smart filing seems to have stopped working

[markeh 40]

I think this just happened after a recent update - A clip now always lists "Main Notes" - I need to pick something else. A recent change (bug).

• Windows 11,
• Firefox 111.0,
• WebClipper Version: 7.31.1.493-787ddd7

Windows app, though I'm not sure related to web clipping.

• 10.54.4-win-ddl-public (3978)
• Editor: v166.1.20643
• Service: v1.66.1
• © 2019 - 2023 Evernote Corporation. All rights reserved

Anyone else notice this??

 

thx,

 

[agsteele 2,574]

I've never found that smart filing with the Web Clipper to be especially useful. It was rarely as sensitive to context as my brain so I don't bother with it.

However, I just made a few tests and it seems that every web clip was being sent to my default notebook regardless of having selected Smart Filing in the web clipper settings.

Given that I don't find smart filing reliable I cannot say if it is faulty but my short test seems to support your experience. Web clipper is a server side feature so the desktop app isn't likely to be in play.

Firefox 111.0
Web Clipper 7.31.1
Windows 11 Pro 22H2 22621.1413

[PinkElephant 6,756]

Have you yet tried to log out of the web clipper, and back in ?

If this doesn't solve the problem, contact support.

[markeh 40]

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

Have you yet tried to log out of the web clipper, and back in ?

If this doesn't solve the problem, contact support.

Tried - no difference. Smart Filing had been reasonably good until the last week or so. So a noticeable change.

I logged out of the Firefox add-on. Haven't tried logging out of Win11 app.

 

thx,

 

 

[PinkElephant 6,756]

Web Clipper sends content through the API. It has no direct relation with an installed EN client - it can even run on a PC where no EN client is installed.

If smart filing has stopped, you need to send a support ticket. A forum post will not trigger any action.

[markeh 40]

6 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

If smart filing has stopped, you need to send a support ticket. A forum post will not trigger any action.

thx - did that. We'll see if anything happens.

[RNRNRN 9]

It is also not working for me. 

Smart filing has been incredibly useful and accurate over the years, I must say - I use it to file news stories for my teaching. The clipper correctly chooses the right notebooks and tags most of the time.

[PinkElephant 6,756]

I don't use it, so I was not sure if my attempts to get it working were due to a lack of trained rules, or a malfunction.

If it worked for you before, and now stopped, it looks like a nasty bug. Contact support to get it fixed.

[RNRNRN 9]

Thanks, I did. It is really an underrated feature of the clipper if it fits your work needs. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 2,891]

On 3/20/2023 at 4:57 PM, markeh said:

I think this just happened after a recent update - A clip now always lists "Main Notes" - I need to pick something else. A recent change (bug).

• Windows 11,
• Firefox 111.0,
• WebClipper Version: 7.31.1.493-787ddd7

Windows app, though I'm not sure related to web clipping.

• 10.54.4-win-ddl-public (3978)
• Editor: v166.1.20643
• Service: v1.66.1
• © 2019 - 2023 Evernote Corporation. All rights reserved

Anyone else notice this??

 

thx,

 

I can confirm this, on Windows 10, using Edge v. 111, Clipper v. 7.31.1.493-787ddd7. With smart filing turned on, no matter what kind of page I try to clip (even pages with obvious connections in their titles to specific notebooks of mine), it wants to send the clip to my default notebook.

[Saskia 10]

I'm having the same issue, and have the same version of the web clipper (7.31.1.493-787ddd7). Anyone figured out a solution yet or had a response to a support query?

[Hylander 5]

I am also having the same issue, everything is sent to my default notebook and no tag recommendation.  This stopped working within the past week or so.  

[markeh 40]

Yup - reported to support. You might do the same - could get faster results.

I presume that eventually they will fix. This has happened multiple times in the past - their regression test suite needs updating.

 

.

 

[RNRNRN 9]

I also submitted a report last week.

[RNRNRN 9]

The latest update to the clipper seems to have resolved the problem.

[markeh 40]

4 hours ago, RNRNRN said:

The latest update to the clipper seems to have resolved the problem.

Yup - noticed same. This should be tested before sending out an update..

 

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 2,891]

6 hours ago, RNRNRN said:

The latest update to the clipper seems to have resolved the problem.

Same here. Thanks for reporting!

[Hylander 5]

Is anyone else noticing that smart filing for the Tag doesn't seem to be working?   I'm not getting any tag suggestions.   

[PinkElephant 6,756]

If you mean the web clipper, make sure you use the latest release. A version before had this issue, an update fixed it.

[Hylander 5]

Yes, I was referring to the web clipper and I do have the updated version.  I just haven't seen any tag suggestions since the earlier version with the problem.  

