Searching for a specific text string

[philrodo 60]

According to EN, a search of two or more words enclosed within quotes, only returns notes that include the word string. I’ve always seemed to have gotten erratic search results using this method, as it usually retuned many additional notes that did not include the string of words. But now, it seems that EN just returns any note that contains the words within the quotes, so it no longer seems to work as an exact match for the string of words, but rather works like a Boolean expression where the words are combined with the AND operator.  
 

I’ve having this issue with EN running on my 2022 iPad Pro, running iPadOS v16.6.1 and according to the AppStore, I’m running the latest version of EN. I also tried the web version of EN and got the same problem when running a search using multiple words within quotes. 

has anyone else observed this? Is there a fix or workaround? 

[gazumped 11,693]

I learned to search on a legal database an aeon ago,  so any search these days is usually a breeze.  If I get too many hits,  I tend to keep on adding relevant terms to refine my search,  and then maybe add a tag or more keywords to the title for next time.  Haven't specifcally noticed Evernote messing up string searches,  but if and when it happens,  document the search and the results and copy your activity log and feed it all back to Support.  They need actual cases to work out fixes...

[philrodo 60]

12 minutes ago, gazumped said:

document the search and the results and copy your activity log and feed it all back to Support.  They need actual cases to work out fixes...

Thanks, but in my experience as a EN user for about 15 years, EN tech support usually makes you go useless hoops and doesn’t resolve the issue. I can only imagine how bad things have gotten now under the new management…

[Jon/t 1,309]

Just tried exact match searches using the Windows app and works as expected. It finds the phrase inside images, spreadsheets and PDFs as well so check to see if any of your notes contain these with the search phrase.

If you don't want to contact support, do a full uninstall/reinstall and give it some time to re-index all the notes... see if it works then then contact support if not.

[philrodo 60]

18 minutes ago, Jon/t said:

Just tried exact match searches using the Windows app and works as expected. It finds the phrase inside images, spreadsheets and PDFs as well so check to see if any of your notes contain these with the search phrase.

If you don't want to contact support, do a full uninstall/reinstall and give it some time to re-index all the notes... see if it works then then contact support if not.

Thanks. It doesn’t work for me on the iPad or Web version (so reinstalling the app won’t make a difference if it also doesn’t work on the web version). If it worked for you, I wonder if EN doesn’t like the quote characters generated by the iPad Keyboard? I know that’s far-fetched, but I don’t know what else could be happening. I sent a message to tech support, but I suppose I’ll get the same runaround I’ve gotten with other requests. 

[gazumped 11,693]

25 minutes ago, philrodo said:

I can only imagine how bad things have gotten now under the new management…

Wow - downbeat much?  The new management had a successful business with its own support team before Evernote came along,  and I'd imagine they've now rolled Evernote calls into their existing systems.  Given the.. emotional... reaction to the takeover,  the price change,  and every apparent miss-step they've made so far this year,  I bet they didn't plan for the volume of support calls they have.  They already apologised for that and are trying to improve response times,  but you can't magic experienced Evernote troubleshooters out of thin air.  It'll happen, but we need to be patient.

As to hoop-jumping,  it's the job of front-line support to make sure that something dumb like an out-of-date version or an unsupported OS isn't causing the hassle.  They go through a standard script every time to make sure a fault is really a fault - because otherwise someone on a much higher payscale is going to have to unpick exactly what might be causing this.  The fewer red herrings drawn across their trail the better!

 

[philrodo 60]

2 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Wow - downbeat much?

Yes, the huge price upgrade has left a bad taste in my mouth for EN and it’s new management. I’ve been a paying subscriber for about 15 years, but the new pricing is totally off the top, considering that one can get a Microsoft 365 family subscription for $99 a year! 

[PinkElephant 8,158]

If you think you are better off with a Microsoft 365 Family subscription, you should get one, and switch apps.

You can hardly compare a general software suite with hundreds of millions of paying users (most of them being enterprise clients) with a specialized note taking app. Each has its own cost structure, and each has its own pricing policy.

If you find the value you are searching with EN, you stay. If not you should consider switching to another app that serves your price/value expectations better.

[philrodo 60]

12 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

If you think you are better off with a Microsoft 365 Family subscription, you should get one, and switch apps.

Sorry, but you missed the point. I was comparing the subscription price of MS 365 Family to EN. As you know, MS 365 gives you a number of apps whereas EN only gives you one app. In other words, by comparison, EV’s pricing is outrageous! 

[PinkElephant 8,158]

If you read my post you see that I understood this. If you read my post you may understand why both are not comparable.

Pay and use it, or leave. This entirely depends on the value you receive, not on the price asked.

