Some operations too slow in v10

[kitley 6]

I've recently upgraded to evernote v10... because support for legacy is ending.

It is much better than the version i tested around 2021... so that's good news....
BUT there are operations that are still too slow.

• Creating a new note
• Moving notes between notebooks
• nesting tags
• etc.

are there any tips to improving the responsiveness of these operations?

I do remember very early on with evernote... say < 2013.... it was also very slow.
After uninstalling and deleting all local evernote info... then reinstalling... made the problem go away... back then...

Is this the case now?

[PinkElephant 8,120]

Recently = still downloading content from the server, converting and building the local database.

Keep it running in the background whenever the PC is up. It improves in speed once the initial download is through.

[kitley 6]

great- thanks.

I have only uninstalled & reinstalled Evernote.
I did not delete local data and get it to redownload everything.
Is this advisable?
 

[ferol 436]

1 hour ago, kitley said:

great- thanks.

I have only uninstalled & reinstalled Evernote.
I did not delete local data and get it to redownload everything.
Is this advisable?
 

database is different... its same like full new instalation.

 

My 4.5 GB database was full recreated after etc 20 hours? 

[PinkElephant 8,120]

8 hours ago, kitley said:

I have only uninstalled & reinstalled Evernote.
I did not delete local data and get it to redownload everything.
Is this advisable?

If you upgraded from legacy, v10 uses a different database. The legacy database is of no use. It does not support several new data formats (like Tasks), and it doesn’t support Real Time Editing.

In this case it will perform a full fresh install. If the legacy database is still on the drive, you can remove it.

With v10 the database once build will continue even when the client updates.

In some circumstances it can get corrupted - then erasing it and a full download from the server is the best way.

But if you just upgraded, it needs to build itself, and will pick up speed after it’s done. Keep the client running (can be in the background) while it lasts.

[MvdH 407]

On 3/3/2024 at 3:20 AM, kitley said:

BUT there are operations that are still too slow.

For me it is still way slower than Legacy. Also after full sync, on ,multiple Windows systems with great hardware. I change tags, merge and edit as a ninja. All those 100ms, 50ms, 200ms operation delays compared to legacy result in a MUCH slower experience. If you "just" create a few notes each hour, edit a few, search a few, than it's totally fine.

[ferol 436]

2 hours ago, MvdH said:

For me it is still way slower than Legacy. Also after full sync, on ,multiple Windows systems with great hardware. I change tags, merge and edit as a ninja. All those 100ms, 50ms, 200ms operation delays compared to legacy result in a MUCH slower experience. If you "just" create a few notes each hour, edit a few, search a few, than it's totally fine.

you are right.. is really slow..

[PinkElephant 8,120]

Can‘t say - how can you measure 100ms anyhow ? I tend to do some thinking while using EN - even if there would be a ms delay, would this have an effect ?

What we know is that native software does run faster, needs less resources, Blabla, we have discussed all of it. v10 was really slow on all multi-note operations initially. THIS has improved a lot in the last months: Stuff like tagging a selection or merging some notes is now working OK for me.

In general v10 is fast enough for what I do with it. And that’s what counts for my use.

[AlbertR 535]

18 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

In general v10 is fast enough for what I do with it. And that’s what counts for my use.

OK, but it's your use. It will not go better for us if you're OK. A professor of mine told us that a developer has to stop optimizing at the point users gets OK - not be any measure else. And this point seems far away today - even after months of work...

[PinkElephant 8,120]

I didn’t say my experience should apply to others. But it IS still my experience.

If I look at the speed claims in the forum, most are related to „just upgraded“ users. Here the main impact is the missing local database, that is still downloading.

Real „speed“ claims originate from power users (don’t like the claim, but let’s use it), probably with a lot of keyboard shortcuts in use. Typically you feel a certain slack there more than while „mousing around“.

[MvdH 407]

Maybe PinkElephant is representative for the target audience of Evernote and not me. Who knows.

