Ongoing note conflicts — and problems with Evernote support

mlenaghan · June 15, 2021

I've been an Evernote user since 2011. (I've been an Evernote Premium user for all or most of that time.)

I use Evernote on three devices: a Mac, an iPad, an iPhone. I never use them at the same time; I use them sequentially, going from my laptop to my iPad or iPhone and then back again.

Lately — I think I mean "for months", but I'm not really sure when this started — I've been getting note conflicts pretty consistently. I don't really understand that. While some of my older notes have images and PDFs, everything I do these days is text, or lightly formatted text. I don't understand how text files can take long to sync. I don't understand why Evernote can't sync when I open the app and before I start modifying a note. I don't understand why Evernote can't sync a particular note just as I begin editing. (I'm always, always connected to the Internet.)

On Saturday I hit a conflict again. I was frustrated enough to submit a support ticket. Indeed, I was frustrated enough to start researching Evernote replacements after I submitted that ticket.

Dealing with support has increased my frustration.

I sent an Activity Log with my ticket. I was told that, from the log, they could tell that I was using an older version of Evernote, and that I should submit another ticket if the problem happened again after updating.

In fact, I wasn't using an older version. Support mis-read the log. The log started on 2 Jun. On 6 Jun I updated to the latest version. On 12 Jun I hit yet another conflict and submitted the ticket.

Why do I have to explain to support how to read their logs?

I pointed out the error. Their reply didn't acknowledge the error. Instead their reply just felt like (another) canned response. It started by explaining what a conflict was — yes, I know that — and said, among other things:

Quote

To reduce the conflicting changes issue on your devices, manually sync before you start working on a note and sync again when you finish. Do this whenever you change devices to keep the notes updated on our servers and ready to be synced to the other device.

I know that it would be more convenient if users can edit notes on different devices at the same time...

No, I don't want to be able to edit a note on different devices at the "same time." Sequentially. I was very, very clear about that.

The only reason I use Evernote is to have notes that I can edit from multiple devices. Lots of apps seem to be able to handle that without user intervention (or, at least, without frequent user intervention). Indeed, *Evernote* used to be able to handle that without user intervention. At least, it did for me.

But if manual syncing is the solution: Why is it buried in iOS? (Hamburger menu -> Gear icon -> Sync menu item -> Sync button) ***And why the hell was the sync button removed from the Mac app?***

Why is support, the people who should know the product better than I do, telling me to manually sync when that isn't even an option?

Lately Evernote has been pushing "Tasks". And I'm sitting here thinking: why are you pushing new features when there are problems with the core functionality of the existing app? (I've read many, many other reports of people with frustrating sync issues. Some have reported conflicts after editing a note on a single device? Crazy if true.)

I used to use WebClipper. I stopped because I frequently discovered it chewing up 100% CPU. That was on two different computers. The problem seemed to happen when the machines came out of sleep. I reported the problem but never got a response. So I just stopped using the feature.

Grrr.

I'm venting, I know. But I'm curious: is what I'm experiencing unusual? Or is it common?

I'm trying to figure out whether or not, after 10 years, it's time to give up. To my mind there's no point sticking with a note taking app that can't sync notes pretty reliably. The responses I'm getting from support — no real effort to understand what's *actually* happening, if there's a fixable cause — makes me feel like "pretty reliably" isn't in the cards.

nords · January 13, 2022

I've been a user of Evernote since 2010. 'Conflicting Notes' is my single biggest frustration. I use it specifically because it can sync over multiple devices. They are never used concurrently. I have 4 desktop machines, 2 laptops, 2 tablets, and a phone. Syncing is a vital feature for me. Right now I have 18 notes in my Conflicting Notes folder. How hard would it be to create a tool that would merge two notes with the same name and remove any duplicated text? It sounds like a freshman programming project. It is annoying enough that if a competitor ever came up with an absolutely easy and foolproof transition tool, I would be gone. And telling me to manually sync before and after editing each note should be an embarrassment to your staff. That is what we expect the software to be doing, no?

esetter230 · January 13, 2022

Unfortunately, manual syncing, which I do every time, doesn’t eliminate the duplicate note problem. They know it’s a problem and haven’t been able to correct it. Evernote has become a one device application.

JohannesFahrenfort · March 17, 2022

I just got my first duplicate on a note with a LOT of text. I started using Evernote only a month ago, and was super happy with it, purchased a premium account. But now I discover that resolving conflicts has never been solved by Evernote! You can find posts about it up to 10 years back! My jaw dropped. How can this be? It's one of the key things Evernote should be good at: syncing across devices! How can it be that this has not been resolved?! Somebody is asleep at the wheel...

billskoda · May 7, 2022

Evernote user since 2008. Getting really tired of Evernote sync / note conflict issues. I pay $69/year for Evernote Premium expressly to be able to sync between 3 devices. Taking the time to have to sort out conflict issues is really cumbersome. Please Evernote get this fundamental component resolve. I REALLY don't want to have to Google "Evernote alternatives".

Using Evernote 10.32.4 on MacOS 12.1, Evernote 10.30.1 on iOS 15.4.1.

Bill

mlenaghan · June 16, 2021

I give up.

I was already frustrated. Dealing with support has made that frustration boil over. They send me an email overnight. I reply in the morning. They send me an email overnight. Each individual interaction is taking a full day.

And I get the sense that the one and only goal of each interaction is to close the ticket. I don't mean: close the ticket by solving the problem. I just mean: close the ticket. (I don't think there's even been an effort to *understand* the problem. They have the activity log from the device that created the conflict. Is there no useful info in that massive log? At all? And if not: why the hell not?)

