Multiple issues with Evernote -- completely unusable starting this afternoon for me

[denebly 6]

Hello, I'm a paid subscriber to Evernote Personal, and I would like someone from Evernote Support to contact me.  Starting this afternoon, all of my Evernote clients (two on MacOS, one on iOS) stopped syncing with Evernote servers.  When I attempt to log into the evernote.com web client, I get the message, "Sorry, we're having some trouble loading Evernote Web. Try reloading the page."  When I try to sign in to this very site (discussion.evernote.com) on a browser cleared of its cache of cookies, I get "Oops, we encountered an error. Unexpected error. Our server has experienced difficulties processing your request(/forumSso/)".

It's been like this for several hours.  I'm not sure how to contact Evernote support other than posting here (through a browser that thankfully retained its cache of Evernote cookies).

Please help!  Thank you!

[agsteele 3,055]

You're pretty clear that you only want help from Evernote support. These forums are user-to-user. To contact support staff you'll need to open a support ticket.

[PinkElephant 8,695]

To me this sounds more like a massive network problem. Either your ISP is letting you down, or your home network firewall has declared war to the world.

Pull the power from your router, wait 10sec and plug it in again. Now wait for some minutes until the handshake with the ISPs server has happened. Maybe this helps.

If not, try to connect to the internet via mobile data (iOS). You can use the iOS EN client to contact support. The option is in settings, support, contact support.

[denebly 6]

PinkElephant, thanks, but it's not an ISP or firewall problem.  I'm using multiple ways to connect to the Internet.

I tried submitting a ticket through the iPhone/iOS app.  I get the error, "Ticket submission failed. Unable to submit support request.  Please try again later."

How do I contact Evernote Support through traditional means?  Email, phone, chat...

[PinkElephant 8,695]

It is described in the last paragraph of my post above.

In case there are problems it is best to use the device on which you have trouble, because you can send an activity log to the devs. But in general using the mobile client is easier than with desktop or web clients. So if the problem persists on mobile as well, you can use that option.

Else use this link:

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

 

[denebly 6]

Hi PinkElephant, I updated my previous reply about using the iPhone app to try to submit a ticket.  I'm getting that error.

And when I go to the https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new link, I get the error, "Oops, we encountered an error. Unexpected error. Our server has experienced difficulties processing your request(/SupportLogin.action) You may need to Sign in to your account to access this page."

How do I contact Evernote Support through traditional means?  Email, phone, chat...

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,998]

@denebly, where are you located? It could be some kind of regional issue. Every once in a while, Evernote's servers do go down briefly. I'm in the southeastern United States, and I can connect to evernote.com. In any case, it's liable to resolve itself in awhile, and there's not much you or we (and maybe not even Evernote) can do about it. (There is no direct email or phone support, sadly.)

[denebly 6]

Hi Dave-in-Decatur.  I'm actually near Evernote's HQ in Redwood City!  I _was_ tempted to literally show up in person to get some sort of support contact information (email or phone since the problem prevented me from logging in to file a ticket).

The reason I say "_was_" is that the problem suddenly went away a few minutes ago!  Clearly the problem was server-side and perhaps restricted to my account since others were not complaining.

If anything, what I've learned from this is Evernote can exhibit problems that inadvertently lock customers out from their Support channel.  That's not good.  😞.

I appreciate the community's help!  Thank you for YOUR support!  🙂

[CandaceLebel 0]

I've been using Evernote for 12 years, and I've just about given up on the idea of contacting support.  On a lark, when I followed https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new just now I chose "Guest" and was able to actually get to someplace where I could contact Support.  I hope I remember that I next time I need something.

[John in Michigan USA 140]

@deneblyProblems like yours are rare, but they do happen more often with Evernote than with, say, Google. I've had them myself. Patience, and offline notebooks, are your friends.

If this sort of thing happens again, you could report your problem at https://downdetector.com/status/evernote/ which at least might help you, us, and perhaps Evernote to see if there's a pattern to the problem.

[denebly 6]

@John in Michigan USA, I actually did report on https://downdetector.com/status/evernote/ -- I was one of the little "blips" that showed up in their graph yesterday.

Thank you John, @agsteele, @PinkElephantand @Dave-in-Decatur for your moral support!

[TerryS 13]

Hello, I am in Houston TX and this hit me yesterday afternoon as well. Running version 7.14 on Mac, M1 MacBook Pro 13.

Could not sync new notes--the app said export them and totally delete them. Sync would not work after I did that. My export to enex and import to apple notes.app was successful--I have all my new notes from yesterday.

