Notes from widget not saved

[Schmoranz 3]

I usually tap my "create note widget" to create new notes. And i dont open the Evernote app every time.

So I just opened the app to realize im suddenly logged out. So none of the notes from the past five days have been saved. It didnt give errors, see screenshot. 

The notes are not in my account. Is it possible to fetch them from local storage somehow?

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,004]

Hi, and welcome to the forums. I don't think it's likely they're in a local storage. Are you able to check Evernote on any other device, e.g. using the Web client? If they're not anywhere, they may just be gone, unfortunately. These forums are user to user; Evernote's tech support is at https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/requests/new.

[Schmoranz 3]

Thanks for your reply, since Evernote works offline i assumed the posts were stored in some app-local sqlite db or so and maybe those files could be accessible somehow. I figured since i was logged out of my app but still got no errors upon saving, theyd be stored with some faulty user id, which would prevent them from loading when logged in (user not matching). 

But this was just wishful thinking. 

Seems very buggy to not give errors when a user is logged out though, i will contact Evernote about it.

Thanks for the feedback.

[PinkElephant 8,754]

Apps on mobile devices may work offline, but they don't work when they are not started. On starting a sandbox is created, that shields the app from all others, and the OS. The sandbox is a temporary memory space for the app. Only permitted actions allow the exchange of data between apps. A widget is sort of a small app in its own right. It has much less functionality, this makes it small enough to persist in a niche of the OS.

The server connection of the EN app is only visible for the EN app. The widget has no access to it. You can be offline, but the app needs to have an existing, saved login from the last time it was logged in. When you disconnect the app from your account, it closes access to the offline content as well - for security reasons the access is linked to being logged in.

When you logged out, the database was closed, and the widget had no place to write the information. This is explicitly no bug.

[Alxa 495]

6 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

When you logged out, the database was closed, and the widget had no place to write the information. This is explicitly no bug.

I disagree.The widget should not give the feedback "Saving note to General" as showed in the screen shot above. It should either give an error message or deny any input before instead. Saying it is saving without doing so is explicitly a bug. The fact, that the widget knows the notebook "General" although EN being logged out, seems there has to be a glitch in the interaction. Thanks to @Schmoranz for bringing it up to support. 👍🏼

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,004]

2 hours ago, Alxa said:

I disagree.The widget should not give the feedback "Saving note to General" as showed in the screen shot above. It should either give an error message or deny any input before instead. Saying it is saving without doing so is explicitly a bug. The fact, that the widget knows the notebook "General" although EN being logged out, seems there has to be a glitch in the interaction. Thanks to @Schmoranz for bringing it up to support. 👍🏼

I just did a test, and found it pretty much as you describe the ideal to be. On an Android 13 Samsung phone running Evernote v. 10, I used the Simple Note widget to create a test note. It quickly synced not only to the app on the phone but to the Web client on a laptop. Then I went into the Android Evernote app and logged out. Returning to the home screen, I found that none of the Evernote widgets was functional at all. Tapping any of them just took me to the login screen. (Once I logged back in, the app oddly reverted to the state of my notes from several days ago, then took a few seconds to download all the ones since then, even though they had been present before I logged out.) So whatever is going on in @Schmoranz's case, I'm not seeing it possible to create notes with a widget while logged out of the app. It will be interesting to learn what Support replies.

[Schmoranz 3]

23 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Apps on mobile devices may work offline, but they don't work when they are not started. On starting a sandbox is created, that shields the app from all others, and the OS. The sandbox is a temporary memory space for the app. Only permitted actions allow the exchange of data between apps. A widget is sort of a small app in its own right. It has much less functionality, this makes it small enough to persist in a niche of the OS.

The server connection of the EN app is only visible for the EN app. The widget has no access to it. You can be offline, but the app needs to have an existing, saved login from the last time it was logged in. When you disconnect the app from your account, it closes access to the offline content as well - for security reasons the access is linked to being logged in.