[PinkElephant 6,756]

Web clipper is specific to each browser. It may be Chrome and Chrome-based browsers already updated, but for example Firefox is still not released. Don’t know for sure - if in doubt check in the forum for the version number, or ask support.

[RNRNRN 9]

I'm wondering if the clipper is not working again. Further to the recent posts, I went to several different clipped articles with tags - all on wildly different topics - to see if tags would be suggested. Lo and behold - the clipper selects the same one notebook regardless of topic (and no tag).

I'm working in Safari / MAcOS.

[Hylander 5]

I should have mentioned that I'm using Chrome on Windows, and it's the same on multiple devices.  I have manually updated both the browser and the extension.   

In response to RNRNRN, I am seeing it now suggest the proper Notebook.  However, nothing shows up in the Tags section since there was the initial problem with smart filing.  

[PinkElephant 6,756]

OK, that makes it clearer. Since I don't use Chrome, I can't check.

If you feel it is not working, the best way is probably through a support ticket.

[markeh 40]

On 4/12/2023 at 12:33 PM, markeh said:

Yup - noticed same. This should be tested before sending out an update..

 

 

Well, it's changed, but not fixed. Doesn't seem to actually look at page context. Seems to pick the last notebook I used (not necessarily clipped) to "save to".

Sigh.... really have to wonder if Evernote has a future......

 

.

[PinkElephant 6,756]

The "last notebook" is another filing option - I would try to wiggle a bit between options, maybe it just got stuck somehow.

[markeh 40]

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

The "last notebook" is another filing option - I would try to wiggle a bit between options, maybe it just got stuck somehow.

Nope - no difference.

Sort of tired to debugging their app.

.

[PinkElephant 6,756]

You are not debugging their app. You want to use a feature, so it’s up to you (as anybody else who wants to use it) to cooperate if problems arise.

WebClipper is for free, these models only work with some cooperation.

What I can only see from other postings here is that users who had that issue meanwhile reported an update solved the problem for them.

[Hylander 5]

And as if on que, today I'm seeing some Tag recommendations again.  

[RNRNRN 9]

So the clipper is still not working for me. I informed support 3 weeks ago and heard back a few days later to say they will look into it, but I am still waiting to hear back. I even wrote to Fedrico and invited him to look into my support ticket...

[PinkElephant 6,756]

On which web clipper version are you, on which browser ?

[RNRNRN 9]

Version: 7.32.1.520 - 1.0.13 (520); Safari (but also have problems with Firefox)

[PinkElephant 6,756]

OK, the latest release. Now I can't go much beyond - I don't use smart filing (it gave me more to correct than it was saving).

What I can tell: This release is 3 weeks old now - so it can't yet contain a fix.

 

[Hylander 5]

I'll add that smart filing still isn't working "well".  I do get some recommendations, but it seems like it's almost always just the previously used one.  I thought it used to work quite well, but now it's pretty much useless.  

[markeh 40]

5 hours ago, Hylander said:

I'll add that smart filing still isn't working "well".  I do get some recommendations, but it seems like it's almost always just the previously used one.  I thought it used to work quite well, but now it's pretty much useless.  

Yup... the change was a change, not a fix. Instead of always going to Main notes, it now goes to last notebook. Smart no more.

Evernote... 2 steps forward, one step back.

[RNRNRN 9]

Bugs happen. The problem is not communicating on service requests for multiple weeks at the same time that the president announces a major price increase... That's an example of how brands lose value.

[Dave-in-Decatur 2,891]

For me, it was fixed for awhile, and now it's not again. Do check your settings in the Clipper (gear icon)--I found that mine had been reverted to default settings, e.g., Use default notebook. But re-setting to Smart filing still has all clips going to the default notebook.

[agsteele 2,574]

My experience with the web clipper is that the dev teams are pretty good at fixing issues. But it does, typically, take a week or two.

[FrankC 74]

24 minutes ago, agsteele said:

My experience with the web clipper is that the dev teams are pretty good at fixing issues. But it does, typically, take a week or two.

My experience is slightly different, in that the problems I reported took months to fix. I now keep an old version installed, but disabled, in Chrome in case a new update breaks something.

[elusis 1]

On 5/11/2023 at 6:43 PM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

For me, it was fixed for awhile, and now it's not again. Do check your settings in the Clipper (gear icon)--I found that mine had been reverted to default settings, e.g., Use default notebook. But re-setting to Smart filing still has all clips going to the default notebook.