I do almost all of my editing on my Mac. But occasionally I use my iPad or iPhone. If I can't do that I have literally no reason to use Evernote. If it seemed like this was an issue they were aware of, one that they were working to solve, I'd wait it out. But it doesn't seem like they are. So: no reason to wait.

PinkElephant · June 16, 2021

My mixed setup Mac Legacy & v10, iPad, iPhone and occasionally Win 10 serves me well.

Sync on iOS: Pull the notes list down a little, let it go. It syncs, no need for menu action … unfortunately not that easy on the Mac, sync button is requested by many users.

Checked your internet connection yet ? Longer ping time, jitter and packet loss above 0% can signal problems there. Same with WiFi, especially the 2.4 GHz band is often very crowded. It can be fine during the day, and ***** in the evening, only by more users, on neighboring networks as well. Even if you have no access, they all share bandwidth, and when overloaded loose packages.

Web clipper works for me on most sites, Safari & Firefox. No high CPU on clipping, it just takes a little for some pages, fast for others.

From other threads I believe there still is an issue with high CPU, caused by processes that do not properly terminate. In such a case it is important to really quit the app, not only close it. After restarting it usually is back in a normal range. Not good, but manageable for some time.

Just a bunch of ideas …

mlenaghan · June 16, 2021

I didn't know that pull-to-refresh in iOS would force a sync. I actually create shortcuts to the notes I'm most actively editing, so that I can get to them from Home without hunting through notebooks. Maybe being able to get to a note more quickly increases the odds of a conflict? Ironic if true.

My home is wired for Ethernet. All of the networking equipment, both wired and wireless, is from Ubiquiti's UniFi series — kind of high-end consumer or low-end professional, depending on how you look at it. The point is that I have very good reporting on everything, and I'm not aware of any issues. (I use an excellent tool, PingPlotter, to diagnose issues outside of my home. It's helped me spot problems with my cable provider multiple times. Highly, highly recommended. And the support was great; they helped me interpret the results I was seeing.)

I reported the WebClipper problem I was seeing in the forums, here. The problem wasn't high CPU during clipping, the problem was high CPU *period* after the computer woke from sleep. I wasn't even using WebClipper when it happened. I had the same problem on two different machines, and it seems like at least one other person had it too. I tried a few versions of WebClipper over a period of time, and then... gave up.

Thanks very much for offering some ideas, and taking the time to help.

PinkElephant · June 16, 2021

As I said above, I have no duplicating issues. I use shortcuts as well, currently appr. 10 of them. Some notes I access several times a day for reference.

Your network seems solid, especially using Ethernet whenever possible. Ubiquity should do ad well. Do you use 5GHz channels for the WiFi ?

For network analysis I use Fing, among others. I use a Mesh from AVM, a German supplier for routers and IoT devices.

I have not yet seen high CPU usage after a wake up. It is all nice and quiet when my Mac activates. My first action if it would happen would probably be shutting down and restarting once. This often helps when a process has forgotten to terminate itself. Next step uninstalling and reinstalling the extension.

G M · June 16, 2021

I came here with the exact same sync problem, although this involves different computers on Windows:

I ~~save~~ a note at my work computer, shut it down. (EDIT: I had gotten used to CTRL-S to save. Now I'm not sure if I ever just imagined that saving was possible on Evernote, all I know is that I cannot find a way to explicitly save any more)
Open the same note on my home computer and edit the note.
I turn on my work computer, which starts Evernote.
My home computer immediately notifies of different versions of the same file.

The root of the problem seems to be that when I shut down my work computer, the last edits do not get synced. They get synced when I turn it back on, and by then it's way too late as I've already edited the note on my other computer.

This would all be fixed with the Sync button that was present on the previous versions. Why did the button go away?

Is there any way to force a sync? For a product as mature as Evernote, this is a beginner type of bug.

EDIT: Before people ask about internet connection quality, both are gigabit fiber connections.

Edited June 16, 2021 by G M
added detail

PinkElephant · June 16, 2021

Probably you need to wait a little before shutting down one of your computers.

When the upsync client to Server is done, there will be a message bottom right of the EN desktop window telling all changes have been saved.

G M · June 16, 2021

2 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Probably you need to wait a little before shutting down one of your computers.

When the upsync client to Server is done, there will be a message bottom right of the EN desktop window telling all changes have been saved.

Thanks for this, I will watch out for the notification at the bottom, and see if that out of sync situation happens again.

CalS · June 16, 2021

Nice to have a workaround but still a forced sync seems to be a miss. Strange as forced sync exists in IOS and uniformity of user experience was a target for the rewrite best I can recall. 🤷‍♂️

PinkElephant · June 16, 2021

Unfortunately the upsync does not always mean the downsync is done as well. I am like others in the user group demanding a return of a sync button, making sure that up- and downsync can be forced at any time.

CalS · June 16, 2021

Interesting that a half sync issue exists. I always thought sync was sync. Go figure. Well, no horse in this race as I am still on 6.25.1 and know how to brute force IOS V10. Hoping should I ever move to V10 this remedial stuff is handled.

John in Michigan USA · June 17, 2021

It always gets me a better response from support if I can document the exact steps they need to take to consistently reproduce the issue. @mlenaghanit sounds like you are having sync problems often enough and consistently enough that you could do this?

When troubleshooting note conflicts like this, it helps to know that the Web interface accesses the server database "directly", whereas the Mac and iOS clients sync their local data with the server. Therefore, when reproducing the problem, try making the change in a client, doing a sync, and then view the note in the Web interface to prove that your change sync'd. Then do the other steps that result in a conflict when there shouldn't be one.