When you logged out, the database was closed, and the widget had no place to write the information. This is explicitly no bug.

So widgets are separate applications that talks to the app in an API-like manner? I've never developed Android widgets before, thanks for in depth explenations!

But about bugs, If you tell the user you are saving the note while not doing it at all it must be considered a bug still even if expected by devs. It's way beyond "poor design" at this point. But it seems this doesnt happen for other users anyway so.

14 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

I just did a test, and found it pretty much as you describe the ideal to be. On an Android 13 Samsung phone running Evernote v. 10, I used the Simple Note widget to create a test note. It quickly synced not only to the app on the phone but to the Web client on a laptop. Then I went into the Android Evernote app and logged out. Returning to the home screen, I found that none of the Evernote widgets was functional at all. Tapping any of them just took me to the login screen. (Once I logged back in, the app oddly reverted to the state of my notes from several days ago, then took a few seconds to download all the ones since then, even though they had been present before I logged out.) So whatever is going on in @Schmoranz's case, I'm not seeing it possible to create notes with a widget while logged out of the app. It will be interesting to learn what Support replies.

Thanks for testing. I also tried to logout manually after. The audio recording shortcut did take me to the login page in the app. But the quick note shortcut did not do anything at all this time. The difference is, the quick note doesn't open up the app itself, it opens up a modal where you can add title and then it just closes. 

The way i was originally logged out was probably due to session expiring or some error. Which could have made a difference too.

But it seems that this does not occur for others so its not unlikely that the problem is my phone.

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,004]

5 hours ago, Schmoranz said:

Thanks for testing. I also tried to logout manually after. The audio recording shortcut did take me to the login page in the app. But the quick note shortcut did not do anything at all this time. The difference is, the quick note doesn't open up the app itself, it opens up a modal where you can add title and then it just closes. 

The way i was originally logged out was probably due to session expiring or some error. Which could have made a difference too.

But it seems that this does not occur for others so its not unlikely that the problem is my phone.

That's also what I experienced, actually: the quick note shortcut was just dead, but other widgets went to the login (but didn't create a note without logging in). I've never had an Evernote session expire on my phone; it seems to be "always on"--I don't even have to log back in after restarting the phone.

Just hoping there's not a factory reset in your future.... But if the problem doesn't reoccur, making it even harder to track down a cause for it, maybe it just goes into the excrementum fit file (will be interesting to see if that gets bleeped by a Latin-speaking forum management robot).

[PinkElephant 8,754]

Android (and iOS) can stop the execution of every app that is running in the background. It does when another, running app requires more RAM, or a new app is started, in need of RAM as well. It depends on many factors if this happens.

None of this can log you out of your account, it just terminates the app. Maybe there is a logout by a timeout - but I never heard about it.

Do you use the app passcode ?

[Schmoranz 3]

I am not using the app passcode. But yeah I haven't heard about login sessions expiring either, and I've used Evernote for 10 years. This was the first time this happened.

[Dave-in-Decatur 4,004]

7 hours ago, Schmoranz said:

I am not using the app passcode. But yeah I haven't heard about login sessions expiring either, and I've used Evernote for 10 years. This was the first time this happened.

Hope it will prove to be the last!

[Schmoranz 3]

Not sure this is valuable but just as an update. I kept noticing that notes were missing from the app even when i was still signed in.

So I updated the app to the latest version, and then something red flashed after every time it failed to save a note (it's not every time, maybve 1 of 5, usually a bunch in a row). If I open the "task manager" I can see the error message.

The error is only visible in this view, if i try to open it the app just turned blank.

I'm using other ways nowdays so its not an issue for me anymore. But feels buggy.

[bmcl26 569]

What Android version have you on your phone?  This was known and fixed with 10.52.1.  The latest version is 10.52.2

[Schmoranz 3]

Thanks for the info bm. Good to know this was known. My current version is 10.52.1 and I haven't updated since before that error screenshot was taken (july 21st) - unless it auto updated perhaps. Will update again. Thanks.