I also saw this issue fixed briefly, then back to only filing clips in my Main Notebook. I checked settings just now to see if something had changed back to a default but they were all set as expected.

v.7.32.1.519-749a0a6 for Chrome for MacOS.

[Dave-in-Decatur 2,891]

Actually, for me it now seems to be stuck on a recently used notebook--not even my default. I tried clearing cookies, but it didn't help.

[markeh 40]

2 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Actually, for me it now seems to be stuck on a recently used notebook--not even my default. I tried clearing cookies, but it didn't help.

Same here. It does seem like Evernote has lost control of this part of the product.

[PinkElephant 6,756]

Oh, some niche detail drops on an update, and this is a loss of control ?

Hope you have control over your life, then …

The rest of us is either not using this feature (like me), or is simply waiting for an update to solve it.

[markeh 40]

14 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Oh, some niche detail drops on an update, and this is a loss of control ?

Hope you have control over your life, then …

The rest of us is either not using this feature (like me), or is simply waiting for an update to solve it.

The same bug appears, is fixed, re-appears, fixed again. I think this cycle has happened 3 times, maybe more for this particular problem. To me this indicates a poorly managed software development process.

A pretty standard way of testing is to include fixed bugs in a software regression test suite so they don't get re-introduced into the product and dumped (again) on your users.

As to niche detail - possibly for you, but not for me (and apparently others here). Clipping web pages is the key use case of EN for me - the most important thing it has to do well.

Maybe almost doubling the EN  price will improve the professionalism of the software team. Just a hope...

 

.

[Hylander 5]

8 minutes ago, markeh said:

The same bug appears, is fixed, re-appears, fixed again. I think this cycle has happened 3 times, maybe more for this particular problem. To me this indicates a poorly managed software development process.

A pretty standard way of testing is to include fixed bugs in a software regression test suite so they don't get re-introduced into the product and dumped (again) on your users.

As to niche detail - possibly for you, but not for me (and apparently others here). Clipping web pages is the key use case of EN for me - the most important thing it has to do well.

Maybe almost doubling the EN  price will improve the professionalism of the software team. Just a hope...

 

.

I agree, web clipping is by far the #1 activity I use Evernote for.  It's not a game killer, but it's certainly annoying after having it work fairly well for so long and then all of a sudden not having it.  It's definitely just using the last notebook utilized now though.   

[RNRNRN 9]

8 minutes ago, Hylander said:

I agree, web clipping is by far the #1 activity I use Evernote for.  It's not a game killer, but it's certainly annoying after having it work fairly well for so long and then all of a sudden not having it.  It's definitely just using the last notebook utilized now though.   

Me as well - in fact, it is the only reason I have stayed with Evernote. I have tried Notion, Joplin, and OneNote, all without success for different reasons, mainly trouble importing clippings (Microsoft even stopped supporting its importing tool).

The frustrating part is that I filed my initial service request 2 months ago and at one point I asked for an update and it took 3 weeks to reply. 

Re: the price increase. I checked and I'm still listed at the same price for my renewal in February.

[Dave-in-Decatur 2,891]

16 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Oh, some niche detail drops on an update, and this is a loss of control ?

Hope you have control over your life, then …

The rest of us is either not using this feature (like me), or is simply waiting for an update to solve it.

Here I have to disagree. Evernote's Web clipper is a wonderful tool, central to many people's use of EN and an important feature for many others (including me). All that @markeh said was they'd lost control of this feature, not the whole program, and the wobbling back and forth between working properly and not working properly does seem hard to understand.

[RNRNRN 9]

It is really frustrating that this has not been resolved. I last heard from support 2 weeks ago and they said the issue has been escalated... 

[Don0819 33]

I filed a report probably a month or more ago, and smart filing is still not working for me either. It just seems to either give a random file suggestion, or the last one used. You would think something broken this long would warrant some sort of communication/expectation setting. 

[RNRNRN 9]

I have given up on Evernote. I've been waiting for 2 months. When I write support to ask about the status, the answer is a variant of "I understand you are inquiring about..." and "I have sent this issue to the technical team..." 

I have switched to Upnote. The clipping - my only need in Evernote - works fine. You do not have smart filing, but the notes are there instantly when you look at them, and the search is super-fast - kind of like how Evernote used to be. 

Importing 8,000+ notes was relatively smooth, though news stories were a challenge, as it had limits on how long notes could be - it would tell me what notes were not imported, then I had to go to the website and clip them. I only did this for important articles - I figured that I either would not notice the non-imported articles were missing, or I could also do a search in Evernote.

Since clipping is my only use for Evernote, the $25 or so lifetime access to Upnote makes a lot more sense than paying $60 annually (for now?) to stay with a product that no longer works for me (not to mention the lack of timely support).