I wanted to come to the forum to see if this was a broad issue, but I didn't have cookies and I could not log into the web version of my account with any browser.

This affected me at work--when I created the notes--and at home later in the night.

I wondered if support for legacy version or my 7.14 had ended and I had missed some email about that.

I shrugged and used appcleaner to remove all traces of evernote.app and data.

I installed the new version 10.36.4 on my laptop and that did not help.

My notes synced--downloaded again--but I could not create a new note.

They would "flash" on the screen and then vanish. Duplicated notes would "flash" and vanish too.

This morning I tried the current iPhone app and every new note I created was corrupted immediately. I used my home wifi and Verizon cell service with the same effect.

I went to work and during my 8am to noon time there v7.14-- which is still on my iMac--had the same problem on the company wifi.

I installed Joplin and did a full export to enex for my "bullet journal" notebook and I am doing a notebook by notebook export on an as-needed basis only.

After the iphone corruption I did not want to do anything except export notes.

With Joplin's local *and* synced (Dropbox) notebooks and Time Machine backups I hope I can avoid this.

I lost 8 working hours, four last night and four today--so far--because I literally have to open my main notebook to know what I should be doing and what deadlines I'm missing. And I did not sleep well.

I hope I can dump 10.36.4 and get back to 7.14. However, each notebook will move to Joplin as I need it and I will not come back. I think this is the downside to 'no local notes/files.' The internet is not perfect or always on.

Cheers, everyone.

[TerryS 13]

I looked at downdetector and saw your blip! I should have added mine. I will do so next time.

 

[PinkElephant 8,695]

About the idea to show up in person ….

About to look up the server situation:

https://status.evernote.com/

I am located in Germany, and EN performed well, without any glimpse all of the time (well in fact I sleep sometimes). EN runs a distributed server structure, so even if one datacenter should go down, others will take over.

To me it looks like a network issue. This could be something like the DNS lookup issue - the servers are up, but the calls can’t reach them, because the network in between them and the customers can’t locate the network address. Time will tell.

[betnel 26]

23 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

@denebly, where are you located? It could be some kind of regional issue. Every once in a while, Evernote's servers do go down briefly. I'm in the southeastern United States, and I can connect to evernote.com. In any case, it's liable to resolve itself in awhile, and there's not much you or we (and maybe not even Evernote) can do about it. (There is no direct email or phone support, sadly.)

I am located in the southeast as well. Today (Saturday)  I am able to at least login to this site & Evernote on the web. I had the same problems of errors on the 'server side' that started on Thursday. No page reload, etc. 

My Legacy Evernote windows 10 does not sync - 10:31:09 [ERROR  ] [6796] [15788]  error: " (ENML_VALIDATION)" This started on Thursday with the above noted server side issues. All the notes entered have this same error. 

Any thoughts on how to fix this without having to uninstall Evernote? 

 

[TerryS 13]

I am sorry to hear that you are still having this problem @betnel. I hope you can reach out to Evernote and submit a ticket. I guessed that whatever it was, was over yesterday afternoon. Sorry to hear that I am wrong.

@PinkElephant, I forgot to mention I did check the status web page and it added to my confusion as nothing was reported as wrong on the server side. Therefore, I first reinstalled the legacy version and then installed the New Coke version.

Edited May 7, 2022 by TerryS
Replies to two persons were intermixed

[PinkElephant 8,695]

Thanks for the update. If it is a network / ISP problem, nobody can really do anything about it than the network provider himself.

It is not unheard of that they misconfigure something. The most likely issue can be the DNS lookup.

This goes pretty deep, but most routers allow to set an alternative DNS provider. Like 8.8.8.8 (Google) or 1.1.1.1 (Cloudflare). Then the request will not go to your ISP (who uses it to improve his service / spy on your internet usage / pick the right answer) but these alternatives.

But you should know what you do if you reconfigure it, because it can lead to have no internet at all.

To test for the network you can try to disable WiFi and use the mobile network instead. If it works then, it is the ISP for sure.

[betnel 26]

2 hours ago, TerryS said:

I am sorry to hear that you are still having this problem @betnel. I hope you can reach out to Evernote and submit a ticket. I guessed that whatever it was, was over yesterday afternoon. Sorry to hear that I am wrong.

@PinkElephant, I forgot to mention I did check the status web page and it added to my confusion as nothing was reported as wrong on the server side. Therefore, I first reinstalled the legacy version and then installed the New Coke version.