100ms you can see... In eg 10 substeps I see when processing things. Like changing 100 tags. Or when merging, updating the UI though many times it takesb500msbtob3 seconds per step, making it easy to determine. My brain is always annoyed andbtl1p times faster then Evernote. Evernote is my PKM systeem which should be faster than my brain. Not slower 😁

[MvdH 407]

2 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Real „speed“ claims originate from power users (don’t like the claim, but let’s use it), probably with a lot of keyboard shortcuts in use. Typically you feel a certain slack there more than while „mousing around“.

True. I realize that. Sidenote: I tend to use only shortcuts where I can, never the mouse. It is too slow a process to use a mouse.... For what I want. 

[PinkElephant 8,120]

My use is like a bird of prey: Circle - watch - dive - HIT.

🤣

[AlbertR 535]

18 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Real „speed“ claims originate from power users (don’t like the claim, but let’s use it), probably with a lot of keyboard shortcuts in use. Typically you feel a certain slack there more than while „mousing around“.

Yeah - but it's not only a display thing. Changes (tags and content) are not reflected on the next search very often: If I change anything, I require "updated:day-1" to find the changed note - but have to wait some seconds-minutes. If I tag anything and search for that tag, delay to propper search results is even longer 😞

[kitley 6]

Thanks for all the feedback...
To provide a bit of nuance regarding the "operations are still too slow".

I'm impressed with the speed of searching... tag searches, text searches etc.
I guess i have a fairly large information archive (86k notes, 30k tags, see info below)...
This is improved from legacy... and is really quite good.

It's the basic operations that i find far too slow...
Simply creating a new note (ctrl+alt+N) takes several seconds... 
Or moving a note from one notebook to another is also quite slow...

I've adjusted some of my workflow to accommodate this.
So for now, its workable.

Having tested v10 of evernote a year or 2 ago, i assumed it would be impossible. I recently reviewed many alternatives (obsidian, notion, logseq, heptabase, bear, amplenotes,  nimbusnote, joplin etc. etc... but nothing was quite right for my workflow... So i guess its good enough not to jump ship... for now.  But I'd still stick with Evernote legacy if it continued to be available.

OS: win
OSVersion: 10.0.22621
CPUType: 12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1265U
CPUCount: 12
CPUSpeed: 2.688 GHz
DeviceID: 754268345
RAM: 31.828506469726562 GB
diskAvailable: 75.09 GB
diskTotal: 952.47 GB
CEVersion: 177.5.0
conduitVersion: 1.94.2
clientVersion: 10.78.2 ddl
isRentEnabled: false

currentNoteCount: 86222
currentSharedNoteCount: NA
currentNotebookCount: 223
currentSpacesCount: 0
currentTasksCount: 0
currentTagsCount: 30154
currentDatabaseSize: 113376825
electronVersion: 26.6.9

[PinkElephant 8,120]

New note: 1 second (max)

Move note: Below 1 second

Base Mac mini M1.

Delayed actions often point at a corrupted local database. In such a case a full uninstall using Revo Uninstaller (PC) can remove the database, Then restart the PC, download the installer from the EN website, run it, open and log in.

Keep the client running (can be in the background) for quite a while. It will download a fresh copy from the server. Could take a while in your case.

[kitley 6]

Thanks for the suggestion,
I'll test this out on one of my laptops and let you know how it goes.
 

[s2sailor 2,206]

3 hours ago, kitley said:

30k tags

That must be an Evernote record.  I can’t imagine managing that personally, but to each their own.

[ferol 436]

2 hours ago, s2sailor said:

That must be an Evernote record.  I can’t imagine managing that personally, but to each their own.

It depends on how Tags are used and for what. For example, here, among other Tags, one tag= one customer...
If I had another type of business with a higher turnover of customer, it would not be a problem to reach multiples of this number...

I have only 747 tags...

 

[Razmataz 218]

There can be no doubt: V10 is slow. It is slow in comparison to legacy. It is slow in comparison to the similar platforms.

That doesn't have to mean it is unusable. And I understand that arguments about sub second responses. For a single action, mind you.

