Real-Time Editing is out for everybody – Feedback conversation

[Federico Simionato 1,006]

Hello folks,
This is a quick message to inform you that RTE is out for everybody.
Please ensure you have the latest version of the client. In the last 3/4 versions performance and bugs on RTE have improved a LOT.

If you have feedback, bugs, or questions, please share them here.

I know there are many changes you'd like to see on Evernote, but please keep this discussion focused on RTE only. It'll get messy otherwise.

[PinkElephant 8,073]

Getting this out to us users without (at least for now) any visible glitch or bug is short of an update miracle. Or maybe I better say "Upgrade", because it solves the most fundamental, deeply rooted issue many of us had with EN for quite a long time. RTE opens a world of new options.

Be assured, we will put some load on it, and will come back if we have reason.

For now, give the team a hug - they deserve it.

[SharkBike 3]

The real-time sync for notes is working great when both clients have a note open, it is much better than before.

 

However, I have been testing task syncing and have noticed some issues when adding tasks through the task drawer and through home. If I add a task on my pc using the task drawer, it take a long time to show up on my phone and sometimes never shows up.  The reverse is also true. Both the iOS and windows clients are on the latest version and I have seen the real-time syncing work on both.  This is somewhat strange because if I have a note open on both clients and add a task to that note, it syncs instantly.  It seems to only be an issue either adding the task from outside the note or adding a task when one of the clients doesn’t actively have the note open. My question is, is this known behavior that is not yet a part of the new sync, or is this a bug?

[gazumped 11,652]

I have one oddity - I levelled up to 10.56.8 on my Win11 desktop today,  both on the installed app and my Vivaldi browser version.  There's almost immediate sync between the two if I alter the same note;  but my Samsung Tab 7 runs the Android version 10.50.3 took several minutes to show me my 11 most recent notes,  before I could test the editing out.  Now that I have the notes in place on all three  versions,  RTE is fine;  but what's with the delay in initial sync up-to-date when I launch the app?

[janndk 478]

Tasks not always syncing.

[bmcl26 487]

41 minutes ago, SharkBike said:

The real-time sync for notes is working great when both clients have a note open, it is much better than before.

 

However, I have been testing task syncing and have noticed some issues when adding tasks through the task drawer and through home. If I add a task on my pc using the task drawer, it take a long time to show up on my phone and sometimes never shows up.  The reverse is also true. Both the iOS and windows clients are on the latest version and I have seen the real-time syncing work on both.  This is somewhat strange because if I have a note open on both clients and add a task to that note, it syncs instantly.  It seems to only be an issue either adding the task from outside the note or adding a task when one of the clients doesn’t actively have the note open. My question is, is this known behavior that is not yet a part of the new sync, or is this a bug?

My phone is Android and although not instantaneous Tasks created on the PC Sync to the Phone in a few seconds.

[gazumped 11,652]

9 minutes ago, bmcl26 said:

My phone is Android

Hmmn.  Thanks, but I get the feeling that Evernote and Samsung (or maybe Samsung tablets) do not get on well...

[bmcl26 487]

13 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Hmmn.  Thanks, but I get the feeling that Evernote and Samsung (or maybe Samsung tablets) do not get on well...

I have always had Samsung Android and never had any issues.  I know some people have had a different experience.   My Current phone is not State of the Art it is over three years old {Samsung A70) works fine. 

[Paul A. 609]

7 hours ago, bmcl26 said:

I have always had Samsung Android and never had any issues.  I know some people have had a different experience.   My Current phone is not State of the Art it is over three years old {Samsung A70) works fine. 

I've seen you say this before, and every time I see it I always think how fortunate you are to not have had my experience with the Android app.

When the "v10" apps were first released (and for a long time after), Android was absolutely behind iOS in terms of performance, bugs, and functionality. I had numerous conversations with Evernote staff at the time (not just support staff but also developers and a couple of managers) and it was made clear to me that at the time virtually everyone at Evernote (especially the managers and executives) used iPhones as their main mobile devices. It wasn't stated out loud, but the implication I got was that (at least back then) the iOS version received more attention.

Hopefully that has changed, as I have seen significant improvements and the Android app is much better now than it was when v10 launched. I'd probably be reasonably happy if I didn't regularly run into a long-standing reproducible bug and if I didn't miss some of the Android-specific functionality that existed in the legacy Android Evernote app.
 

Edit:

On-topic, I haven't used it much yet but I'm impressed with RTE so far. Are we going to see background syncing come to mobile devices? It has to be implemented thoughtfully so that it doesn't crush battery life, but quick syncing of tasks and reminders in the background would be very useful, and occasional background sync of note titles and (at least) an initial snippet of each note's text would be useful.

[PinkElephant 8,073]

Be assured, EN still doesn’t support iOS completely: No multitasking on iPads, no control by Shortcuts app, little support for Siri and still no app for the Apple Watch.

If I wanted to blame anybody, I would say if this hodgepodge of Android versions, makers, devices, skins and producer branded apps would not have sucked up so much dev capacity, the mobile client would be much further.

[johansan 48]

Regarding the new sync. I have been having extreme performance issues on MacOS and iOS over the past 2-3 days, ever since the new sync engine started rolling out. Just opening notes takes seconds. Almost feels like the servers got overloaded.

[eric99 978]

1 hour ago, johansan said:

Regarding the new sync. I have been having extreme performance issues on MacOS and iOS over the past 2-3 days, ever since the new sync engine started rolling out. Just opening notes takes seconds. Almost feels like the servers got overloaded.