[Jon/t 1,309]

2 hours ago, philrodo said:

Sorry, but you missed the point. I was comparing the subscription price of MS 365 Family to EN. As you know, MS 365 gives you a number of apps whereas EN only gives you one app. In other words, by comparison, EV’s pricing is outrageous! 

Its really not outrageous. I pay more than O365 family edition for an RSS reader and its only one app. I also pay for Canva Pro which is more than O365.

Many, many apps cost more than O365 and are only one product and they hold great value to the person that buys them.

[philrodo 60]

4 hours ago, Jon/t said:

Many, many apps cost more than O365 and are only one product and they hold great value to the person that buys them.

I think that single apps that charge more than MS 365 Family edition are the exception not the rule. Let’s face it, EN is a glorified note app. To my knowledge there’s no other Note app that charges annual subscriptions that high (for example, Note Joy which in many ways appears to be an EN clone, only charges $48 a year for its Premium offering). At this rate, there will be more and more subscribers that will abandon EN, which will most likely force the management to raise subscription prices even more or they will let the app linger which will eventually lead to its demise. 

I find it rather strange that a number of the EN “experts” go out of their way to defend the management’s boneheaded decision to implement such a large price increase, within months after they acquired the company. I don’t know how large the base of corporate subscribers is, but there’s little doubt in my mind (based on many earlier threads in this forum), that if EN management continues to increase the subscription costs annually, they’ll lose a major portion of their single-base subscribers at which point the “experts” will also have to move onto other endeavors. In my view, a more sound approach would have been for the “experts” to loudly advise the EN management that such major subscription increases are unsustainable, instead of coming up with excuses to defend the indefensible…

[philrodo 60]

6 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Pay and use it, or leave. This entirely depends on the value you receive, not on the price asked

I’m paying, only because I have about 15 years invested in using EN and I shudder at the thought of having to move all that data to another platform. But at this point, EN’s value compared to its cost has become a case of diminishing returns.

As I stated above, I find it odd that the “experts” in this forum are collectively coming up with excuses to justify the price increase and completely miss the obvious facts that such major price increases are chasing subscribers away, at which point all the expertise built by the EN “experts’ base” will become worthless… 🤯

[Bill Myers 458]

21 hours ago, philrodo said:

Thanks, but in my experience as a EN user for about 15 years, EN tech support usually makes you go useless hoops and doesn’t resolve the issue. I can only imagine how bad things have gotten now under the new management…

Over the years I've also had encounters with Evernote support that were unsatisfactory. But I had two fairly recent experiences with Evernote support -- one prior to the acquisition, one after -- that left me feeling quite happy. If this problem is bothering you, it might not hurt to try support again.

[Bill Myers 458]

20 hours ago, gazumped said:

As to hoop-jumping,  it's the job of front-line support to make sure that something dumb like an out-of-date version or an unsupported OS isn't causing the hassle.  They go through a standard script every time to make sure a fault is really a fault - because otherwise someone on a much higher payscale is going to have to unpick exactly what might be causing this.  The fewer red herrings drawn across their trail the better!

 

YES to this. I sell IT services for a living and I interface with our tech support staff as part of account management. It's important for support staff to set their assumptions aside and follow a specific troubleshooting methodology. It's not always fun for them either, but if they fail to do so they risk missing the true cause of the issue. I've worked with tech support people who don't do that, and it can lead to bad outcomes.

Plus, you'd be shocked how many times people call in to tech support and say things like "my printer isn't working" only for the tech support person to uncover that the machine wasn't plugged in or was out of paper. This is not hyperbole.

[Bill Myers 458]

I just tried to reproduce the issue on my iPhone, also running iOS 16.1. I think my Evernote app is up to date but I would have to check that later. Anyway, I'm seeing the same issue you are -- or maybe even worse. I tried three words in quotes -- a search string that should only appear in one of my notes. The search returned several notes, some of them because Evernote found literally just one letter in common with the search string. I tried the search again without quotes and got the exact same result. So you're not alone in this.

Best I can suggest is tech support, though. None of us can get under the hood and figure out what's wrong because we're not Evernote employees. I'll probably submit a ticket myself later.

[Boot17 1,465]

22 hours ago, philrodo said:

has anyone else observed this? Is there a fix or workaround? 

Pretty sure I know what the problem is.

It works for me on Desktop and Web just fine. Searching for "class keyword" (in quotes) gets me 8 notes. Searching class keyword without quotes gets me 41 notes. As expected.