The problem is more visible if one has to execute an action for a couple of hundred notes/tags etc. Legacy was really good at that. V10 isn't by an measure.

Will there be an improvement over time?

If you believe @PinkElephant, there will be. EN will now have much more time to work on V10, as legacy will have been shut down soon.

That's where I have reasonable doubt. EN seems to be much more interested in new "modern" features than fixing old problems, some of them as old as V10. Sure, it is much cooler to work on some AI stuff than fixing issues. And it is easier to declare that nobody needs those anyway, because all users are totally jazzed up about what's coming.

That's where our views part: others may be excited about the future, I am worried about the present, because that's what is relevant for me right now. And it this present, V10 is not that shiny.

 

[bmcl26 488]

14 hours ago, kitley said:

It's the basic operations that i find far too slow...
Simply creating a new note (ctrl+alt+N) takes several seconds... 
Or moving a note from one notebook to another is also quite slow

Not my experience New note opens instantly..

Likewise moving a note instant as well.

[VincentC 266]

1 hour ago, bmcl26 said:

Not my experience New note opens instantly..

Likewise moving a note instant as well.

That's my experience too, on three different, plain windows machines, none of them super-gamer platforms.

 

Vinnie

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,967]

As has been noted, Evernote is slow at first because it is (1) downloading your complete note DB in the background, and (2) updating each note to the new sync structure as it is opened. Once that's done, it speeds up. But it never becomes as fast as a native app on your operating system, because of the Electron wrapper. The tradeoff for that is that Evernote now appears and acts similarly across all platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Web; and the developers can work from a unified codebase, not FIVE different sets of code. Hence more rapid updates and bug fixes (the ones they turn their attention to; hopefully they'll have more time for that once they're not dealing with Legacy anymore). It's a tradeoff, and everyone must decide whether it's worthwhile. For me, working on both Windows and Android, and not being a tag-editing ninja, it is. If you only work on one platform, it might not be, and there might be better single-platform options.

[kitley 6]

ok, an update.

Evernote operations have noticeably improved since complete database reinstallation.
Some operations are still not as snappy as legacy... e.g. creating a new note, moving notes, etc. ... but it is pretty good...
But several operations are much better... e.g. syncing between devices seems instant, searches are quick, etc.

All in all, my years long concerns upgrading from Evernote legacy have somewhat been relieved.

Regarding tags... I use tags as a database.
As ferol mentioned above, I have a tag list for clients, a tag list for projects, a tag list for support tickets, for concepts for development etc.
This is just the way i found worked for me way back when... and I've been waiting for evernote to tell me that I've reached its tag limit... hopefully this doesn't happen anytime soon!
 

[Dave Green 210]

54 minutes ago, kitley said:

I've been waiting for evernote to tell me that I've reached its tag limit... hopefully this doesn't happen anytime soon!

https://help.evernote.com/hc/en-us/articles/209005247-Evernote-system-limits says 100K tags.   

[kitley 6]

ok, will be closing thread.
its still not ideal... I've had to change the way i do things due to significant lags with simple tasks like creating and moving notes.
but there are some improvements.
I'll stick with it for now.
thanks.

[MvdH 407]

7 minutes ago, kitley said:

I've had to change the way i do things due

Interesting. That's what I did when I moved from v6 to v10. Changes the way I work significantly. In a less snappy and less efficient way. Evernote v10 simply couldn't (and can't) keep up to my workflow speed.

[nonobio 40]

Hi,

Same for me, Evernote 10 has slowed down my workflow, I still have to wait for most actions.

This morning I received an email from Evernote:

Your Evernote account has been upgraded from Plus to Personal and the subscription increases to €99.99 per year.

A year ago I was still at €29.99 per year, that’s a nice increase.

I pay more and more for an application which for me is increasingly slow, difficult to remain faithful...