I also checked the status and it reported that everything was running just fine. However, using downdetector showed reported problems but not a huge number. I still haven't updated to the 'new' evernote. There are so many commands that I use that were not available during the initial launch. I just haven't bothered to check if EN ever got around to adding them back. I've been a paying customer for over 10 years and the whole 're-write' of the program and it's launch was done completely ignoring the base customers. Also, their focus on iOS & their style of apps leaves us PC users out. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,998]

12 minutes ago, betnel said:

I still haven't updated to the 'new' evernote. There are so many commands that I use that were not available during the initial launch. I just haven't bothered to check if EN ever got around to adding them back.

I'm in the same position, but I've been using Evernote Web for awhile and find it to function well. The Web version is supposedly very similar to the v. 10 desktop program, and I'm planning to give that a try sometime in the near future. My understanding is that most of what was omitted from the initial release of v. 10 for Windows has now been restored, though there are a couple of things that aren't coming back.

[betnel 26]

@Dave-in-Decatur In the coming months I need to sort out the new version as it appears that EN support will not provide ANY support unless it is for the NEW version. Why they won't explain their sync error codes and how to fix them is baffling. A search of the error code returns no results... 

[PinkElephant 8,695]

The desktop version is as close to v10 desktop as it probably can be. During legacy the gap was much larger.

The web client is IMHO OK to test the look & feel of v10. Some functions are available on desktop only, so if anything specific is not available on the web, it still may be there on desktop. Since v10 can be installed in parallel to legacy, there is really no need to wait with testing - even if somebody decides to stick with legacy some more.

The legacy versions are used as they are. Since there will be no changes made to them - even if it means they are completely unusable a a point to come - supporting them does not really make any sense. Beside that EN support was really struggling for a few months to keep up with demand, so it was logical then to focus on the new version. Looking at the many new names in the support team, I doubt all of them are even familiar with legacy.

We fellow users here in the forum share our experience on legacy and v10, and there are still a lot of help documents and YT videos available covering most questions about legacy. But legacy is living on borrowed time.

[John in Michigan USA 140]

On 5/7/2022 at 11:36 AM, betnel said:

My Legacy Evernote windows 10 does not sync - 10:31:09 [ERROR  ] [6796] [15788]  error: " (ENML_VALIDATION)" This started on Thursday with the above noted server side issues. All the notes entered have this same error. 

Try searching this forum on these various error codes and messages. For example, https://discussion.evernote.com/search/?q=ENML_VALIDATION&quick=1

[PinkElephant 8,695]

Just a remark about not being able to connect to the EN server: Things can go wrong with internet connections, everybody knows that.

When the EN client is logged into the account before shutting the app and the computer down, it is possible to work offline as well. Each desktop client holds a full copy of the database on the local drive. Just as long as there is a internet connection, it tries to find the server. If the connection is bad, this stalls the client.

In such a case cut the internet connection, go offline. EN falls back to the local copy, will save all changes, and sync them later to the server when the connection is restored. I use this frequently when on a train, where the internet is spotty. To allow to stay online, but switch apps offline selectively I use an app called TripMode on my Mac.

Insisting on the server connection in every situation is the wrong strategy.

[Dr. Bull 19]

On 5/8/2022 at 7:03 PM, PinkElephant said:

Just a remark about not being able to connect to the EN server: Things can go wrong with internet connections, everybody knows that.

When the EN client is logged into the account before shutting the app and the computer down, it is possible to work offline as well. Each desktop client holds a full copy of the database on the local drive. Just as long as there is a internet connection, it tries to find the server. If the connection is bad, this stalls the client.

In such a case cut the internet connection, go offline. EN falls back to the local copy, will save all changes, and sync them later to the server when the connection is restored. I use this frequently when on a train, where the internet is spotty. To allow to stay online, but switch apps offline selectively I use an app called TripMode on my Mac.

Insisting on the server connection in every situation is the wrong strategy.

Thanks for mentioning TripMode @PinkElephant! I see that it is available via my Setapp subscription.  I will give this a try next time I am out and about. 

[Razguul 0]

Let's face it. Evernote keeps getting worse with each patch/update. Pretty soon it will just stop working!

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,998]

3 hours ago, Razguul said:

Let's face it. Evernote keeps getting worse with each patch/update. Pretty soon it will just stop working!

Um, hi, and, um, welcome to the forums. You're replying to a month-old issue that was solved, so it's hard to see what you're trying to contribute here. But to confirm or disconfirm your prediction, try searching these forums for "Evernote keeps getting worse." You'll probably find 5- or 10-year-old threads that predict Evernote will be out of business in 6 months.