On the windows client I see sometimes a small delay for notes never opened in RTE before. However, from then on these notes open instantly later on.

No big deal for me...

[WilliamL 653]

1 hour ago, johansan said:

Regarding the new sync. I have been having extreme performance issues on MacOS and iOS over the past 2-3 days, ever since the new sync engine started rolling out. Just opening notes takes seconds. Almost feels like the servers got overloaded.

I’m seeing a bit of this on the iPad, not the iPhone oddly enough. On my iPad, even though all notes are downloaded there is a delay in opening notes. The most annoying part is that if I leave a note to go to another app to copy something and then return to Evernote, it refreshes the note and moves me back to the top of the note, so I need to refind where I was going to paste the text. I did this once before and was fixed so hopefully that happens again quickly too. 

[MichaelvT 18]

RTE works like a charm! Thank you for including this much desired capability into Evernote. 
one thing I noticed when including images. When inserting images from the client on my iPhone I immediately see the attempt to add it to the client in my iPad and vice versa. However the “passive” client (the one which get the image synced from the cloud) keeps showing a blue icon expressing it is loading the image. When I quickly open another note on the passive client and immediately revert back to the note with the image, the image appears. So it might already add it to the note, but just not able to show it immediately. 
not a big issue. 
 

thanks!

[Metrodon 2,184]

Forwarded an email to my evernote account yesterday (my sync had already been upgraded).

The note didn't appear in my default notebook for some time - I eventually gave up and restarted the app.

Restart hung for a couple of minutes so I got bored and killed it.

App started fine on the second attempt, but the new note was still not present in my default notebook.

Changed to a different notebook and then returned to default and the note appeared.

Running the latest mac client.

[PinkElephant 8,073]

1 hour ago, WilliamL said:

I’m seeing a bit of this on the iPad, not the iPhone oddly enough. On my iPad, even though all notes are downloaded there is a delay in opening notes. The most annoying part is that if I leave a note to go to another app to copy something and then return to Evernote, it refreshes the note and moves me back to the top of the note, so I need to refind where I was going to paste the text. I did this once before and was fixed so hopefully that happens again quickly too. 

Make sure you are on EN 10.50 on the iOS devices. This „jump to the top“ issue when switching between apps was corrected quite a long time ago on mobile. Just checked on my iPhone and can’t reproduce it - the note stays exactly where I left it, no matter if I just switched, or copy and insert something.

[WilliamL 653]

31 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Make sure you are on EN 10.50 on the iOS devices. This „jump to the top“ issue when switching between apps was corrected quite a long time ago on mobile. Just checked on my iPhone and can’t reproduce it - the note stays exactly where I left it, no matter if I just switched, or copy and insert something.

Yeah, that’s the odd thing - iPhone is fine, it’s only iPad, which is a 2020 pro so should be ok still. It’s definitely on the latest EN version. 

[PinkElephant 8,073]

Tried a logout/login already ?

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

15 hours ago, Paul A. said:

Are we going to see background syncing come to mobile devices? It has to be implemented thoughtfully so that it doesn't crush battery life, but quick syncing of tasks and reminders in the background would be very useful, and occasional background sync of note titles and (at least) an initial snippet of each note's text would be useful.

Honestly, I think that the updating with the new sync when you return to the app is fast enough that background syncing might not be worth it for any amount of battery drain. Reminders and tasks might be another question, though.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

8 hours ago, MichaelvT said:

one thing I noticed when including images. When inserting images from the client on my iPhone I immediately see the attempt to add it to the client in my iPad and vice versa. However the “passive” client (the one which get the image synced from the cloud) keeps showing a blue icon expressing it is loading the image. When I quickly open another note on the passive client and immediately revert back to the note with the image, the image appears. So it might already add it to the note, but just not able to show it immediately. 
not a big issue. 

I see the same thing on my Android phone. More than a slight annoyance, hope it gets fixed, but far from a deal breaker.

[Paul A. 609]

1 hour ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Honestly, I think that the updating with the new sync when you return to the app is fast enough that background syncing might not be worth it for any amount of battery drain. Reminders and tasks might be another question, though.

Sync is fast with a strong wireless connection, but the background sync I think becomes useful in areas of poor or nonexistent network coverage. No background sync for task and reminder information is one of the limitations that's stopped me from taking a serious look at Evernote Tasks.

As for background sync of general notes and note text, that's not my most urgent feature request by a long shot, but I do think it would be useful. When coded correctly and for apps targeting recent Android versions (which Evernote does), background sync for non-urgent items has become quite efficient. The OS keeps the CPU asleep until it's time to batch up several app requests at the same time, turns on the CPU and the radio one time for all requesting apps to do their work, then turns everything off again. And the longer the phone goes without being actively used, the longer the sleep intervals become.

Edit:

Back to feedback on Real Time Editing (RTE):

I've noticed that performance when scrolling through my note list in the Mac app is quite a bit worse than before. This is particularly so with notes that contain PDF attachments. It's almost as if the client is no longer caching the note data. Some notes can take 3 seconds to load, whereas before they were much snappier. While the note is loading, the PDF has a loading symbol as below:

[Bill Myers 458]

Whoa. I just tried RTE. I love it. I wish I had some more substantive feedback but right now, that's all I've got.