I agree that first level support will likely not be helpful. Most of what they do is scripted. But if you give them a reproducible bug, it increases the chances that the case will get the attention of someone who can investigate for real. In extreme cases, you can even make a video of yourself reproducing the error. Of course, that's a lot of work for no guarantee that your bug will be addressed.

Again, this might be more than you're willing to do at this point! But if you decide to dive back in to this problem, hopefully these tips will help.

PinkElephant · June 17, 2021

Very helpful tips, I agree.

Taking a video of the screen is very easy, at least on a Mac or iOS devices. They have the ability build into the OS. Just remember to activate the microphone before starting - it is off by default for privacy reasons.

CalS · June 17, 2021

No shock as to what causes sync issues. Marker here is what is the reliable process to ensure sync on exit and sync on entry when working with V10 apps. A little problematic with no sync button on desktops.

I think this new version was intended to manage sync better at least with sequential usage of platforms. Not there yet.

mlenaghan · June 17, 2021

@PinkElephantI've used Fing. PingPlotter is a different kind of tool. It can precisely answer the question you were asking earlier: Is there any packet loss *to Evernote* over, say, the last 24 hours? If there is, it can tell you exactly where it's happening — i.e., which hop is losing packets. That will tell you definitively if the problem is inside your network (e.g., WiFi) or somewhere outside (e.g., cable provider).

The last time I used Fing it had ping and traceroute but it didn't provide the same "over time" analysis. For my cable provider issues I needed the "over time" part because the problems were highly intermittent. PingPlotter helped me narrow the cause to the box at the top of the telephone pole behind my house.

mlenaghan · June 17, 2021

@John in Michigan USAThanks for the suggestion(s).

I would do those things if I thought Evernote was working toward a solution and needed some help and some time. But the impression I get is that they don't acknowledge there's a problem.

Two days ago I asked support to escalate. Yesterday they asked for additional info in order to do so. I replied as best as I could. Today's response suggested that I delete and re-install the app. No mention of escalation.

I've asked them once again to escalate. But as I said, each individual interaction takes a full day; I won't hear back until tomorrow.

At this point I have no reason to believe that things will get better.

mlenaghan · June 17, 2021

In case anyone is interested...

I've just about finished moving everything out of Evernote.

I use Evernote for two things. First, for editing and syncing work notes across devices, so that I have access to them from anywhere. (I'll call those "docs" from here on, since I want to use "note" in Evernote's more generic sense.) Second, for capturing a lot of web content so that I can search for things of interest later.

For docs, after some research, I looked at three possibilities: Apple's Notes, Shiny Frog's Bear, Microsoft's OneNote. (I have to say: I've never been a OneNote fan. Lots of people love it, but I've always found its user interface to be rather clunky. YMMV)

All three tools have direct support for importing Evernote .enex files. (OneNote does it through a separate app that's in preview.) All three imports were pretty good, though all three had at least one quirk. For example, Bear didn't preserve strikethrough (I have one doc with a *lot* of strikethrough), while OneNote seemed to insert an additional blank line between paragraphs. Apple Notes, very surprisingly, did the best job. At least, for my content.

OneNote was out of the running (for docs, that is) once I saw how well the other two did. Choosing between Bear and Notes was a tougher call. In the end, I went with Bear. First, its content is plain text and easily exported; people have come up with work arounds for exporting from Notes (some of them quite good), but, you know, they're workarounds. Unsupported. And I didn't want to trap my content. Second, for Apple, Notes is just one more little app; for Shiny Frog, Bear is everything. I trust Shiny Frog's motivation to make things right more than I do Apple's.

For web content, after some research, I looked at OneNote, Pocket and Raindrop.io.

I imported all of my web content into OneNote. For whatever reason, OneNote had a lot more trouble maintaining the fidelity of *those* notes. The import tool also created separate sections for every 500 notes or so. (I don't remember the actual count.) That didn't really work for me.

I toyed with Pocket for a bit — I used to use it before I started using Evernote for web content — but, for reasons, I made a more serious effort with Raindrop. Starting from this code I wrote some Python to extract web content from my .enex file. I used that to create a .csv file which I then imported into Raindrop.io.

It took some effort to figure out how to extract what I wanted, etc., but I've been very, very happy with the result. But before I explain...

I was able to do all of this poking around with all of these tools because they all have substantial free tiers. I think OneNote might even be completely free at this point? Not sure. Bear lets you do everything except sync for free. Raindrop.io lets you do a lot — including importing many, many thousands of links — for free too. So: I was able to feel reasonably confident that I could do what I wanted to do before I put any money on the table. Once I was reasonably confident, I paid.

At that point, Raindrop's extra features kicked in. First, it creates a snapshot of all of your bookmarked pages, so that you'll still have the content if the site or page disappears. (That's why I only needed the URLs from the .enex file.) Second, it uses those snapshots to create a full text index, so that you can search based on what pages contain, not just their titles. (That's a big part of why I had put web content in Evernote in the first place.) Third, Raindrop let me know which URLs were broken — so I knew exactly what I was in danger of losing. Fourth, Raindrop let me know which URLs were duplicates; I was able to declutter a bit. Fifth, Raindrop does a daily backup to a Dropbox folder; I don't have to worry about losing these thousands and thousands of links if the company disappears.

On the other hand, Raindrop doesn't work disconnected. For me, that's not a problem; I never synced my web content in Evernote either, because it was just way too big.

