I really, really like Evernote, but........

[eastendgirl 9]

I have been an Evernote user for 10 years and overall I've found it an excellent piece of software.  However over the last year or two, annoying bugs have gradually been creeping in which they don't seem in any hurry to fix.  I keep getting annoying nags to upgrade from Plus to Professional, fair enough, they want to retire Plus, but where is the incentive when Professional is almost twice the cost and what guarantee do I have that things will be any better if I do upgrade?  As far as I can see, upgrading  wouldn't affect the mobile app.

Duplication of notes - frequently occurs, which necessitates checking each version to see which is the latest one and deleting the other version.

Android app 'freezing' and unable to save, update or move to another part of the Evernote screen unless I log out clear the cache and log back in again, when I then find my last updated note hasn't updated or has only saved amid half a sentence!  I have checked my WiFi signal and everything else works fine except Evernote.  I took to writing notes elsewhere and then copying them into EN when on the windows or web version, but that kind of defeats the object....

I have raised these issues with tech support - still waiting for a response.  My subscription is up for renewal soon and I really don't want the aggro of moving everything to another program, but I use Evernote android app daily and this is a deal breaker for me.

Does anyone else have these problems? Have you found a workable solution?

[agsteele 2,940]

The apps aren't affected by the plan that you are on. You get the same app Free to Professional. The only issue would be if you were on an older version of Android in which case you would not be able to upgrade to version 10.

What is different are the features that are available. If you only need the Plus things that you already have then there's is no need to upgrade.

[M31415926 21]

This is the incompetence of the Evernote product team. They should keep the old Android app and only release a newer version once they are thoroughly tested for these basic functions! A sync button with progression status will solve many such small yet critical issues. Why is such a button not there? In particular, the automatic sync seems to be algorithmically fraud at this moment, which leaves many corner cases wrong. 

[eastendgirl 9]

Am running Android 12 which I believe is the latest version.  It seems they have concentrated on the PC versions and let the mobile app fall by the wayside, which is a shame as it used to be brilliant.  A relatively quick 'fix' I have found is to uninstall the app, clear the cache and then reinstall, but who wants to do that every week, and why should you have to when you are a paying subscriber?

Plus does everything I want it to and the extra bells and whistles in Pro just aren't worth the increase in subscription for me.  I only use it as a sole customer, don't share it for work or anything similar.  It feels like they are focusing on the corporate side or things, when it might be the single users who were their bread-and-butter.

[gazumped 11,652]

Whilst I have every sympathy with users who can't get an app to perform as they would wish,  the software provider is always free to design their product as they imagine their market would wish.  The only freedom users have is to use - or not use - that product if they seem to fit the correct profile.  If you can soldier on as you are,  then I'd suggest you do so - ignore the nags to upgrade for as long as you can - but be aware that sooner or later Plus is going to fade away completely.  You might want to look out for the promotions: Evernote messaged my Free account recently with a '50% off' offer (for the first year...) which would soften the blow nicely of an upgrade to Personal.  But beware that if you move away from Plus,  you can't come back...

(I also subscribe to Professional - the free account is for messing around in...)

Evernote seem to be getting good feedback from their new productivity bells and whistles,  so I wouldn't expect them to change tack anytime soon.

Having said which - you mention referring some issues to Support;  if you can post the ticket number here,  we can ask our Forum Admin to see whether it's possible to juice it up a little...

[eric99 978]

5 hours ago, eastendgirl said:

Does anyone else have these problems? Have you found a workable solution?

Yes, I can't use my android phone for quick note taking anymore. It's just so slow to save a simple note (minutes).  There are users on this forum where it works properly ( Agsteele for instance). I think they have flagship phones with a lot of memory, 8 GB maybe...

I have a 3 year old midrange phone, Samsung A50, the most popular Android phone in 2019. It has 4 GB of ram. I'm still very happy with this phone, everything runs smooth, except EN ! I refuse to switch phones every 3 years, just because developers are to lazy to write native apps..

What Android phone do you have? What's the  memory size?

 

[eastendgirl 9]

11 hours ago, eric99 said:

What Android phone do you have? What's the  memory size?

