Search not finding all matches on v10.15.6

[SergioP 2]

I know this isn't the first post about this problem. I hope I can provide enough details to help troubleshooting this issue.

I'm running Evernote 10.15.6 on macOS Big Sur (v13.3.1). I have 70 notes, mostly text, some formatting, nothing fancy. When I search (CMD + OPT + F) and try to search for a word that is present in my notes (often in several of my notes) Evernote rarely finds the word in the note contents. It seems to only always find if the word is in the note title.

Below is a screenshot of the search function failing to find at least one document that contains the word assessment:

Just to play with it, I opened the Developer Tools (from the Help / Troubleshoot menu) and could not spot any errors in the Console or any failed requests in the Network tab. There were a couple of flagged issues, though (the same issue, twice). See this other image (in case the image disappears later, the issue is a cookie named "_ga" not being marked with the SameSite attribute). I believe this is just a Google Analytics cookie so it should not have any relation to the defect I'm experiencing.

After this I did a Force Reload and this time searching for assessment found the note in question, but it didn't fix the search. Other words continued to not be found.

I'd be happy to try more troubleshooting steps if that helps. I'm comfortable navigating the dev tools, clearing caches, local storage, inspecting values in the console, etc.

 

[PinkElephant 8,072]

Hello Sergio, very interesting analysis since we all rely on search. You could issue a support ticket to bring this to the attention of EN.

Beside this I will flag your post to EN staff.

@Shane D. Hi Shane, maybe somebody could take a look at this.

[SergioP 2]

Thanks. I submitted a support ticket (#3331811). It would be good to add any tips or solutions to this thread as it could help others looking for answers.

[SergioP 2]

I just wanted to clarify that Evernote calls this feature that isn't working as I expected "Search suggestions" and not "Search". I can be surprising for an end-user that Search and Search Suggestions don't match/display the same findings but I've verified that after typing my search term, if I actually hit Enter then a real search is performed and it seems to match what I'm looking for.

Knowing that there's a more accurate search feature, even if slower, greatly helps me. At least I can hit enter if I don't immediately see what I'm looking for.

 

[PinkElephant 8,072]

Search suggestions are restricted to a max of 3. Should be clear enough this is an assistance, not clairvoyance of how an incomplete search term will terminate.

[SergioP 2]

2 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Search suggestions are restricted to a max of 3. Should be clear enough this is an assistance, not clairvoyance of how an incomplete search term will terminate.

I guess I've been influenced by other applications that I use, where typing something in the search field already start a real search with the top-N results and I can pick one of the results right there or hit enter to see all results. But it's OK now that I know how it works in Evernote. I had expectations that did not match the feature's purpose.

It's still strange that "assessment" did not appear as a suggestion on my first screenshot but I can live with that. 

[StevenTillson02 1]

In Evernote, Search suggestions are restricted to a max of 3. So it is causing the issue.

[PinkElephant 8,072]

The search suggestions are not there to show search results. They are there to offer a shortcut to probable search terms. By clicking one of them the string is placed in the search field, to perform the real search.

This explains as well why they don’t show what may look as the closest search result. They are not build for that - they show the most likely terms to continue the search.