[PinkElephant 8,073]

@Paul A. Interesting observation. Might it be that because of the new data design of the notes, the whole offline (local) database needs to be downloaded again from the server ? Could be that’s currently causing some weird side effects.

Just a spontaneous idea … then it should sort itself out as soon as this is terminated.

[Dave Green 207]

19 hours ago, johansan said:

Regarding the new sync. I have been having extreme performance issues on MacOS and iOS over the past 2-3 days, ever since the new sync engine started rolling out. Just opening notes takes seconds. Almost feels like the servers got overloaded.

I still see this delay in rendering a note IF I have done an export of several notes to ENEX files.  This delay continues until I close and re-open Evernote.  

[johansan 48]

4 hours ago, Dave Green said:

I still see this delay in rendering a note IF I have done an export of several notes to ENEX files.  This delay continues until I close and re-open Evernote.  

Aha this might be it. Yeah I regularly export all my notes and the lag happened after that. Thanks!

[Metrodon 2,184]

@Federico Simionato - I'm seeing pretty bad delays loading notes, this only happens the first time I load the note - is there a fresh download/caching process happening in the background?

 

Update..logging out and allowing the app to delete the data and then logging back in seems to have resolved this.

Update 2....Not fixed, laggy as hell again loading notes.

[PinkElephant 8,073]

There is another thread with this observation: When prior a note export took place, the client becomes laggy. To solve this, it needs to be restarted.

Maybe you can try if this is the issue. It would point at certain functions in the client that cause the problem.

Edit: I’m on the fly, can’t look it up.

[Metrodon 2,184]

2 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

There is another thread with this observation: When prior a note export took place, the client becomes laggy. To solve this, it needs to be restarted.

Maybe you can try if this is the issue. It would point at certain functions in the client that cause the problem.

Edit: I’m on the fly, can’t look it up.

 

Not exporting so I don't think that's it.

Fast editing is lovely but no good if notes take ages to load...

[eric99 978]

2 hours ago, Metrodon said:

 

Not exporting so I don't think that's it.

Fast editing is lovely but no good if notes take ages to load...

and are these lazy notes cached after loading in RTE  or do they still stay sluggish the next time you open them again?

[Metrodon 2,184]

46 minutes ago, eric99 said:

and are these lazy notes cached after loading in RTE  or do they still stay sluggish the next time you open them again?

First time only and it's really sloooow sometimes and quicker others. Once they are cached it's fine but the initial load can be very very sluggish.

[Metrodon 2,184]

Seems like a common problem - a fair few mentions on Reddit too.

[PinkElephant 8,073]

Maybe do as we do when replacing the local database: Let the client run in the background, until the network traffic is done.

It can take several days … at least this took it for me, with the old database.

[eric99 978]

1 hour ago, Metrodon said:

Seems like a common problem - a fair few mentions on Reddit to

I see it on my windows client as well, but only the first time, expect for pdf which may sometimes keep loading for 1 second or so.  Really no issue compared to what we had the last 2 years (in android).

[PinkElephant 8,073]

Ask support …

[Boot17 1,439]

9 hours ago, Metrodon said:

First time only and it's really sloooow sometimes and quicker others. Once they are cached it's fine but the initial load can be very very sluggish.

I'm seeing this happen on all my devices: MacOS, iPad, iPhone, Windows PC. That cache is local to the device too -- the same note will be sluggish to load at first on every device and then once it has been loaded once on that device it is faster/normal on subsequent openings.

[WhiskeyCowboy 0]

We have three users on the Teams version of Evernote.  Have verified all of us are on 10.56.8 for desktop/laptop and 10.5 for mobile.  Collaborate editing doesn't work for us.  We have started new notes to try and test this and nothing.  Still works like it always has and I even had a sync dupe issue when I started a note and shared it to test it.  Lol.

[gazumped 11,652]

11 minutes ago, WhiskeyCowboy said:

We have three users on the Teams version of Evernote.

Hi.  Are you using a note on the shared Teams platform,  or one created in an individual users' personal account and shared with another?

[agsteele 2,942]

@WhiskeyCowboy the new collaborative real time edit feature should be running for all accounts.

Since you are on a Teams account you should connect with your account support contact. They will be able to tell you what is happening.

[WhiskeyCowboy 0]

1 hour ago, gazumped said:

Hi.  Are you using a note on the shared Teams platform,  or one created in an individual users' personal account and shared with another?

We are on the Teams platform.

I'll send this to our account support contact I guess.

[Scott T. 662]

On 5/6/2023 at 12:49 AM, eric99 said:

On the windows client I see sometimes a small delay for notes never opened in RTE before. However, from then on these notes open instantly later on.

This is expected. RTE introduces a new format for notes that allows for the Real-Time Editing feature to work and instantly sync changes. When you first open an older note, we need to run a conversion which can take a bit longer than normal. Once a note has been converted, load times should return to normal.

16 hours ago, Boot17 said:

I'm seeing this happen on all my devices: MacOS, iPad, iPhone, Windows PC. That cache is local to the device too -- the same note will be sluggish to load at first on every device and then once it has been loaded once on that device it is faster/normal on subsequent openings.

I think what you would see in this case is that the first device would convert the note to the new format. Subsequent devices opening that note would need to re-fetch the newly converted note vs. opening the local copy which would still be in the old format. Again, should be a one-time slowdown. 

[PinkElephant 8,073]

Hi Scott, will all notes be converted eventually in the background, or only when opened ?

[Federico Simionato 1,006]

To add on Scott's point:
There are two components to this.