Thus ends my 12-year run with Evernote.

 

[PinkElephant 6,756]

OK, I don't get the logic: There is a bug that prevents smart filing. Then you say you move to another app "because" its not solved yet, but the other app has no smart filing by design. Either it is relevant, or it is not. Just tried in web clipper 7.33 (Safari, Mac), and it may be smart filing is back for the notebook, doesn't look like for the tags. I say "may be" because I never used it, so it has no training data in my account to work with.

But if you are more happy now than before, enjoy.

[markeh 40]

8 hours ago, RNRNRN said:

I have switched to Upnote. The clipping - my only need in Evernote - works fine. You do not have smart filing, but the notes are there instantly when you look at them, and the search is super-fast - kind of like how Evernote used to be. 

Hmmm. An app I hadn't heard about.

Given Evernote's difficulty in getting their act together, for me it deserves a look. Clipping web pages is the most important, though not only, feature I use.

On the upside, Upnote gets frequent IOS updates, meaning someone is paying attention. And it's cheap, though lifetime fees always make me wonder how long the developer will stay motivated.

On the down side, the Firefox Add-on (my daily browser) doesn't seem to get the same level of attention, and gets relatively poor reviews, even compared to EN.

Of course, even with EN getting and increasing their monthly fees, they don't seem all that motivated either. 

Needs more research. EN stores years of my data, and I rely on them to not either have insecure access, or lose everything. So far, as far as I know, they haven't failed in this part of the job. Upnote documentation states that my data would be stored on "the Firebase server located in the United States."  At the moment I know nothing about this.

.

 

[RNRNRN 9]

I was curious that you said that smart filing might be back, so I tried the clipper on tabs I had open in Safari (Mac). On all of the open tabs, I got the message, "This page needs to be reloaded before you can clip it. Reload the page and try again." Then it works. I've never seen that before. Reloading works, but I was wondering why this happens.

[PinkElephant 6,756]

Interesting observation - never happened to me. Usually I open a website, and on reading decide to clip. I usually don’t open a bunch, before I decide on clipping and go back.

Maybe that explains the difference.

MacOS Ventura, Safari (all fully updated), EN web clipper 7.33.

[Hylander 5]

As a premium paying customer, I do have to say it's a bit ridiculous how long it is taking them to fix this problem.  I've been a paying customer for years, and in general I've been happy to do so.  I know the extension has been updated with new features, yet the smart filing has still not been addressed.  Very disappointing.   

I live in a MS Office world, and of course One Note would be the obvious alternative.  However, it doesn't do everything Evernote does which is why I have never switched over.  That and I currently have 8,183 notes I don't want to haphazardly 'convert' or lose.  

[PinkElephant 6,756]

About the speed of a fix I can’t comment. You can contact support.

The web clipper itself works, it’s just the filing that requires a few clicks and entering of a few characters to pick notebook, tags and maybe apply a task. That’s usually not the sort of bug that calls for an urgent action.

The more support tickets are collected on an issue, the higher the likelihood an issue will be escalated.

[RNRNRN 9]

The reload issue could be a Safari problem. I find that if you leave a few tabs open, after a while you get a "this page was reloaded because it was using significant energy" message. However, I tried the clipper in Firefox for Mac and smart filing is still not working there either.

I feel the same as Hylander - it is not that bugs occur, but rather that this has taken two months (and counting) to address, and customer service has provided little feedback. Unfortunately, this has happened at the same time as the CEO defended forthcoming price increases so that the company could "deliver greater value to you, faster." 

[Don0819 33]

39 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

The web clipper itself works, it’s just the filing that requires a few clicks and entering of a few characters to pick notebook, tags and maybe apply a task. That’s usually not the sort of bug that calls for an urgent action.

You are right - "Except" when you bring out a feature called "Smart Filing". If you don't intend to support it, get rid of it - admit you can't make it work. If they never brought it out there would not have been an issue, now there's a feature staring us in the face every day that does not work. 

[PinkElephant 6,756]

There are features, that work and then get damaged. „Not supporting“ is a far cry from „it may take some update cycles until fixed“.

BTW we are all users here (except those with a „Staff“ on their badge).

[RNRNRN 9]

On 6/9/2023 at 7:34 PM, Federico Simionato said:

Due to an increase in customer support tickets mentioning them, earlier this week we assigned the highest priority to the following issues:

• Notes taking longer to load than expected (even those already converted to the RTE format)
• Content loss inside tasks

We released a series of backend fixes that should significantly improve the former, and the latter should also be improved.

This is only the first step. We are still actively working to make the backend more reliable.