All told, I expect to lose about ~650 "web content" notes or so in this process. They are almost entirely (~620) things that I captured in Gmail. (At one point WebClipper had special support for capturing content directly from Gmail.) I was able to categorize everything in Python, so I know exactly what I'll lose: almost all of the notes (~590) are from a paid business/technical newsletter that I used to subscribe to. Not really much of a loss; the content is quite dated now — and it's all in email anyway.

So that's the story so far.

I have ~60 web content notes left to look at, and then I'm done. (For whatever reason — I haven't looked at them yet, so I don't know why — they didn't fall into my automated buckets.)

P.S. Once I subscribed to Bear and could sync, my hundreds of docs showed up on my other devices within a few seconds of launching the app. That's why I don't really understand why Evernote is struggling. Some of my older docs have lots of images, but my newer ones are just lightly formatted text. Bear was able to sync everything, old and new, in seconds; my ongoing changes are a tiny fraction of that.

mlenaghan · June 18, 2021

I was finally passed on to tech support. They said:

Quote

Upon reviewing the issue that you've been facing, please know that our development team is already aware of this and are working on a fix.

It would have helped so much to have heard that from the start.

===

The final ~60 docs were an odd assortment. There were a few documents with a title but no content, a few with a URL in the title but no other content, etc. But mostly they were PDFs that I had sent directly to Evernote from the web. Raindrop supports directly uploading files, so that's basically what I did.

Before Evernote I used Pocket for web content, and before Pocket I used (though not for too long I think) Pinboard. The process of importing into Raindrop was so easy that I moved everything from those systems into Raindrop too.

That's more than fifteen years' worth of collected links!

Wild.

MisterE428 · June 18, 2021

So has anyone checked out evernote alternatives and can you recommend one or two possibilities? Thanks.

PinkElephant · June 18, 2021

There has been a thread some time ago, listing stuff and trying to compare. You can search for it - but I don’t think it was updated recently.

leocmy · June 19, 2021

Hi! i'd really like to know if we could have a prediction about when evernote will finally fix the "conflict notes errors" and "duplicating notes". I use evernote for GTD, tasks. For me it works very very well. I use evernote for collecting articles, documents, and weak planner.. it's the best! So you imagine i work on tasks from android and windows version at same time. And i check mark tasks as i've finished the tasks all time. So editting the same notes from android and windows versions occurs all day long! And I did that so effectively in another apps as onenote, ticktick, todoist, clickup, bearnotes, applenotes, notion... so far ANY of these never produced "conflict notes". When will you fix this "basic error database" evernote team please??? I love evernote so much but i'm becoming very very frustrated about this sync problems that simply doesn't appear in ANY other apps, just evernote! Please prioritize to correct this error! Don't you see so many technews trying to convince people not to use evernote anymore because of these "sync problems"??? I (and many of my friends... yes, i'd convinced them!) had started to migrate things from notion, trello,etc to evernote but with this "basic error", it's almost impossible to trust and convince anyone to use or migrate to evernote. Users lost so many time comparing "conflict notes" one another, trying to search and find where are these errors in "duplicated notes", it's so annoying! Please solve this soon! Why the reason do we have android, iphone, windows etc versions from evernote if sync process is innefective and produces so many errors??

PinkElephant · June 19, 2021

EN is not build to allow to work on the same note simultaneously. The note is the building block of EN - every interaction with a note must happen from only one client at any time.

When accessed from several clients, it will be sorted out by conflict notes or duplicates.

AFAIK there is no intention to rebuild EN to solve this sort of problem caused by user interaction.

To avoid it you have to change the way you are working with EN.

esetter230 · June 23, 2021

I've been having the same problem for several months. Most recently, I've made sure that my iOS app and Windows 10 app were never open at the same time. When using the iOS app, I always forced a manual sync and, when using the Windows 10 app, always waited before quitting the app.

For the past week, all of my updates were in the iOS app and I forced a sync before closing. The updates were always reflected the next time I used the app. However, as soon as I tried to use the Windows app, a duplicate entry was identified - the most current one and one that was one week old.

If Evernote can't be synced consistently, its "one device" limitation should be clearly identified.

PinkElephant · June 24, 2021

You invested some thought into this setup.

IMHO it would be a good idea to issue a support ticket and give them the details.

lerax · September 29, 2021

i'm having this exact same problem.

PinkElephant · September 29, 2021

… and tried support yet ?

lerax · September 30, 2021

8 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

… and tried support yet ?

i did. they were very helpful but kind rude.

i called support at notion and asked them how to move my notes to their app and they laughed at me for choosing evernote to begin with.

PinkElephant · September 30, 2021

Notion by its structure is not a 1:1 replacement for EN. So if this causes their support to laugh they don’t understand their own product.

Hope you got a serious answer in the end.

lerax · September 30, 2021

14 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Notion by its structure is not a 1:1 replacement for EN. So if this causes their support to laugh they don’t understand their own product.

Hope you got a serious answer in the end.

they told me to change the way i am working with EN so that all my notes can be 1:1 replaced by notion.

i think it's reasonable because if i have learned anything reading this thread, it is that i have to change the way i am working with EN anyway to even make the most basic function work properly.

PinkElephant · September 30, 2021

Fair enough. They know they can’t reproduce the way EN is working in all details, so they tell you to work as they require it.

Simplifies life for everybody, after the transition.

Wish you luck with doing so.