1. [Expected] The migration of the note from the previous format to the new RTE format will take ~1s for the vast majority of notes. Up to a few seconds for the biggest notes. This only happens the very first time a note is opened in a RTE client (if it was previously created by a non-RTE client).
2. [The actual issue] In the last couple of days the backend had auto-scaling issues (it should have scaled at higher traffic and it didn't, de facto slowing down all note conversions at peak hours).
   This means that conversion is slower than it should for the time being. The team's highest priority is to solve this and it should get back to normal soon.

[Scott T. 662]

2 minutes ago, llabusch93 said:

Secondly, we have yet to receive feedback regarding the task synchronization issue in the main overview. On my Android client, the tasks displayed in the overview seem to be frozen in time, meaning they show outdated due dates or remain open despite being correctly checked off within the note itself.

What is causing this issue and when can we expect it to be resolved? For me, this occurs on the Android client, while the Linux desktop and web clients do not exhibit the problem.

I have already tried purging data, reinstalling the app, and submitting a support ticket.

I'm asking the main dev that worked on the Tasks/RTE integration to investigate. I appreciate the bug report. If you can provide any additional details that might help us to debug, that would be great. There was a change with RTE for how things work in our backend in regards to displaying task data in the task overview pane. So there's possibly a bug there we missed. 

Are you making changes to the tasks in the note, and those don't get reflected in the overview? What about the reverse: making changes in the overview, are they reflected in the note?

[arguvant 28]

Can someone explain to me why the note conversion process has been put in the UI loop? I don't care if my note is being converted, I want immediate read-only access to my notes.

Here are better approaches for this:

- Open in read only mode and then do the conversion only if I try to edit it.

- Convert people's notes in the background, not as a response to them trying to use the app.

 

[Bill Myers 458]

I've been lurking in this thread. I don't have a lot to add other than that I'm happy to see that Bending Spoons is in my view not living down to the expectations of some people in this forum. The company is delivering improvements I actually care about, and I like the communication that's flowing. I can't speak for anyone but me, but I'm pleasantly surprised.

[WilliamL 653]

Updated the windows app to 

10.56.9-win-ddl-public (4080)
Editor: v168.1.20898
Service: v1.68.4
© 2019 - 2023 Evernote Corporation. All rights reserved

I am now finding notes are not saving, the bottom sync indicator has saving... but nothing happens.  Checked the web app - no data has been uploaded.   Never had this before, its not a connection thing as I am doing other things online (such as posting here).

[bmcl26 487]

20 minutes ago, WilliamL said:

Updated the windows app to 

10.56.9-win-ddl-public (4080)
Editor: v168.1.20898
Service: v1.68.4
© 2019 - 2023 Evernote Corporation. All rights reserved

I am now finding notes are not saving, the bottom sync indicator has saving... but nothing happens.  Checked the web app - no data has been uploaded.   Never had this before, its not a connection thing as I am doing other things online (such as posting here).

That is strange, I also updated to 10.56.9 this morning and certainly only created a couple of notes both in PC and Android phone but all of them synced almost immediately with no data loss.

[gazumped 11,652]

Also updated here - added a note via my mobile which has been taking a long time to sync lately.  Appeared on my desktop within 2 minutes.  Not instant,  but far quicker than previously...

[bmcl26 487]

8 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Also updated here - added a note via my mobile which has been taking a long time to sync lately.  Appeared on my desktop within 2 minutes.  Not instant,  but far quicker than previously...

Just got a new update for Android Mobile 10.50.4 have not tried it yet.

[Metrodon 2,184]

18 hours ago, Federico Simionato said:

To add on Scott's point:
There are two components to this.

1. [Expected] The migration of the note from the previous format to the new RTE format will take ~1s for the vast majority of notes. Up to a few seconds for the biggest notes. This only happens the very first time a note is opened in a RTE client (if it was previously created by a non-RTE client).
2. [The actual issue] In the last couple of days the backend had auto-scaling issues (it should have scaled at higher traffic and it didn't, de facto slowing down all note conversions at peak hours).
   This means that conversion is slower than it should for the time being. The team's highest priority is to solve this and it should get back to normal soon.

 

This is really great information, it would of been useful to know about the potential for delay caused by number 1 in advance - I might not have done a clean installation over the weekend...

 

[gazumped 11,652]

40 minutes ago, bmcl26 said:

Just got a new update for Android Mobile 10.50.4 have not tried it yet.

You made me look - my previous comment was from Android legacy to desktop v10.  My tablet is (apparently) already on 10.50.4 and it took a whole second for a new note to jump from there to the desktop!

[eric99 978]

4 hours ago, WilliamL said:

Updated the windows app to 10.56.9-win-ddl-public (4080)

I am now finding notes are not saving, the bottom sync indicator has saving... but nothing happens.  Checked the web app - no data has been uploaded.   Never had this before, its not a connection thing as I am doing other things online (such as posting here).

Sometimes my Windows client falsely complains about disconnection (it's a rock solid 200 Mb wired connection). Clicking to another note and back removes the message.

And maybe related to this release, in the middle of a collaborative edit session, RTE sometimes stops the collaboration (icons disappear).

However although they were disconnected from each other, the changes in the several clients are still perfectly merged later on, no duplicates whatsoever 🙂

edit:  sometimes RTE is slower than before. Maybe the "disconnection" message is triggered by a RTE timeout?

android client: 10.50.4

windows client:10.56.9-win-ddl-public (4080)

 

[WilliamL 653]

1 hour ago, eric99 said:

Sometimes my Windows client falsely complains about disconnection (it's a rock solid 200 Mb wired connection). Clicking to another note and back removes the message.