However, on my iPhone I was getting the 41 notes either way I did it. Then I noticed that my iPhone was using what are called smart quotes and not the real quote. Notice the difference here:

Smart Quotes:

Regular Quotes:

When entering quotes on your keyboard for searching on iOS or iPadOS, hold down your finger on the quote character until you get the popup of characters over it and then select the "regular quote" like this:

 

[Bill Myers 458]

38 minutes ago, philrodo said:

As I stated above, I find it odd that the “experts” in this forum are collectively coming up with excuses to justify the price increase and completely miss the obvious facts that such major price increases are chasing subscribers away, at which point all the expertise built by the EN “experts’ base” will become worthless… 🤯

No one is coming up with "excuses," because we're all users and therefore not responsible for the cost of Evernote. And we couldn't change or influence it if we tried.

It's just that some of us see the value and are choosing to stay with the service. If you don't agree with us, you're free to leave. There's no point in complaining here, though. If your goal is to get Bending Spoons to lower the prices, have you noticed that there has been a deluge of complaints since the price increases took effect and it hasn't changed a thing? If you're looking for people to agree with you, that might make you feel better temporarily; but then you'll notice you're still paying the same amount and feel PO'd again.

And none of this helps you with your search problem. My suggestion: stay with Evernote and try tech support. Or leave Evernote and move on. 

[Bill Myers 458]

8 minutes ago, Boot17 said:

Ahem...

Pretty sure I know what the problem is.

It works for me on Desktop and Web just fine. Searching for "class keyword" (in quotes) gets me 8 notes. Searching class keyword without quotes gets me 41 notes. As expected.

However, on my iPhone I was getting the 41 notes either way I did it. Then I noticed that my iPhone was using what are called smart quotes and not the real quote. Notice the difference here:

Smart Quotes:

Regular Quotes:

When entering quotes on your keyboard for searching on iOS or iPadOS, hold down your finger on the quote character until you get the popup of characters over it and then select the "regular quote" like this:

 

@Boot17, you're entirely correct! I tried your solution and it worked. You win my "awesomest forum member of the day" award, which literally comes with no prize which is probably why no one cares about it.

And it literally just occurred to me that when I search without quotes, Evernote is returning notes that match just one letter because one of the words in my search string is a one-letter word. I win the "idiot of the day" award.

Forgive me, I'm tired this morning.

[philrodo 60]

6 minutes ago, Boot17 said:

Then I noticed that my iPhone was using what are called smart quotes and not the real quote. Notice the difference here:

Thank you! That solved the problem. I actually suggested above that iOS and iPasOS devices are probably using a type of quote symbol that’s not recognized by EN, but did not think about the smart keyboard’s ability to select different characters other than the default character. I just tried using a “regular quote” as opposed to using the default quote, and EN returned a hit on a single note, whereas before I was getting hits on any note that contained the three words I was searching for inside the quotes. 

[philrodo 60]

10 minutes ago, Bill Myers said:

If your goal is to get Bending Spoons to lower the prices, have you noticed that there has been a deluge of complaints since the price increases took effect and it hasn't changed a thing?

I bet, if every paid subscriber including the experts took time to send a missive to the new CEO, that would have an impact! I doubt that anything said in this forum receives anny attention from EN management. Heck, other than feature announcements, no one from EV support seems to ever post anything in this forum—another beef of mine… 🤬

[AlbertR 542]

22 hours ago, gazumped said:

it's the job of front-line support to make sure that something dumb like an out-of-date version or an unsupported OS isn't causing the hassle.

OK, right. But they could maintain a list of users that can be trusted to be aware of this and have already tried what they beg for each time 😉
EOT - base problem is solved...

[Gillian B 1]

Evernote's Evernote latest update boasts that its search is now powered by AI and is better and faster.  

I searched my thousands of notes for "Halloween." Both with and without quotes  

First result: an article from the Nonprofit AF blog:
"Why do so many nice people become ***** when they join a board?"

Second result was a McSweeney's article about parenting a preschooler (no mention of Halloween) and third is about cat treat dispenser toys.

None of the those notes included the word Halloween.
 

Hmm, Evernote.  Not so much of an upgrade.

[gazumped 11,693]

2 hours ago, philrodo said:

I bet, if every paid subscriber including the experts took time to send a missive to the new CEO, that would have an impact! 

An impact sure - they'd put a block on their account!  To your point and

1 hour ago, AlbertR said:

OK, right. But they could maintain a list of users that can be trusted to be aware of this and have already tried

I think we're forgetting here that Evernote (probably still) has MILLIONS of users.  If support has to look up an index of 'trustable' users each time they get a query,  it just adds to the handling time,  and (I may have mentioned) I used to run an IT support team,  so I'd consider myself more coherent than most - but I've been caught out a couple of times when asked to go through something carefully,  and oops - yes,  that was totally me!

Every single support team runs on the basis that tier one takes you through the basics - sometimes more than once;  and they check to make sure that you actually do what they ask,  because guess what? The first rule of Support Club is "customers lie".

I know it's a pain,  but Evernote / Bending Spoons do seem to know what they're doing.  Keep the faith and pay up - or don't and move on.  Everyone's choice!