P.S. Somehow I manage to use EN the way I think it expects to be used, and don’t run into problems continuously. Hmmmmh …

rmk2611 · October 14, 2021

I followed this thread because I am yet another user considering to migrate away from EN just because of this issue (I am generally very happy with EN). What I don't understand is that EN cannot sync a single document automatically a few seconds after each edit. Maybe they want to reduce their cloud infrastructure costs. I get conflicts on a regular basis editing trivial text documents on either my Mac or my iPhone (nothing happening concurrently, devices always connected to the internet). Since there's no git-like conflict resolution ui and I basically have to copy both notes into a text file and do manual diffs to merge them by copying and pasting, this is a very expensive process and all the productivity gained through the use of EN goes out the window.

Please EN:

Put some more thought into making it less likely that this happens, e.g. more intelligent syncing (if a general sync for every change is too expensive, use some heuristics that at least for trivial small notes this is done at a finer granularity)
Invest some effort into a conflict resolution strategy other than just copying for anything but very small docs this doesn't work (if you do #1 well, maybe you don't need #2)

I'm also looking at alternatives and I am currently testing using Google keep for simple checklists and Google docs for more complex documents where I need formatting. It's a shame. EN is exactly what I need functionality-wise but this defect defeats its purpose.

agsteele · October 14, 2021

EN v10 sync is as good as instant. Some users argue that this is an issue and sync should be more like the legacy approach to avoid note conflicts and provide more confidence. EN 10 syncs as you type on desktop.

PinkElephant · October 14, 2021

On desktop you can „see“ it syncing by the small grey text bottom right of the EN app window. It usually says „all changes saved“, but very briefly changes when sync happens. It really syncs permanently, just the opposite of not often enough.

On mobile there is the green indicator in note list view that says „This note still needs to sync“. When it disappears, sync has happened.

On both client types you can force a sync.

Note conflicts arise when syncing and editing collides. My impression (no deeper knowledge) is that this happens especially on long text notes, when the editing happens close to the end of the note. Somehow it syncs the whole, mostly unchanged text and struggles with getting the prior sync closed before starting the next cycle.

My notes are rather shortish, and I nearly never have note conflicts. Currently I would split long notes into several smaller ones if I would run into note conflicts. Plus the usual: Avoid to open and edit the same note on different devices at the same time.

jlp004 · November 2, 2021

I've been a Premium User since 2011. I've never had a problem with Evernote until now. I remember I used to be impressed by how great their developers/product team was, always pushing out new features and continually improving the product. It was almost too much to keep up with as a casual Evernote user. Now, I have to chime into this conversation because this duplication issue is real (on Evernote for Mac - 10.24.3-mac-mas-public). I ONLY take notes on my Macbook, though I do occasionally review on my phone. For the past couple of months, I"ve started getting the duplication issue. As I'm drafting a note, another version appears. Then another and another. It's like it's creating a new note everytime it autosaves or something like that. I've tried uninstalling/reinstalling. Based on all the different discussions and threads out there about this issue and how long things appear to have been going on, I'm starting to think nobody is working on fixing this. This is a basic feature of your core product - notes should sync between devices with no issues. I'm honestly thinking that maybe 10 years is long enough and it might be time for a solution with better product support (as much as it hurts to say it). Seriously, please fix the sync issue so we don't all have to go out there and start using OneNote.

esetter230 · March 17, 2022

Long time problem. Evernote knows about and either won’t or can’t fix it. It was never a problem with their legacy version.

PinkElephant · March 18, 2022

My personal experience: I had a few conflict notes with legacy, and I had a few with v10. Usually I know it happened when I mistakingly tried to edit the same note on 2 devices at the same time. That is my user experience.

From the forum there have been reports about quite massive syncing problems with v10. So I think under certain circumstances the new version may have a problem it did not have before. When this happens, it is probably beyond the reach of a support intervention to solve it.

In the CEO blog a fundamental change to syncing has been mentioned. No details yet, just need to wait & see what they have in mind.

PinkElephant · May 7, 2022

Checked in with support on that issue already ?

We can offer our sympathy between users, maybe give a hint or two, but that is it, more or less.

Warroad Warrior · August 21, 2022

I have to keep re-naming my notes, Errands5, Errands6, and now Errands7. Then delete the previous conflicting notes.

If EN doesn't fix this, we're leaving. God bless the free market.

esetter230 · August 21, 2022

Long time problem that they know about and has never been fixed. Don’t hold your breath for a solution.

PinkElephant · August 21, 2022

There are several factors in the equation. The most important fact is that EN treats a note as an entity. Long notes create more problems than short ones, changes at the beginning (moving everything backwards) are likely more critical than adding information at the end, etc.

Example: If you keep a rolling daily diary, instead of a yearly one use a weekly one. One TOC note let’s you jump between weeks. Add a table, for each day modify one cell - instead of writing an unstructured long text.

The other factor is the internet connection: Beside the download and upload speed, watch out for Ping, Jitter and Package Loss. Syncing suffers more from a lack of stable connectivity than plain speed issues. If you know internet will be shaky, go offline and sync after the editing is done. I do so when on a train, where internet is on and off more than when on a stable home or office link.

And then there are the devices: If possible avoid to have EN open on several devices at once. If not possible, avoid to have the same note selected on different devices. Not always easy, but avoid syncing conflicts as well.

mlenaghan · August 21, 2022

I've been using Bear since leaving Evernote about a year ago. I've never had syncing issues of any kind. That's despite the fact that I haven't taken any special steps to avoid them. With Evernote I took special steps, tried various things — and still had syncing issues on a regular basis. You can't put that down to connectivity issues. Every Internet-based app has to deal with connectivity issues. And Evernote was designed to be an Internet-based app, no?

esetter230 · August 21, 2022

I’ve been manually syncing (even though it’s buried) EVERY time I edit a note on my iPhone and iPad. Despite syncing, I still frequently experience the duplicate note problem. This has been going on for years and I doubt it will ever be corrected. If someone has identified a similar application that works well in iOS and Windows, please let us all know.