Tried switching notes, opening and closing the app etc, giving it time, note wont save. Had to copy the content out into another app and do my work there. Checked the web app - none of the content is there, so as best as I can tell the data is lost to EN. Will work away in another app and try it again next week. 

[Federico Simionato 1,006]

3 hours ago, WilliamL said:

I am now finding notes are not saving, the bottom sync indicator has saving... but nothing happens.  Checked the web app - no data has been uploaded.   Never had this before, its not a connection thing as I am doing other things online (such as posting here).

I was able to reproduce this, looking into it.

Although in my case, data was synced between devices. Also closing and opening the note again solved immediately.

[WilliamL 653]

1 hour ago, Federico Simionato said:

I was able to reproduce this, looking into it.

Although in my case, data was synced between devices. Also closing and opening the note again solved immediately.

Thanks. 

That sadly hasn’t worked for me, nor did closing and reopening the app. Seems jammed on that note. 

[s2sailor 2,183]

I'm not sure if it is the same issue or different, but I had the problem with stuck tasks that would not sync.  The fix, for me, was to sign out of the account, and select to not save the data forcing a new download of the database when you log back in.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

On 5/8/2023 at 1:07 PM, Scott T. said:

This is expected. RTE introduces a new format for notes that allows for the Real-Time Editing feature to work and instantly sync changes. When you first open an older note, we need to run a conversion which can take a bit longer than normal. Once a note has been converted, load times should return to normal.

I think what you would see in this case is that the first device would convert the note to the new format. Subsequent devices opening that note would need to re-fetch the newly converted note vs. opening the local copy which would still be in the old format. Again, should be a one-time slowdown. 

Adding my thanks for this. There has been some discussion of how the Legacy Windows program (v. 6.25.3, I believe) would handle notes converted to the new format. Recognizing that this program is deprecated and unsupported by Evernote, but that nonetheless it is still in use, can you comment?

[Scott T. 662]

7 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

There has been some discussion of how the Legacy Windows program (v. 6.25.3, I believe) would handle notes converted to the new format. Recognizing that this program is deprecated and unsupported by Evernote, but that nonetheless it is still in use, can you comment?

Legacy clients were taken into account when developing the new note format. Though legacy clients will not be able to do real-time editing, the service does keep an ENML version of the note up-to-date for backward compatibility. Furthermore, we still manage "note locking" such that legacy clients will be able to edit the note and you won't get note conflicts due to simultaneous editing by an RTE-capable client. There should be a message that shows up in a legacy client regarding an RTE client editing the note. 

[Sugeeth Krish 473]

30 minutes ago, Scott T. said:

Legacy clients were taken into account when developing the new note format. Though legacy clients will not be able to do real-time editing, the service does keep an ENML version of the note up-to-date for backward compatibility. Furthermore, we still manage "note locking" such that legacy clients will be able to edit the note and you won't get note conflicts due to simultaneous editing by an RTE-capable client. There should be a message that shows up in a legacy client regarding an RTE client editing the note. 

Can you tell us why is there a "sync" button in the V10 mobile clients [hidden inside] Vs there not being one in the Windows client? If we are going to go for "real time editing", having a "sync" in mobile makes no sense? 

The only reason i can think of in mobile, is battery life. If thats the case then, will the "always on" sync feature on mobile, be a "battery-hog"

can you tell us this difference please? 

[Scott T. 662]

14 minutes ago, Sugeeth Krish said:

Can you tell us why is there a "sync" button in the V10 mobile clients [hidden inside] Vs there not being one in the Windows client? If we are going to go for "real time editing", having a "sync" in mobile makes no sense? 

I can't give you an honest answer since I wasn't involved in that decision, but I agree that it does not make sense. I think it may have been to appease older customers who were used to having the sync button in legacy clients. But why only mobile, I am not sure.

When we're ready to deliver the next upcoming sync improvements, everything should be getting pushed to new clients in real-time (versus the majority pull/polling mechanism in current clients). At that point, a sync button really doesn't make any sense since clients should never be more than a few seconds behind the latest version unless they have been offline for a significantly long time. The behavior should be the same as an email client. Updates just show up automatically as they're pushed to your device.

[Sugeeth Krish 473]

On 5/8/2023 at 10:37 PM, Scott T. said:

I think what you would see in this case is that the first device would convert the note to the new format. Subsequent devices opening that note would need to re-fetch the newly converted note vs. opening the local copy which would still be in the old format. Again, should be a one-time slowdown. 

Is there some process which can auto update large databases in the background? 12-13 year accounts like us have 23,000+ Notes, data running over 55GB in datasize. 

So, it means that it may take years, before some random old note will get to be opened. So, not only do you need to keep this converter open, but it also is not very efficient. 

A background scan of a windows machine when running idle, can handle the note-conversion process, speeding up future note openings. 

 

 

[Boot17 1,439]

9 hours ago, Scott T. said:

Legacy clients were taken into account when developing the new note format. Though legacy clients will not be able to do real-time editing, the service does keep an ENML version of the note up-to-date for backward compatibility. Furthermore, we still manage "note locking" such that legacy clients will be able to edit the note and you won't get note conflicts due to simultaneous editing by an RTE-capable client. There should be a message that shows up in a legacy client regarding an RTE client editing the note. 