If you still experience these issues in a few hours on the most up-to-date version of the clients, please get in touch with support and provide logs and details of what happened.

I apologize for the delay in communication. After observing metrics during the next two days, I will report back on Monday to give you more information.

 

On 6/20/2023 at 12:19 PM, PinkElephant said:

Interesting observation - never happened to me. Usually I open a website, and on reading decide to clip. I usually don’t open a bunch, before I decide on clipping and go back.

Maybe that explains the difference.

MacOS Ventura, Safari (all fully updated), EN web clipper 7.33.

Hi,

With respect to the reloading webpage message, I've been working in Vivaldi, and I tried to clip a page. I received the same message even though I had just loaded the page, but the heading of the message said "Javascript from www..." . 

Disabling javascript didn't fix the issue of needing to reload pages nor did the smart filing return (also doesn't work in Vivaldi for me)

[Hylander 5]

So today I get an email that my Personal subscription is jumping in price to $129.99 per year...   Yet this issue with Smart Filing is still not fixed.  It has now been over 6 months, how long is it going to take before they address this issue?   It's annoying, as I constantly have to double check to make sure I know where my clippings are going because I never know which "default" notebook is listed.  

[Don0819 33]

Yes it's amazing they haven't fixed this - or removed it if they can't get it fixed.

[RNRNRN 9]

On 9/23/2023 at 6:00 PM, Hylander said:

So today I get an email that my Personal subscription is jumping in price to $129.99 per year...   Yet this issue with Smart Filing is still not fixed.  It has now been over 6 months, how long is it going to take before they address this issue?   It's annoying, as I constantly have to double check to make sure I know where my clippings are going because I never know which "default" notebook is listed.  

Yes, amazing indeed, though not in a good way. I've given up more out of resignation than anything, given the lack of response from support staff on keeping me informed about my support tickets. The price increase was the last straw.

I've switched to Upnote, which works fine and is $35 for a lifetime license. It meets my needs. The clipping works well on computers and, unlike Evernote, clips without drama from iPhones and iPads.

[RNRNRN 9]

"This price increase, the first in six years, enables us to invest further in both our core capabilities—like world-class search, templates, and Web Clipper" https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/9948811735827-FAQ-Pricing-changes-for-legacy-Plus-and-Premium-subscriptions-2022

Yet customer support does not answer tickets despite replying to emails from support.

[RNRNRN 9]

So I wrote back to customer support since I hadn’t heard from them in months. They stated: "Our team has investigated this thoroughly. Despite our efforts, we were unable to successfully replicate the problem or identify any widespread issues."

So the problems many users have been having for months will seemingly not be addressed. Somehow, their claim that "know that we're working hard to prevent any such issues from arising in the future. Please be assured that enhancing the user experience of Evernote remains a top priority for us." rings hollow...

Are there any Evernote exec’s following this? 

[agsteele 2,574]

8 minutes ago, RNRNRN said:

Are there any Evernote exec’s following this? 

Unlikely.

[Don0819 33]

Wow that’s amazing they deny the problem.

[PinkElephant 6,756]

This specific problem is sort of hard to reproduce. Unless you have trained the smart filing algorithm for a while, the results are not much different from randomly picking a notebook. I think they don't really have the patience at the moment for such an endeavor.

Which does not say they shouldn't work on it, instead of not reproducing it.

[Don0819 33]

@PinkElephant would it be helpful to "reset" things somehow so the smart filing started all over? It was never this bad even the first time I started to use it. If so, how could the data be reset?

[PinkElephant 6,756]

Yes, but sincerely I am probably the worst source to tell how.

I tried the smart filing some time ago, and decided it caused me more work to find and move misplaced content, than it did me any good. So I stopped using it.

I just know it tries to find patterns, and this requires some time to build the observations used. No idea where this is located, on what sort of algorithm it runs (can't be true AI, because it is a rather old function) and how you can make it "forget" training data, if at all.

Sorry, no idea.

[Don0819 33]

No worries, maybe someone will chip in who knows.

[PinkElephant 6,756]

The last paragraph in this help document is all I could find:

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/208314738

In this source for the email smart filing it says both use the same method, and they would look for similar notes in the account, and apply the same notebook and tags.

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051765793

This means no training data at all, just an algorithm that may or may not work when searching.

[Dave-in-Decatur 2,891]

All I know is I have a notebook called Using Evernote, and when I go to evernote.com and try to clip it, it wants to put it in some previously used notebook. Whatever the algorithm is, I presume it's at least smarter than that, so I have to think it's not working at all.

[Don0819 33]

@Dave-in-Decatur I agree with you, it seems to just not be working at all.