John in Michigan USA · August 22, 2022

7 hours ago, mlenaghan said:

I've been using Bear since leaving Evernote about a year ago. I've never had syncing issues of any kind. That's despite the fact that I haven't taken any special steps to avoid them. With Evernote I took special steps, tried various things — and still had syncing issues on a regular basis. You can't put that down to connectivity issues. Every Internet-based app has to deal with connectivity issues. And Evernote was designed to be an Internet-based app, no?

As in https://bear.app/ ? If you've also tried https://www.notion.so/ I'd be especially interested in your thoughts about them both, assuming you are using the latest IOS/Mac versions of everything Evernote...

mlenaghan · August 22, 2022

Quote

As in https://bear.app/ ?

Yes.

Earlier in the thread I described what I considered, what I chose, and how I moved everything over. Notion wouldn't have made the list, because one thing this entire experience taught me was the importance of being able to a) export everything in b) a usable format. Evernote has an excellent export; I lost almost nothing at all when I moved. Notion has an export of sorts, but the result is somewhat unusable if you want to more or less keep what you had. That's because Notion works so differently from pretty much anything else out there. Of course, that's just my take; for you the fact that Notion works so differently might be a feature rather than a bug!

geoffairfield · August 23, 2022

How long does it take to get support to respond? I submitted a ticket 6 days ago and still have heard nothing.

Cardin · September 2, 2022

On 8/22/2022 at 12:04 PM, John in Michigan USA said:

As in https://bear.app/ ? If you've also tried https://www.notion.so/ I'd be especially interested in your thoughts about them both, assuming you are using the latest IOS/Mac versions of everything Evernote...

Notion does not support offline notes (which is a subscription tier feature in Evernote).

Lack of offline support would be quite a problem, especially since sync/connectivity problems were already causing Evernote issues.

agsteele · September 2, 2022

Yes, but for clarity... Offline notebooks are a paid feature for mobile apps. Desktop works offline automatically

.https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005917

PinkElephant · September 2, 2022

On 8/23/2022 at 6:23 PM, geoffairfield said:

How long does it take to get support to respond? I submitted a ticket 6 days ago and still have heard nothing.

Did you receive a confirmation email within a few minutes, stating your ticket has been received, giving some help articles and most important telling you the ticket number ?

If not, your support ticket has never been send (or at least was never received).

If yes, you can send me the ticket number by direct message (the envelop symbol at the top), and I will flag it for you.

Tcellguy · October 3, 2022

just some more data:

I get conflicts almost 100% of the time on iOS - that is to say I get a conflict while working on one device in isolation, new conflicts are generated as I work. On macOS Evernote 10 if I’m lucky I can go several hours before a conflict arises (again still only using one device the entire time). More often I get about six or seven conflicts upon opening the application, which tells me that it did not sync during the prior session. I’ve tried everything I can think of including closing the application and restarting, letting it sit there for up to 30 minutes, force re-opening the note with command R. I just cannot convince Evernote to sync. This behavior is occurring with an iPhone 11, M1 iPad Pro, older 2016 MacBook Pro, and an M1 MacBook Air.

The only time I reliably can avoid conflict is if I’m using legacy on multiple devices. For whatever reason the new apps in iOS and macOS just does not sync my notes.

For that reason I’ve basically stayed on legacy. Every few months I give v10 and iOS a try. Today alone I have generated 3 conflicting notes working with just one iPad.

Boot17 · October 3, 2022

@Tcellguy ouch - that sounds rough. Hopefully their major sync architecture improvement that they are said to be working on comes through big time.

By way of comparison, I run v10 on two Macs, one Windows machine, an iPhone, and an iPad. The only sync issues I have are on my iPhone and on my iPad where I have to wait about 15 to 20 seconds for things to sync up when I first open them. (And it's kind of hard to tell when things are synced up -- I just know when they are because the last note I edited on Desktop will suddenly appear at the top of the list of notes.)

PinkElephant · October 3, 2022

It is not possible to „stay“ on legacy using iOS…

esetter230 · October 3, 2022

Since this synchronization bug has existed so long without being fixed, we should accept the fact that Evernote is best used as a single device application.

PinkElephant · October 3, 2022

Anybody can do what he wants to do. I have no problems with syncing my zoo of devices - it just happens.

esetter230 · October 3, 2022

You’re lucky. I’ve had this problem ever since “upgrading “ from the legacy version. In my case, the problem seems to occur most often when opening the Windows app. It’s as if the Windows app doesn’t sync with the Evernote database when first opening.

PinkElephant · October 3, 2022

Maybe I am. From my experience, when a desktop install is slow (on opening or in use), it often is a sign that the local database is corrupted. A fresh download from the server often solves the issue:

Go to File > Sign Out [name] from the menu bar.
Select the "Remove my Evernote data from this device" option, then click Sign out.
Restart your computer.
Sign back in to Evernote. Keep the app open while it downloads your notes from the server.

Tcellguy · October 3, 2022

3 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

It is not possible to „stay“ on legacy using iOS…

Correct, so I tend to use iOS as read-only. It generates fewer conflicts if I avoid editing any notes.

I’m really not trying to exaggerate this. I’ve been using Evernote daily for over 10 years and this sync problem only has affected me with the new versions.