16 hours ago, gazumped said:

Whilst I have every sympathy with users who can't get an app to perform as they would wish,  the software provider is always free to design their product as they imagine their market would wish.  The only freedom users have is to use - or not use - that product if they seem to fit the correct profile. 

 

@eric99I'm using a Samsung A52 5G with 6GB of ram.

@gazumpedI get what you mean, but it was Evernote's choice to offer a cross-platform product and promote their software as all-singing, all-dancing.  Many users I suspect will have chosen this product because of the variety it can offer, and it is not unreasonable to expect to get not only what you have paid for, but that the software provider will honour their side of the contract; i.e. customer pays - software Co provides a decent product which does what it claims to.

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, eastendgirl said:

software Co provides a decent product which does what it claims to.

I think it's getting better - but like I said;  if you have a ticket number for your Support query,  post it here and we can see whether the Forum Admins can get any reaction for you...

[agsteele 2,940]

13 hours ago, eric99 said:

There are users on this forum where it works properly ( Agsteele for instance). I think they have flagship phones with a lot of memory, 8 GB maybe...

You're correct, I don't have any significant performance issues with the EN 10 Android app. I don't think of my phone as being particularly 'flag ship'. FWIW it is a OnePlus 8 with 8gB RAM and around 60gB spare storage. It is running Android 12. The device has a Snapdragon 865 Octa-core processor. My guess is that each of these specs could contribute to speedy working.

I've probably said before, but it remains worthwhile repeating, in following these performance challenges I see far more Samsung devices with the problem than anything else. But also worth noting that since Samsung has the biggest share of the Android phone market that isn't an entirely surprising result.

I wish we could find a means to capture the data necessary to work out what is affecting some and not others.

[eric99 978]

5 hours ago, gazumped said:

I think it's getting better - but like I said;  if you have a ticket number for your Support query,  post it here and we can see whether the Forum Admins can get any reaction for you...

In case the poster can't provide a ticket number,  this one is about the same problem, issued 3 months ago: #3516578

Thanks

[eric99 978]

7 hours ago, eastendgirl said:

@eric99I'm using a Samsung A52 5G with 6GB of ram.

Thanks for the info. I'm a bit surprised that even with 6GB ram, you still have problems...

The problem builds up over time: after a logout and clearing the cache, it is responsive. This proves that it is at least possible to run it on mid range phones. It looks like there is some kind of memory leak, or corruption of internal data structures, which makes EN unresponsive after a while.

I agree that EN should put the highest priority on these bug(s), because this affects most Android users. I never create notes on my phone anymore, while quick note taking on my phone was the main reason to become a subscriber 10 years ago.

 

[WilliamL 653]

There are some frustrations with the mobile app and sync, I experience these a fair bit but do manual syncs to try to avoid it which works mostly, except with tasks those don’t seem to sync as easily. 

I have just cancelled my subscription and plan to try a few other apps to see if they can cover what I use Evernote for, largely due to mounting frustration, a recent engagement with support, which was just farcical tipped me to the im done camp. Not saying I’ll not be back with the product, if they hit me with a deal I’ll probably end up back, but a bit of time away is needed. 

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, eric99 said:

this one is about the same problem, issued 3 months ago: #3516578

Flagged - don't know when or if you'll get any feedback...

[eric99 978]

12 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Flagged - don't know when or if you'll get any feedback...

😃

[eric99 978]

2 hours ago, WilliamL said:

There are some frustrations with the mobile app and sync, I experience these a fair bit but do manual syncs to try to avoid it which works mostly, except with tasks those don’t seem to sync as easily.

What's the model type and memory size of your phone?

[WilliamL 653]

1 hour ago, eric99 said:

What's the model type and memory size of your phone?

I have an iPhone 13 and an iPad Pro (2020), so fairly good devices. I just can’t ever get sync to work well, I’ve got it (mostly working) with notes but then tasks don’t sync even when doing pull down syncs regularly. I really hope the backend work they have said they are doing resolves these things. I’m really keen to get GTD going better and whilst in theory EN is perfect for it, the capture everything element followed by a sync battle each time does not sound appealing. 

[idoc 400]

I have had the same issues with my iphone 13. Seems to resolve when i restart the phone. 

