(Archived) 2.0 beta: EN hangs during launch

[soundsgoodtome 155]

database upgrade completed (it seemed). then app relaunched, but now it just hangs with the SBBOD and no notes showing. i see "all notebooks" in the notebook area, but no additional notebooks (although i have over a dozen).

interestingly, when i selected quit from the menubar, i momentarily saw my notebooks appear in the sidebar -- just before the app quit. but when i relaunch, they don't appear.

just now, while composing this post, a few of my notes appeared, but i still have the SBBOD and cannot interact with the app at all. if a sync is taking place, it would be helpful to have a progress bar or something indicating such. otherwise, it seems the app is simply frozen (also the dock icon says "not responding").

[engberg 89]

Wow, thanks!

[soundsgoodtome 155]

And on the iMac this morning, it now opens and loads the data so fast, it seems as if it was a "saved state."

Whatever you did... I'm impressed.

yes! opening quickly on macbook pro. will check mac pro later. thanks!

the message "this notebook is empty" is still displayed briefly and remains disconcerting. a "loading" message or progress spinner would be more accurate. that said, this bug appears to have been fixed, and we're grateful!

thanks again.

[mdave 1]

And on the iMac this morning, it now opens and loads the data so fast, it seems as if it was a "saved state."

Whatever you did... I'm impressed.

[mdave 1]

New today, 2.0 flies... the fastest-opening version on this previously problematic MacBook. Just pops open. Great job!

[mdave 1]

The other is a new iMac running Leopard and runs EN at the quick step.

[engberg 89]

mdave - do you happen to have another Mac? If so, do you see this on that other Mac, too?

[mdave 1]

Mac OS X 10.5.8 (9L31a)

[engberg 89]

If you're seeing this problem, can you please specify your full OS X version?

[mdave 1]

Fourteen samples taken over a 19-minute period. The last sample is after EN settled and became responsive.

[soundsgoodtome 155]

We've heard reports about this from some users, but haven't been able to reproduce it on any of our systems.

To gather more information while Evernote is in this extended "hung" state on launch, it would be helpful to use the Activity Monitor application to find out what Evernote is actually doing at that time.

If you're experiencing a very long unresponsive period when you first start the app, you could try:

Start Activity Monitor app

Start Evernote

While Evernote is hanging, go back to Activity Monitor, select the Evernote entry, and press the "Sample Process" button

That will bring up a window, and you can Save the output to a file. (You could do this a couple of times to sample the activity at different points in time.)

If you do this, let us know and we'll contact you so you can send us these activity files.

done. i took 5 samples -- one every 30 seconds or so after launching. the first 3 were taken before my notebooks appeared. the second 2 were taken after my notebooks appeared, but while the app was still unaccessible (SBBOD, plus activity monitor displayed "not responding" in red). finally, after about 2-1/2 minutes, the app became available for interaction.

samples zipped and attached. i figure that's fastest. but if you need them sent otherwise, just let me know.

thanks.

thanks.

Evernote Samples Archive.zip

[engberg 89]

We've heard reports about this from some users, but haven't been able to reproduce it on any of our systems.

To gather more information while Evernote is in this extended "hung" state on launch, it would be helpful to use the Activity Monitor application to find out what Evernote is actually doing at that time.

If you're experiencing a very long unresponsive period when you first start the app, you could try:

Start Activity Monitor app

Start Evernote

While Evernote is hanging, go back to Activity Monitor, select the Evernote entry, and press the "Sample Process" button

That will bring up a window, and you can Save the output to a file. (You could do this a couple of times to sample the activity at different points in time.)

If you do this, let us know and we'll contact you so you can send us these activity files.

[soundsgoodtome 155]

this follow-up is to report behavior that's similar to the hanging i experienced when i first installed the 2.0 beta. however, at the time i associated the behavior with a new installation. but now i'm getting similar symptoms, every time i launch the app:

upon launch, the center of the window says "this notebook is empty," and i see the SBBOD for a full minute or two. during this time, i'm unable to interact with the app at all, and it appears that the app has crashed -- though, through trial and error, i've learned that it hasn't crashed; it's just "working." but the symptoms (SBBOD, the dock saying "unresponsive," and the "notebook empty" message) all point to a hang/crash.

this will confuse users.

incidentally i've noticed the "all notebooks" stack still has an accurate note-count, even though the message "this notebook is empty" is displayed. that gives me more confidence, but i'd recommend replacing "this notebook is empty" with something more benign.

(i also assume startup time will be optimized in a future update? version 1.x started up much more quickly.)

[mdave 1]

Yeah. I fell asleep and woke up to see that it was working.

[soundsgoodtome 155]

I'm having a similar experience. It takes a full three minutes to load the All Notebooks notebook with no content, then another 7 minutes to populate the entire data... all the while: SBBOD.

This is on an older MacBook 2.16 GHz running Leopard with 4GB of RAM. No problem on my new iMac running Snow Leopard. I am next going to completely delete all components of EN from the MacBook and reinstall and sync to see if there is any corruption that can be eliminated.

since you mentioned being on an older mac, i should add i'm on a months-old 8-core intel with 14 gigs of RAM. so this issue is certainly not specific to older machines. :-)

to reiterate, i think the "wait" is fine -- as long as the user is given feedback via a progress bar or something. but the SBBOD (incorrectly?) conveys a more serious problem, and many users are likely to force-quit before the process is complete. i certainly did, the first time. it was only sheer luck that while EN was locked the 2nd time, i came here to write a post, and just after i finished, EN returned to a normal state of usability.

[mdave 1]

I'm having a similar experience. It takes a full three minutes to load the All Notebooks notebook with no content, then another 7 minutes to populate the entire data... all the while: SBBOD.

This is on an older MacBook 2.16 GHz running Leopard with 4GB of RAM. No problem on my new iMac running Snow Leopard. I am next going to completely delete all components of EN from the MacBook and reinstall and sync to see if there is any corruption that can be eliminated.

[soundsgoodtome 155]

well, no sooner did i submit my post than my notes appeared. i wasn't concerned about data loss (i have EN on several devices), but couldn't tell if the app was working properly or not. i guess it was loading something -- but as i stated before -- there was no indication of such, and upon seeing this behavior, most users will believe that the app has crashed.

now that my notes have appeared, i see "generating thumbnail images" and "indexing notes" in the activity area -- which is very helpful information. for the few minutes that elapsed before my notebooks appeared (accompanied by the SBBOD), there was no information from the app, which was very disconcerting.