I thought about a corrupted database, but that would mean it’s corrupted on their server since it affects all my machines. New notes conflict too.

My only explanation is that sync is silently failing in the background despite saying it’s completed. Often, my conflicting notes appear identical to me so it might be meta data differences or something? I don’t know.

I really hope they can fix it as macOS v10 does appear to be improving over time in speed and features. For iPad maybe my M1 is too slow for the app and it’s not syncing due to processor limitations on that platform?

Another possible contributor is how I use the app on iOS. I’m often multitasking going between two apps. It may be that when Evernote is put into a background state that interferes with sync and can generate conflicts.

One other thing I’ve noticed: manual sync on iOS often gets stuck in an infinite spiral and I have to force quit to get manual sync to work again (again on multiple devices: iPhone 11, M1 iPad Pro, older iPad Pro 10.5”).

I guess creating a totally new account with no notes in it might fix all of this be that defeats the purpose of the platform for me.

CalS · October 3, 2022

5 minutes ago, Tcellguy said:

My only explanation is that sync is silently failing in the background despite saying it’s completed.

Maybe you are waiting what you think is an appropriate amount of time after leaving platform X and starting on platform Y, but to your point you just don't know if the sync is complete with V10. And then you generate a conflict. Don't know if it is worth cleaning up whatever conflicts you have and then doing an all notes in modified date sort check before proceeding each time you change. PITA but might cut down on some of the grief.

Update lags were built into EN with the V10 structure. Or maybe they were always there but were never noticed with a 100% local data base? Splotchy internet coverage can cause issues but overall sync is just a little slower. One of the reasons I departed EN. V10 just didn't fit my use case as well as it once did. I didn't want to wait for search results to update when I was working a list. 🤷‍♂️

Warroad Warrior · October 3, 2022

YOUR SYNCHING SUCKS!

Cubicle worker 1: "Well, it works. I guess we're out of a job."

Worker 2: "No. We will add all sorts of upgrades to make it even better!"

Worker 1: "People don't want upgrades. What if they don't upgrade?"

Worker 2: "We'll force them to do it without permission. We'll start a 'conflict' and have tons of overtime!" (Evil laugh.)

PinkElephant · October 3, 2022

Just go ahead, they may be waiting for you:

https://evernote.com/intl/en/careers

John in Michigan USA · October 4, 2022

15 hours ago, esetter230 said:

Since this synchronization bug has existed so long without being fixed, we should accept the fact that Evernote is best used as a single device application.

Last month I passed a milestone. It's been a decade since my first Evernote note, created 9/23/2012. Yes, sync is buggy. But via trial and error, I found that by avoiding certain use patterns, I could minimize the sync problems. The only downside is, I've had to get in the habit of forcing a sync on my desktop, and making sure it completes without errors, before switching to EN on my phone, then letting that sync before I leave my house. So I have to be somewhat sync-aware. I can't just multi-task over multiple devices and trust that EN sync will do the right thing. That solves 99% of the sync bugs, and once this habit became second nature, it doesn't even take that much extra effort.

But yes, it would be nice if they could get things to the level of, for example, Google Mail. G Mail doesn't call it "sync" because their app is meant to be always online. But it actually does some local caching and has an offline mode, which works better than Evernote's sync.

Roginator · October 4, 2022

I edited a note on my iPhone, clicked the green tick. Then edited on my Mac 15 mins later - plenty of time for Evernote to update the note - and it then resulted in a duplicate. They just need to fix this - it's really crummy.

dbvirago · October 4, 2022

Came back to check on this thread after my biweekly test to see if EN was working yet. It's not. Had multiple sync issues yesterday with conflicts, including one where an edited note had a conflict with an empty, unedited note. There are a lot of suggestions here on workarounds and steps to take to ensure that things get synced, but that's not our job. That's Evernotes job and they have failed at it for over 2 years now.

I'm using Nimbus for mobile now because it works. But I have also used Notion, and ClickUp over the last two years. In my office, I have two computers for different purposes, but they both use whatever note taking app I am on. With Nimbus, Notion, and ClickUp, I can open the app on both computers and two Android devices, edit a note and watch the edits sync on all 3 other devices within seconds. That's what sync means. That what sync has meant since the 90s and that's what sync used to mean with Evernote. I don't have to wait until something happens to work on the other computer. I don't have to swipe and dig into menus to force a sync. I don't have to bring up the web version of those apps to make sure the sync got that far before I move to the other device and wait for another sync. I don't have to uninstall and reinstall. I don't have to delete my data and reload it.

It just works like it's supposed to.

Until Evernote does again, I agree with some posters above that state that EN is now a one device product.

Boot17 · October 4, 2022

11 hours ago, Roginator said:

They just need to fix this

Yes - quite right. I believe we all (or at least most of us) are in agreement here.

To what extent we users have issues with syncing currently varies on wide spectrum. For some, we don't have many syncing issues. For some, there are workarounds that we can use to help mitigate sync issues. For some, it's a one device platform.

I think it is worth repeating in this thread that Evernote has announced that they are working on a "more reliable, faster, and more modern sync architecture" and they rarely announce features or fixes they are working on.

From the blog page by the Evernote CEO back in January https://evernote.com/blog/ceo-update-january-2022/

"And most importantly, over the course of 2022, we will complete our multi-year journey to a more reliable, faster, and more modern sync architecture—the very backbone of the Evernote experience."

Perhaps it will take them longer than through the end of 2022 (and he didn't specifically say it would be done by 2022), but this is something that is definitely on their radar. At least we know this is being worked on compared to other concerns or feature requests posted in these forums.