[PinkElephant 8,066]

My observation with sync on the iOS client is it may be looking slow, but it happens. No idea why it is fast in one case and needs a few minutes in another. A few minutes is the maximum I observed in normal use, on several iOS devices.

One ticket I am running at the moment is about a sync that did not want to happen. It was after changing between mobile data and WiFi. When it switched over to a different network link, it probably needed to reestablish sync status between client and server before it could continue syncing. I tried to force a sync through settings, did not work either. In that case closing the client and restarting helped. To be clear: This happened only once, and after switching from mobile to WiFi while it still was syncing.

My conclusion: There may be situations when sync seems deadlocked. I would then try to restart the client and force a sync. If this doesn’t work either, restarting the device may be an option. Not convenient, and it should work without actions like this. But better than nothing.

[bmcl26 486]

i have a Samsung A70 with 6gb and have no real problems with EN on it. 

[eric99 978]

2 hours ago, bmcl26 said:

i have a Samsung A70 with 6gb and have no real problems with EN on it. 

Do you use your phone only for note retrieval or creation as well? How long does it take to save a note? On my phone, saving sometimes takes 2 minutes. Retrieval / sync incoming notes  is ok.

[So sad 0]

I lost everything and I devastated. I recently updated to an IPhone 13 from the 7. I used to access the app on my phone with a 4 digit code. After I got my new phone the updated version of Evernote now wanted me to enter an email address.. but I never used an email with this app. Is there no way to retrieve my notes ? 

[gazumped 11,652]

14 hours ago, So sad said:

I lost everything and I devastated. I recently updated to an IPhone 13 from the 7. I used to access the app on my phone with a 4 digit code. After I got my new phone the updated version of Evernote now wanted me to enter an email address.. but I never used an email with this app. Is there no way to retrieve my notes ? 

Hi.  AFAIK there is no way to use this app without providing an email address at some point.  Your notes will be safe on the server until you find a way to log back into the account.  For that you need to contact Support.  First though,  try going to Evernote.com in your browser and use your existing email address in the 'forgot password' option when signing in...

[agsteele 2,940]

In the old days you could log in with a username.  I still do and it works just fine. But you do need either a username or Email address.  The four digit code on the Android devices was a second level security thing. Reinstalling the app from scratch would mean you'd need your original login credentials as @gazumpedsays

[bmcl26 486]

On 8/22/2022 at 1:13 PM, eric99 said:

Do you use your phone only for note retrieval or creation as well? How long does it take to save a note? On my phone, saving sometimes takes 2 minutes. Retrieval / sync incoming notes  is ok.

I use the phone when out and about for finding notes and creating new ones as required, saving notes is certainly slower than on the PC but nothing even approaching 2 mins usually well under a minute.

[eric99 978]

3 hours ago, bmcl26 said:

I use the phone when out and about for finding notes and creating new ones as required, saving notes is certainly slower than on the PC but nothing even approaching 2 mins usually well under a minute.

Interesting to hear that it is certainly slower than on the PC. Well under a minute ?  Does that mean a few seconds or tens of seconds? 

After a fresh install, my phone takes 5 to 20 seconds to save a note. A week later, it takes 1 to 2 minutes.

I can live with 5 seconds, although for quick note taking, I need the snappy app from ten years ago, which was less than 1 second! It was possible to  jot down anything in my second brain  (open EN, create note, take a picture and save, all in a few seconds). Amazing how current software developers succeed in killing the performance of our sophisticated computers to a level of twenty years ago.

[bmcl26 486]

1 hour ago, eric99 said:

Interesting to hear that it is certainly slower than on the PC. Well under a minute ?  Does that mean a few seconds or tens of seconds? 

After a fresh install, my phone takes 5 to 20 seconds to save a note. A week later, it takes 1 to 2 minutes.

I can live with 5 seconds, although for quick note taking, I need the snappy app from ten years ago, which was less than 1 second! It was possible to  jot down anything in my second brain  (open EN, create note, take a picture and save, all in a few seconds). Amazing how software developers succeed in killing the performance of our sophisticated computers to a level of twenty years ago.

I would imagine the max it takes is possible 40secs which is fine for me.