Lost content (or more precisely, Evernote replaced newer content with older content)

[Ricardo 19]

Hi there! I'm not sure if anyone here can help me with this, but I'd appreciate even moral support at this point.

In short, Evernote seemingly replaced the content of one of my notes with and older version (i.e., a much earlier and much shorter version, which is missing a lot of updates), and duplicated that note.

To be sure, I searched for the content I knew (for sure!) should be in the latest version of the note, but found no results.

I looked at the trash folder, also no luck there.

I can't access the note history. The web client says I need to upgrade from the "Plus" plan I'm currently subscribed, but even the subscriptions page doesn't tell in which plan I can see the notes history! And it also won't let me change the plan for one day or even a month - it says I need to upgrade for A YEAR! And still I'm not even sure if seeing the note history would help AT ALL!!!

I'm flabbergasted, disappointed and, honestly, much worse than that. I've been an Evernote user and "evangelist" since 2010, and this is the first time I've lost data on Evernote.

I tried to contact support via https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new using Google Chrome, and even though I could enter all details, when I clicked [Submit] nothing happened! I opened the same page and tried again multiple times, with and without attachments, same result (there are not even error messages in the Javascript console). I started writing this message on the forums because of that, but I finally could submit a ticket using MS Edge, though.

Any ideas about what might have happened, or how to recover that note?

Thanks!

[Ricardo 19]

FWIW, I found the SQLite database at

C:\Users\<username>\Evernote\Databases\<username>.exb

does contain most of the text from the original note, but without formatting, without accents, without links, repeated multiple times and in a kind of incoherent format - looks more like search keywords than content...

[PinkElephant 8,170]

From what you tell it’s note history what you need. Now it depends on how important that stuff that got overlayed is for you.

It is important that the original note (not a copy, not a duplicate) still exists - only that one carries the note history.

To unlock note history you need to upgrade to Personal. If you are allowed for a second or a year does not make a huge difference: Once upgraded, you can’t go back to your beloved Plus - never ever.

So it’s Personal (or above) from then on, or down to the Free level after the initial subscription is over.

Think it over.

[PinkElephant 8,170]

P.S. AFAIK note history is a server side feature - as practically all features that make a difference between plans.

[Ricardo 19]

Thanks, PinkElephant! But this seems to me like a server side error (I can't fathom how I could have done this), and to think that I have to pay more to recover my data from an Evernote failure is just rubbing salt in the wound. I hope support can help me out this time, or else I'll finally lose my faith in Evernote and jump ship.

[PinkElephant 8,170]

Actually you ask for a feature that was never available on the Plus plan.

You can decide to reach out for it by buying yourself into the right subscription level, or you try to convince support (which is not us) to let you fix this through them. Maybe they decide to sort this out, maybe not - they play by their own policies, which we don’t know.

My goal was just to make sure you know the consequences of upgrading your current subscription, user 2 user. Once up / out, you never come back to where you have started.

[Boot17 1,467]

@Ricardo I get you... I was a Plus subscriber myself for many years and I had a similar problem happen to me where I lost a couple of hours of work due to a sync conflict blowing away my most recent changes that I wanted to keep. This was shortly after the v10 version had rolled out as well and so shortly after that point I spent many many hours looking at other tools to see what was out there. It has only ever happened that one time to me -- that I can recall -- but only one time was all it took for me to question.

Long story, short though -- for me, I ended up doubling down on Evernote and upgraded to Personal (and can't go back to Plus now but I wouldn't even if I could anyway) figuring that if I was really going to depend on a tool for Professional and Personal use, that it was worth it to me to have more features -- especially the version history feature -- but there were others that made it worth it for me.

So, anyway - I get where you are coming from and know that it is frustrating. Now is as good a time as any to re-evaluate the waters and see if you can get better value for your money with a different product -- or perhaps decide it is worth it to upgrade and pay more for the Personal plan.

[Ricardo 19]

Yesterday support upgraded my account to Personal (without me even asking for it) so I could try to restore the note from the note history. At first, nothing happened when I clicked "restore" a few times, but when I closed the history dialogue several "Restored" notes appeared in the note list. I quickly checked them and they seemed to be correctly restored (phew!?), maybe missing only a few images, so I decided to check them again today.

And today, ALL the content in the Restored notes is GONE! The notes still appear in the notes list, but they have 0 words, 0 characters, both in the web and desktop clients. Each restored note has a different size, and one is listed as having 4 MB, and even though the desktop client says it contains 39 images, both desktop and web clients show the note as completely empty. I didn't edit none of the restored notes, and they have no history.

So I restored the original note once more, and just like yesterday the restored note seems to be just fine (both in the desktop and web clients), with 1,457 words, 10,189 characters, 42 images and 3.5 MB - but I wonder if its contents will disappear again... In the meantime, I exported the note in .enex format just in case.

[PinkElephant 8,170]

Glad it got sorted out. Export as ENEX is one option, duplicate it another. If something is wrong inside of the note (like a bad piece of HTYML code), it might happen again. Maybe when Support was on it they could tell you about why it vanished. 

Anyhow keeping the ENEX is probably a good idea.