I see this as being the biggest issue -- by far -- that needs to be tackled by Evernote.

Tcellguy · October 4, 2022

6 hours ago, Roginator said:

I edited a note on my iPhone, clicked the green tick. Then edited on my Mac 15 mins later - plenty of time for Evernote to update the note - and it then resulted in a duplicate. They just need to fix this - it's really crummy.

~~My experience is that the iOS version will never sync at any point unless force sync is initiated by the user.~~

Correction: it turns out if I wait for 5 minutes a sync eventually starts on its own. So perhaps you have to sit there and hope it initiates during that time. It's still to slow to be used in the way I would use Apple notes or any background syncing software I've used. The fact there is no indicator of sync state makes this even more problematic.

Also the pull to sync does not initiate a sync for me. It does the spinning wheel for a second but nothing happens. It won't even clear the green "unsynced" state indicator. About half the time I have to force quit and restart to be able to force sync. I have a very strong internet connection so that's not the problem.

I don't understand how the app generates conflict with itself. Many of the conflicts I get are when working with a single device.

I'm glad sync works for some people, but no amount of uninstalling and reinstalling the app gets it to work for me.

This is similar to how I had no shortcuts appearing in the iOS app for months and no amount of reinstalls brought them back. Then after about 6 months of updates they magically returned.

So that's great news if they are working on a solution to the sync problem.

ElleEmm · March 5

Just here to echo the frustrations (I am a long-time user who is now sadly used to long-standing issues with note conflicts) AND to say: I know for an absolute fact that many of my note conflicts are generated while working on the same device. This is NOT just a cross-device syncing issue.

Velolion · April 21

On 10/4/2022 at 5:40 AM, Boot17 said:

From the blog page by the Evernote CEO back in January https://evernote.com/blog/ceo-update-january-2022/

"And most importantly, over the course of 2022, we will complete our multi-year journey to a more reliable, faster, and more modern sync architecture—the very backbone of the Evernote experience."

Yep, it's now end of April, 2023, and I still get multiple sync conflicts a day between my iPad, iPhone, and Mac. I've been a paid premium user for over a decade, from back when the app actually used to work, but I've thrown in the towel; I've recently transitioned over to another notes system and canceled my EN annual renewal. Synch between devices is about the most core of functionalities I can imagine in a paid app like this, and EN has had it all screwed up for well over 5 years. Posting a promise to improve to a blog is one thing and actually DOING something about it quite another. I'm sure all the California EN devs are still working from home, hiding under their beds from CV, and will be continuing to do so for years to come, so this kind-of stuff will never change/improve until the business does finally file for Chapter 11, which it will.

Good luck to everyone else sticking it out!

Boot17 · April 21

6 hours ago, Velolion said:

Posting a promise to improve to a blog is one thing and actually DOING something about it quite another. I'm sure all the California EN devs are still working from home, hiding under their beds from CV, and will be continuing to do so for years to come, so this kind-of stuff will never change/improve until the business does finally file for Chapter 11, which it will.

Ironic timing given the below comment was posted just earlier today:

esetter230 · April 22

17 hours ago, Velolion said:

Yep, it's now end of April, 2023, and I still get multiple sync conflicts a day between my iPad, iPhone, and Mac. I've been a paid premium user for over a decade, from back when the app actually used to work, but I've thrown in the towel; I've recently transitioned over to another notes system and canceled my EN annual renewal. Synch between devices is about the most core of functionalities I can imagine in a paid app like this, and EN has had it all screwed up for well over 5 years. Posting a promise to improve to a blog is one thing and actually DOING something about it quite another. I'm sure all the California EN devs are still working from home, hiding under their beds from CV, and will be continuing to do so for years to come, so this kind-of stuff will never change/improve until the business does finally file for Chapter 11, which it will.

Good luck to everyone else sticking it out!

Which app did you switch to? I've tried Joplin, but didn't like several features.

PinkElephant · April 23

No issue at all with sync conflicts, Macs and several iOS devices.

However I can provoke a sync conflict any time: Just need to edit the same note crosswise on several devices, in a way that makes the local copies create a conflict once they sync to the server. If a user does this without intention, he will wonder where the note conflicts arise.

Those aware of the problem are waiting for the new sync that should solve this source of conflicts.

markmcil · August 16

On 4/22/2023 at 9:06 AM, esetter230 said:

Synch between devices is about the most core of functionalities I can imagine in a paid app like this, and EN has had it all screwed up for well over 5 years.

My sentiments exactly. It's like I woke up one day and thought, "why am I paying a premium subscription for a janky app that requires me to treat it like fragile china?"

Dave-in-Decatur · August 16

1 hour ago, markmcil said:

On 4/22/2023 at 10:06 AM, esetter230 said:

Synch between devices is about the most core of functionalities I can imagine in a paid app like this, and EN has had it all screwed up for well over 5 years.

My sentiments exactly. It's like I woke up one day and thought, "why am I paying a premium subscription for a janky app that requires me to treat it like fragile china?"

You're responding to a post from before the new sync structure was implemented in May. Not that that implementation didn't have problems, but they're unrelated to the issues discussed previously in this thread. The newest version, 10.60.4, has resolved some issues, as did their work to beef up the back end a couple of months ago. Are you still experiencing note conflicts (the subject of this thread)? If so, under what circumstances?

esetter230 · August 16

A recent update finally fixed this long-term sync problem. I’m a happy camper.

Ongoing note conflicts — and problems with Evernote support

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