I know that the Legacy Desktop Client is starting to have issues with newer OS updates (on MacOS Ventura the note width is compromised at first open and the PDF's can't be displayed inline), but I'm really impressed with how long Evernote has been able to keep legacy desktop running in connection with all the changes going on with v10. Being able to add RTE for the new clients while making it so that Legacy can still work with that is pretty great.

[macfixer 703]

30 minutes ago, Boot17 said:

I know that the Legacy Desktop Client is starting to have issues with newer OS updates (on MacOS Ventura the note width is compromised at first open and the PDF's can't be displayed inline), but I'm really impressed with how long Evernote has been able to keep legacy desktop running in connection with all the changes going on with v10. Being able to add RTE for the new clients while making it so that Legacy can still work with that is pretty great.

I thought that Legacy would break RTE notes?

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

1 hour ago, macfixer said:

I thought that Legacy would break RTE notes?

See the reply from Evernote staff just above:

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

10 hours ago, Scott T. said:

When we're ready to deliver the next upcoming sync improvements, everything should be getting pushed to new clients in real-time (versus the majority pull/polling mechanism in current clients). At that point, a sync button really doesn't make any sense since clients should never be more than a few seconds behind the latest version unless they have been offline for a significantly long time. The behavior should be the same as an email client. Updates just show up automatically as they're pushed to your device.

So you're saying ... we CAN has cheezburger? Woo-hoo!

[Sugeeth Krish 473]

2 hours ago, Boot17 said:

but I'm really impressed with how long Evernote has been able to keep legacy desktop running in connection with all the changes going on with v10. Being able to add RTE for the new clients while making it so that Legacy can still work with that is pretty great.

Legacy is only a matter of time. Either, people make the choice to move to Version 10, or find more suitable alternatives. Thats the harsh reality, going forward. 

[PinkElephant 8,073]

No deprecated software can continue to work indefinitely. More so if it depends on a cloud server to work. So legacy is clearly on borrowed time.

But this doesn’t speak against using it for now. Even if it would be announced tomorrow that server support will stop on day X, there will be time enough to look for and decide about alternatives.

This said, it clearly isn’t sustainable to believe  legacy will go on forever. So be prepared !

For me v10 already is the better alternative. But even if somebody still prefers the old clients, I think for most users v10 is at least the next best alternative.

[Alxa 478]

14 hours ago, Scott T. said:

I can't give you an honest answer since I wasn't involved in that decision, but I agree that it does not make sense. I think it may have been to appease older customers who were used to having the sync button in legacy clients. But why only mobile, I am not sure.

When we're ready to deliver the next upcoming sync improvements, everything should be getting pushed to new clients in real-time (versus the majority pull/polling mechanism in current clients). At that point, a sync button really doesn't make any sense since clients should never be more than a few seconds behind the latest version unless they have been offline for a significantly long time. The behavior should be the same as an email client. Updates just show up automatically as they're pushed to your device.

Thank you @Scott T.. Does this mean, that the Android client will eventually get push sync for the widgets (updates of tasks / reminders in the background without client running)? The whole concept of Android home screen widgets and tasks/reminders makes no sense without that at the moment. Would love do see this finally working.

[WilliamL 653]

On 5/9/2023 at 3:16 PM, Federico Simionato said:

I was able to reproduce this, looking into it.

It has started working for me today again in the notes where sync was frozen.  The behaviour was odd, i noticed it said saved so i went to web app, saw the content, added content on the web app, after a good delay it synced to windows app, then added content to windows app after a good delay it then appeared on web app, then all of a sudden RTE seemed to kick in and the note started syncing as intended. It was almost as if the system was clogged.

[Scott T. 662]

13 hours ago, Boot17 said:

Being able to add RTE for the new clients while making it so that Legacy can still work with that is pretty great.

Thanks, it definitely wasn't easy for the team since it brought a fair amount of additional complexity. They discussed the amount of work it would be and whether RTE would be the time to consider deprecating all legacy clients. It was decided "No", at least not at that time.

[Scott T. 662]

6 hours ago, WilliamL said:

It was almost as if the system was clogged.

As Federico noted, we were having some scaling issues to work through, but we scaled up one of our systems (for caching) and added memory, which allows latency to drop significantly. The team is continuing to work on performance.

[Scott T. 662]

7 hours ago, Alxa said:

Does this mean, that the Android client will eventually get push sync for the widgets (updates of tasks / reminders in the background without client running)?

I hope so. I know the mobile team was previously investigating background push for both Android and iOS. However, not sure the current status of that, but I hope it would be prioritized along with the switch to push sync since they basically go hand-in-hand.

I'm currently managing backend systems, so less involved with the client development than I was previously.

[eric99 978]

7 hours ago, Scott T. said:

I hope so. I know the mobile team was previously investigating background push for both Android and iOS. However, not sure the current status of that, but I hope it would be prioritized along with the switch to push sync since they basically go hand-in-hand.

I'm currently managing backend systems, so less involved with the client development than I was previously.

 

7 hours ago, Scott T. said:

As Federico noted, we were having some scaling issues to work through, but we scaled up one of our systems (for caching) and added memory, which allows latency to drop significantly. The team is continuing to work on performance.