[Bill Myers 458]

2 hours ago, gazumped said:

I know it's a pain,  but Evernote / Bending Spoons do seem to know what they're doing.  Keep the faith and pay up - or don't and move on.  Everyone's choice!

Or stick around even if it makes you miserable. I'm not saying it's a great option, but it is an option.

Anyway, I learned something about searching in Evernote on my iPhone. I think that's the best use of the forum: get help when needed, give help when possible.

[philrodo 60]

6 minutes ago, Bill Myers said:

Anyway, I learned something about searching in Evernote on my iPhone.

Me too! But you’d think that we’re not the first users to run into this issue. EN probably knows about it, but they make no reference in their search FAQs as far as I could tell, about the distinction between Smart Quotes and Regular Text Quotes. You’d think that they could include such a reference in their literature, given the prevalence of Smartphones and tablets. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,970]

3 hours ago, Gillian B said:

Evernote's Evernote latest update boasts that its search is now powered by AI and is better and faster.  

I searched my thousands of notes for "Halloween." Both with and without quotes  

First result: an article from the Nonprofit AF blog:
"Why do so many nice people become ***** when they join a board?"

Second result was a McSweeney's article about parenting a preschooler (no mention of Halloween) and third is about cat treat dispenser toys.

None of the those notes included the word Halloween.
 

Hmm, Evernote.  Not so much of an upgrade.

Welcome to the forums. That's an interesting test. AI searching is always opt-in, as I understand it; you have to click the AI button to use it. Did you run the test using standard search, AI, or both? Either way, it's a colossal fail!

[Bill Myers 458]

4 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Welcome to the forums. That's an interesting test. AI searching is always opt-in, as I understand it; you have to click the AI button to use it. Did you run the test using standard search, AI, or both? Either way, it's a colossal fail!

I tried experimenting with AI search recently because it sounded cool. As a test, I searched for "how do I structure a story" because I have notes about story structure (I write fiction as a hobby). Some of the notes in the search results were recipes. None of them were the ones about story structure.

I suppose it could have been user error but I'm not sure what I would have been doing wrong.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,970]

Honestly, it doesn't sound like humans have to step up their game all that much to avoid having their jobs taken over by AI. OTOH, it may be that bosses would gladly pay less to have poorer results.

[AlbertR 542]

 

14 hours ago, gazumped said:

I think we're forgetting here that Evernote (probably still) has MILLIONS of users. 

Hopefully... And to reduce support traffic, they try to hide contact possibilites (see here...) 😉 

14 hours ago, gazumped said:

If support has to look up an index of 'trustable' users each time they get a query,  it just adds to the handling time

They may use "AI" to do that. To contact support, you have to log in with your account. Their account records know all about user's plans, database sizes and #of already handled tickets. It's not rocket science to give support personal such information before they open and read the incident text.

[PinkElephant 8,158]

Access to support was always a challenge. Less so when chat was available, more so in times with an elevated level of tickets.

From my experience the easiest way to issue a ticket is through the mobile client. It avoids the website.

[philrodo 60]

20 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Access to support was always a challenge.

Apparently, under the new management it now takes a long time to get a response from Tech Support, if ever. I sent a message to Tech Support a couple of days ago, got an automated reply, responded to it affirming that I was still having the problem, and so far I got no follow up…

[gazumped 11,693]

Just now, philrodo said:

so far I got no follow up…

They're currently running on a 5-7 working day delay according to a couple of tickets I have at the moment...  If you have a ticket number you're in the queue.

[philrodo 60]

2 hours ago, gazumped said:

They're currently running on a 5-7 working day delay according to a couple of tickets I have at the moment...

Thanks. But in my opinion, that’s an unacceptable response time, particularly now that they’ve just about doubled their subscription prices. I can’t think of any other app I subscribe to that takes 5 - 7 days to respond to a support ticket! … 🤯🤯🤯

[gazumped 11,693]

11 minutes ago, philrodo said:

in my opinion, that’s an unacceptable response time

You will probably get a standard email apologising for any delay and confirming that they are working on improving the situation,  but this isn't an enterprise solution with a formal SLA response time.  A lot of other providers rely solely on their respective forums and other users supplying help.  I know that's what we're doing here,  but at least Evernote has a support team...  

[philrodo 60]

40 minutes ago, gazumped said:

A lot of other providers rely solely on their respective forums and other users supplying help.

Thanks. But I n my experience, the apps you have to pay annual subscription fees, provide in-house Tech Support that usually responds in 24 to 48 hours (at least the apps I’ve subscribed to over the years). 

[PinkElephant 8,158]

Usually EN support answers within 24 hours, in normal times. But it seems they are inundated at the moment.

Not what we expect, but not unheard of either.