Not syncing - many duplicate notes

[Jamie L 12]

Okay, so it's great that if Evernote detects a problem it creates a duplicate note and lets you compare. My very long and very detailed to do list is in Evernote and I work from it continuously throughout the day from both my phone and my laptop. I hadn't had much trouble with the duplicate note thing for a long time, until the new version came out. It seems to mostly occur on my phone, even in the house where we have high-grade wifi. I have even tried tricking it by making sure I click that I'm done with that note, even sometimes closing out the app to make sure it is syncing. But more and more I am getting the duplicate note message. Then I have to stop what I'm doing, try to remember what I entered last and see which note is the right one. See if anything is missing. It's a blessing and curse. The real question is why isn't it updating correctly?

I'm on Mac 10.15.7 at the moment (planning to update to Big Sur) and on my iPhone 11, 14.2 (but I see there is an update there, so will be updating that soon). 

[PinkElephant 8,103]

Each cloud based program has a problem when several clients access the same data. Classic data base design locks a data set (= note) for others when one client has opened it. EN doesn't, probably the rate of wrongly locked notes would push customer support over the cliff. It creates conflict notes instead, as a safe way to protect any content

As a quick workaround I would make sure I have just one client active at any moment.

Personally I found that the combination of legacy on the Mac and v10 on iOS does not create any duplicates, maybe because syncing on legacy and v10 works differently.

[Jamie L 12]

PinkElephant, so what you're saying is that if I enter data on my note on my phone, then 20 minutes later access it from my computer, it could be locked out? Or perhaps I enter data on my phone, forget something, then go back to enter something else, so because it's a quick turn around, I may have locked myself out? 

[gazumped 11,664]

Hi.  Remember that your phone has to send any changes to the server,  and your computer has to receive those changes from the server before it has an up to date note.  The updates are supposed to be transparent to the user,  but if you're making lots of changes and switching between devices quickly,  the server will get confused as to which is the most up to date version - your phone may not have finished its update by the time the note gets opened on the computer so the phone has v1.1,  your computer has v 1.0 and you're now wanting to save v1.2... so it saves everything just in case.  

Sticking (mainly) to one device saves dupicate notes!  If you need to switch devices,  sync first; then edit; then sync again...

[Jamie L 12]

Don't misunderstand me, this isn't something instantaneous. It's not like I enter in my phone, drop it to the table, and pick up my laptop. There is a period of time that goes by. It's like the phone isn't syncing within a reasonable amount of time. If it hasn't caught up to itself in 20 minutes or more, something isn't right.

[gazumped 11,664]

3 hours ago, Jamie L said:

If it hasn't caught up to itself in 20 minutes or more, something isn't right.

So do you close the note / click 'done' / close the app on one device before moving to the next?  Does the server know you've finished editing the note on one device before you open the app on another?

[Jamie L 12]

Gazumped: Yes, yes, yes, on all of your questions Yes, I do all I can to let it know I'm done. Pre-upgrade, I would sometimes leave a note open (there is one I use all throughout the day) but now I don't dare. Even when I do all this, it still sometimes doesn't update. This is usually on my phone this happens. 

[gazumped 11,664]

Given all the above I'd suggest a support ticket - yes,  it's going to take a while,  but they'll be able to look more closely at the syncing/ not syncing issue.  Meantime... other users are reporting issues that might overlap,  so - hopefully - things will get better as the iOS app gets more updates.

[PinkElephant 8,103]

No duplicating (not little, none, zero, nada) since EN iOS v10.2, in combination with legacy on the Mac.

Hard to tell a reason, I think as well that support can maybe identify something. Probably they will go through the eternal „uninstall / reinstall“ cycle first.