 

Is this problem also caused by server overload? Many users have it last days:

 

[Scott T. 662]

8 hours ago, eric99 said:

Is this problem also caused by server overload? Many users have it last days:

Likely. I've asked the team to investigate. If the client has an issue reaching the RTE service backend, it would display the "Syncing temporarily paused" message. Changes are being saved locally and it will attempt to reconnect and then sync the changes, so you wouldn't see any data loss. Worst case is that if you are actively working on a note with multiple people, you temporarily won't see their real-time activity. 

[Tcellguy 71]

On all my devices - 3 macOS computers, iPad, iPhone, I'm getting long delays (over ten minutes) where the app does not communicate to the server displaying "Syncing temporarily paused. You can continue editing while Evernote reconnects." Even when that message is not displayed, the bottom right indicator is stuck on "saving". My notes are now rarely in sync when I move to a new device and I have to close and reopen the application multiple times until I can get the "saving" to change to "all changes saved". If I wait for even 10 minutes nothing seems to happen. I have to memorize what the note is supposed to look like to prevent working on a new device that has not synced or the prior device that has not yet uploaded to the server. 

 

Prior to real time editing I would generate 1-2 conflicts per day even when using only 1 device, but at least I could get all my devices into the same sync state eventually. 

 

Now I'm often unable to get most of my devices to upload changes to the server. 

 

Also, it seems like some notes get stuck while others are able to sync. 

[agsteele 2,942]

Looks like the Devs are aware of this issue so we can anticipate a fix in due course.

[Tcellguy 71]

Thanks. Just wanted to add that at least one of my Mac machines always seems to require a full app close and reopen (force reload doesn’t work) in order to pull fresh data from the server. All are on the most recent version of Evernote. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

4 hours ago, Tcellguy said:

On all my devices - 3 macOS computers, iPad, iPhone, I'm getting long delays (over ten minutes) where the app does not communicate to the server displaying "Syncing temporarily paused. You can continue editing while Evernote reconnects."

Some discussion of this issue here (you're not alone):

I'm not sure whether closing and reopening the program helps syncing or impedes it, to tell the truth, but I don't work with Macs. But if this persists, you should definitely contact support: https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new.

[eric99 978]

14 hours ago, Tcellguy said:

Also, it seems like some notes get stuck while others are able to sync. 

I have seen that too...

[realistdreamer 23]

Is there any documentation of these changes and the new RTE format for developers?  This change is wreaking havoc on our app and we don't even know where to go for guidance as I see nothing on the developers site.

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, realistdreamer said:

This change is wreaking havoc on our app and we don't even know where to go for guidance as I see nothing on the developers site.

Hi.  What havoc?  And a web search should turn up a few options - Collaborative Editing Overview or Youtube: https://frankbuck.org/evernote-real-time-editing/#:~:text=Pick a note and open,ve got real-time editing.

[Tcellguy 71]

14 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Some discussion of this issue here (you're not alone):

I'm not sure whether closing and reopening the program helps syncing or impedes it, to tell the truth, but I don't work with Macs. But if this persists, you should definitely contact support: https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new.

I was just able to reproduce this again. Made changes on one machine last night; syncing fine between all iOS devices. Left Evernote running on macOS at a different location. This AM none of the files are synced despite starting "all changes saved". No amount of force reload, toggling wifi will trigger sync to the cloud. Live editing not working at all. App close/re-open results sync from cloud data. Now live editing works again. So it seems if a macOS device goes to sleep long enough it can enter a non-responsive state that is temporarily resolved with app restart. 

[Scott T. 662]

2 hours ago, realistdreamer said:

Is there any documentation of these changes and the new RTE format for developers?  This change is wreaking havoc on our app and we don't even know where to go for guidance as I see nothing on the developers site.

Yeah, the dev site is woefully out-of-date. 😞

What specific issues are you seeing? I will ask if we have information or a contact I can get you in touch with.

[realistdreamer 23]

 

Just now, Scott T. said:

Yeah, the dev site is woefully out-of-date. 😞

What specific issues are you seeing? I will ask if we have information or a contact I can get you in touch with.

 

Scott, thanks for the quick reply.  Our app updates notes after processing the contents.  We are getting errors when trying to update notes using the same API calls we've been using.  Our updates add some text and remove a tag the user added.  Neither is going through.  Here's the error we're getting:

Attempt updateNote where RTE room has already been open for note: [note id - replaced for privacy]
EDAM\Error\EDAMSystemException

 

Through testing, we found that if the user closes the note (web app and device), there is no issue.  We assume this is because the "RTE room" is closed, but there is no documentation for anything.  If the API could access the "RTE room" that might resolve it but without documentation, we're grasping around in the dark.

[agsteele 2,942]

I'm sure @Scott T.will be able to answer for certain but I think that the API access is effectively a Legacy application. Legacy apps are locked out of a note that is open in RTE. That seems to be what you are describing.

[realistdreamer 23]

11 minutes ago, agsteele said:

I'm sure @Scott T.will be able to answer for certain but I think that the API access is effectively a Legacy application. Legacy apps are locked out of a note that is open in RTE. That seems to be what you are describing.

I hope you're wrong, but honestly some warning or notification might be a good idea if you plan to disappoint customers and blow up business models of partners.  Change has casualties, but a little notice goes a long way.  Just an idea. 

Release notes for consumers say nothing, which I guess is OK.  Where are release notes for developers?  Let me stop as I feel a rant coming!

 

[agsteele 2,942]

I don't remember where I saw the advice re Legacy apps and RTE. But that piece is documented. It may, though, be in an Evernote Experts forum... 

