Evernote exports dont reimport

[mitra 1]

Evernote has a lot of problems importing its own exports.  Some attempts at importing freshly exported .enex files  just fail silently, others put up a message about failing to import , while others get part way through then complain (at the same message count each time). 

Opening those .enex files in an XML validator (e.g. Aquaemacs) throws up problems, for example if the note contained an ']]' the exported XML is always flagged as invalid, but other validation fails are harder to figure out.

The worrying thing is not having Evernote backups, and with the other problems I'm seeing with Evernote recently that concerns me !

[PinkElephant 8,838]

It is not really surprising that code style elements can cause problems when importing. A note is sort of a website, with HTML code embedded - not only „dumb“ text.

Thanks for finding out.

[gazumped 12,075]

Hmmn.  ENEX is Evernote-specific XML,  not not surprising that a standard viewer dislikes some content,  although failing import into Evernote is a bit of a red flag - do exports fail too?  Maybe try HTML or PDF rather than ENEX?  If you can identify the note on which they fail it would be worth copying the content into a new note in case that's corrupted,  or exporting the individual note to ENEX and importing a copy.

Backups generally are possible with various third party options- 

https://github.com/vzhd1701/evernote-backup - free (requires some expertise) - Evernote user @mackid1993 has written some extra batch files to help - see this post in the User Forums for more - 

https://www.backupery.com/products/backupery-for-evernote/ - paid service,  but well worth it if you have several notebooks.

https://www.cloudhq.net/evernote - also paid.

(Backupery and CloudHQ download directly from Evernote's server)

If you'd like an in-app alternative please vote here... 

 

[mitra 1]

@Gazumped - " not surprising that a standard viewer dislikes some content", yes you'd be correct if I was expecting to read the Evernote content, but the .enex is XML meaning that first you have the standard XML format, then within that you have evernote specific tags.   Its the basic XML format that is broken.

As you also rightly say, the failure of Evernote to import its own exported files is even more of a red flag, any .enex that a current Evernote exports, it should be able to re-import unless there is something else really wrong.

This bug is ironic, because I've been using Evernote since 2010, and many of the company's early team were friends and former colleagues, I was actually doing this export because the large number of Evernote bugs I've been seeing lately make me wonder about its longterm stability.  (My offline Evernote is missing a bunch of notes that are on the online one; and the issue with emptying the trash; are just a couple I've hit this week in what used to be a rock steady pair of apps (Desktop and mobile) that I could rely on).

[gazumped 12,075]

9 hours ago, mitra said:

This bug is ironic,

Bugs tend of affect most users.  This one seems to be specific to you.  I use ENEX without any issues (that I've been aware of) and my re-imported notes show up without problems.  I'm also backing up my account (AFAIK) on a regular basis.  I'd suggest contacting Support,  although that involves a bit of a wait at present...

[mitra 1]

On 11/13/2023 at 10:22 PM, gazumped said:

Bugs tend of affect most users.  This one seems to be specific to you.  I use ENEX without any issues (that I've been aware of) and my re-imported notes show up without problems.  I'm also backing up my account (AFAIK) on a regular basis.  I'd suggest contacting Support,  although that involves a bit of a wait at present...

That's a complete incorrect statement about "Bugs tend to affect most users".  Bugs that affect most users get fixed, the ones that are left are often edge cases, for example part (but not all) of this bug seems to apply to web captures that contain very specific content ']]' which Evernote appears to be failing to escape properly when writing the XML (ENEX) file.

A backup you can't read back is a fairly useless backup - except for migrating to another platform (and my Evernote backups are readable by Obsidian's importer for example).

You are probably correct about contacting Support, I've had bugs escalated before by senior people I knew at Evernote, but they all appear to have left now (another reason I was worried about its stability).