10.47.7 at the moment), but just now while editing a longish note I had four different multiple versions show up out of nowhere. I'm assuming the explanation is server-side issues with the synchronization.

 

26 minutes ago, agsteele said:

There is an issue which some users suffer and report from time to time.  However, this week and until 14 November there is significant server maintenance which means that sync will stop from time to time. These breaks may also cause duplication. I would not be too hasty to assume what the cause is in each case.  Perhaps, though, wait untio after the server maintenance window is over and see if the problem ceases.

I'm hoping the long-planned overhaul of the Evernote sync architecture is getting closer. I have a feeling that certain bugs or classes of bugs are possibly waiting for some deep architectural work to complete, so hopefully that day is drawing near.

 

[beatoldfield@hotmail.com 1]

Hello!

It's driving me crazy!. When editing a note, some error happens and the note duplicates and I receive the notification "We found more than one version of {Note Title}. You can view the alternate here." This then requires me to compare the notes to establish the desired note with all edits. Help please!!!. Thank you!.

[PinkElephant 8,088]

Avoid to edit the same note on different devices before it can sync all changes to the server, and down to the other devices.

When an older version of the note is edited, instead of an edit on top of the most recent edit, a safety copy will be created. This will most often happen by using several clients, hopping faster from one to another than syncing will happen.

[facesnorth 0]

I've been experiencing this duplicate note issue a lot in the past few weeks, and I never experienced it prior.   I access evernote from 2 devices, my laptop and my phone.  I only have experienced the issue while using my laptop.  Currently I'm on 10.48.4.

I'll be typing in a newly created note, doesn't have to be very long at all, and this note would never have been accessed through any other device before.  Then suddenly I look and there are 5 copies of it, and a message at the top that another copy of the note exists elsewhere (pointing to these copies).

I installed the Legacy version and I haven't had any issues with it.

It's an extremely annoying problem and is enough to make me discontinue using Evernote in favor of another solution if it isn't resolved soon.