I'm putting two and two together regarding the API but I suspect that I am correct. Sorry.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

31 minutes ago, agsteele said:

I don't remember where I saw the advice re Legacy apps and RTE. But that piece is documented. It may, though, be in an Evernote Experts forum... 

I'm putting two and two together regarding the API but I suspect that I am correct. Sorry.

Possibly this post up the thread a way":

 

[realistdreamer 23]

6 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Possibly this post up the thread a way":

 

Thanks for this.  Sounds like a real pain for Evernote to manage.  But, until there is an API for the "new format", every 3rd party integration is a Legacy App.  That can't be good.

[agsteele 2,942]

23 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Possibly this post up the thread a way":

Good that somebody has a memory and not a forgettery. I argue that my storage is full so anything new in at the top pushes stuff lower down into an archive that I often fail to access

[Scott T. 662]

@agsteele is basically right, @realistdreamer. If there is an active RTE session on a note, an update via our API will fail due to the note being locked for writing by the RTE session. The session holds the lock due to the constant real-time updates being sent to the server and applied to the note. Allowing updates from "legacy clients" during an RTE session would be very bad since the server could not properly resolve conflicts between an ENML update and an RTE update.

I'm asking the team about next steps here and suggestions for a fix. I'd presume implementing a retry/backoff style logic would probably work for now, but I'm not the expert on RTE or your specific implementation.

I will get back once I have more information.

[gazumped 11,652]

Hmmn.  Hey @Scott T. - thanks for the feedback and support here.  I have a slightly different interest;  I use Filterize which (hopefully) will check a new note just being synced with the account for any keywords.  If it finds any flagged keywords it might add more tags,  change the title or move the note to another notebook.  It's mainly aimed at notes that have been saved or closed,  so - maybe - will not be affected by any changes.  Or will it?  Any comments or thoughts very gratefully accepted!

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

Just chiming in to say that I didn't expect I'd get much use from this, being a solitary worker. But I'm gathering and organizing materials for a conference I'm attending this summer, with my wife and a travel companion going along, and with a number of notes in play I'm finding that some things can be done better on my desktop using the Web interface and some on my laptop with the Windows desktop app, and some on my Android phone. Even if not quite editing simultaneously, the ability to rely on something done on my desktop computer appearing on my laptop when I turn around to it, or on my phone when I pick it up, is amazing.

[Scott T. 662]

@gazumped I think all of those updates should require locking the note, so it would potentially have an issue if it was running while an RTE session was active. 

[agsteele 2,942]

The penny just dropped for me... All applications relying on the API could run into problems. Zapier, IFTTT, Postach.io, Backuppery immediately come to mind.

The only immediate workaround is, I think, to exit a note immediately the trigger is set and until the API has processed the note. 

I run a Postach.io based blog. For the time being I'll create a new blog post in a separate notebook. Get everything ready to go with the appropriate tags. At the last minute I'll MOVE the note to the notebook linked to the blog. 

I already run my weekly backup overnight with Evernote minimised and inactive.

[gazumped 11,652]

3 hours ago, agsteele said:

I'll create a new blog post in a separate notebook

AFAIK the magic happens (usually) when you add the tag <published>,  so I'd think you're fine to continue as you do - just add that tag when you're finished editing.  If you're updating an existing page I'd think the update just won't happen unless and until you exit.  I've messaged Filterize to see what they say - they're not normally quick to respond,  but I'll let you know when/ if I get a reply.

[Tcellguy 71]

Regarding Evernote getting stuck in a non-responsive state after wake from sleep, I found a way to detect the note status. In the troubleshooting dropdown you can select "toggle note status". In the non responsive state the note will report "connecting..." for a long time after wake, sometimes indefinitely. Restarting the app has fixed this each time and the "connecting..." changes to a green "connected". The toggle note status indicator is a nice way to tell if the app can communicate with the server vs. "all changes saved". 

[AlbertR 524]

On 5/11/2023 at 5:22 AM, Scott T. said:

I'm currently managing backend systems, so less involved with the client development than I was previously.

We hope your client (UI) development team will come to that an open discussion job like You do here, @Scott T. 🙏

Around my workflow/usecases: I collect information with IFTTT and Make, have defined workflow helpers with Filterize and Make and organize my daily work with tags, reminder times and saved searches.

Up to now, EN10 UI causes some trouble with fluidy operations. RTE might help in future. To find the right time to switch from Legacy to EN10, I try to use it in parallel - but often get syncing problems in Legacy ("RTE room open..."). OK - my suggestion so far is not to use it in parallel.

But for my helper applications (that rely on the API) there is no workaround as long as they itself cannot "wait for RTE room is open". They simply fail in unexpected situations. My example: I set a tag ">4-in-a-week" on a couple of notes, Filterize collects the notes, sets an appropriate reminder time and removes the tag.

This workflow did a good job for a long time. During the last weeks it sometimes failed for some notes - maybe because they're locked by RTE? Nobody knows ... 🤔

Wouldn't it be a solution to offer an option to disable RTE for specific EN accounts? All clients (including EN10 before the switch on all platforms) are able to work without it... And for these accounts, Your servers have to additional load with converting notes to and from the formats 😉

[AlbertR 524]

13 hours ago, Tcellguy said:

troubleshooting dropdown

Sorry (don't laugh): Where can I find this dropdown?

[gazumped 11,652]

33 minutes ago, AlbertR said:

Sorry (don't laugh): Where can I find this dropdown?

Under the Help menu