In the meantime, my hardware acceleration problem is still not resolved, which forces me to stay with an older version of Evernote:

On 1/27/2024 at 11:10 AM, nonobio said:

Hi,
Your message made me think. For my part, since upgrading to v10 on my laptop, Evernote has always been rather slow. At the time I spent hours chatting with support and in the end, the problem was not resolved. I got used to it and I thought that all Evernote 10 users were affected by slowness problems compared to v6 legacy.

In short, following your message I did speed tests, both on my laptop PC which is the one where I mainly use Evernote, and also on my faster and more recent desktop PC, but which is unfortunately not the one on which I use Evernote daily.

Here are my results:

FYI I have 26740 notes, and thousands of tags and my internet connection is ADSL1 (8Mb/1Mb)

 

Evernote 10.73.4 (hardware acceleration enabled) on my laptop PC CPU Intel Core i5 4310U GPU Intel HD Graphics RAM 8 GB SSD

 

• note creation 12s 14s 20s 17s 43s and the window does not respond 
• note display note panel 7s 5s 3s 3s 8s
• open in new window 16s 9s 8s 8s
• paste image 5s 5s 3s

Suffice it to say that it is very difficult to use in these conditions 😓.

Evernote 10.66.5 (hardware acceleration disabled) Laptop PC CPU Intel Core i5 4310U RAM 8 GB SSD

• creation note 4s 3s 3s 3s
• note display note panel 2s 1s 3s 8s
• open in new window 8s 5s 4s 5s 8s
• paste image 1s 1s 1s 1s

I've been using Evernote at this speed for years (the move to v10), it's not very fast but I try to be patient 🧘.

Evernote 10.73.4 Desktop PC CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics RAM 16 GB SSD

• creation note 1s 1s 1s
• note display note panel 3s 1s 1s 2s 2s
• open in new window 2s 1s 3s 2s
• paste image 0.5s 0.5s 0.5s

I tested the desktop applications or store, the same results.

Evernote Legacy 6.25.3.9348 Desktop PC CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics RAM 16 GB SSD

• creation note 0s 0s 0s 0s
• note display note panel 0s 0s 0s 0s
• open in new window 1s 1s 1s 1s
• paste image 0s 0s 0s 0s

As you can see, this activated hardware acceleration thing doesn't please my laptop at all and makes the application difficult to use.

But I also noticed that apart from this problem, the performance of my laptop means that Evernote does not run as well as on my faster PC.

Evernote is greedy. The thing is that I don't have any plans to change my PC for the moment, but maybe adding RAM could help a little, finally if the hardware acceleration option problem is solved...

[PinkElephant 8,120]

The grandfathered subscriptions are terminated. In your case you enjoyed a rebated price (for a reduced feature set) for 6 years now. I would say „it was nice while it lasted“.

If you are running the app on a computer from 2018 (or older), what are the rough specs of this machine ? CPU, GPU (if any), RAM, drive ?

It may be worth to check for a hardware bottleneck if you claim that hardware acceleration turned ON makes your app crawl.

[nonobio 40]

20 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

The grandfathered subscriptions are terminated. In your case you enjoyed a rebated price (for a reduced feature set) for 6 years now. I would say „it was nice while it lasted“.

The arrival of v10 meant that my Windows application became slower and my Android application was unusable. I spent hours with Evernote support regarding these issues. Even today I don't really take advantage of Evernote like I used to.

From my point of view, I had been paying the same price for 6 years for an application that worked less well. Evernote ended up offering me a subscription because they couldn't find immediate solutions.

So It's all a matter of point of view

20 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

If you are running the app on a computer from 2018 (or older), what are the rough specs of this machine ? CPU, GPU (if any), RAM, drive ?

I listed my PC specs in my post. Besides, I created an independent topic here:

Yes my PC is old but the only application with which I have slowness problems is Evernote.

It bothers me to replace it just for one application, even if I feel that it will perhaps become the only solution for this hardware acceleration thing because Evernote hasn't a solution.

But for the moment I can't afford to buy a new PC for €500-1000 + pay the new subscription of €100 per year, just for a note-taking application.

[PinkElephant 8,120]

In your other post I found this: CPU Intel Core i5 4310U, integrated GPU, 8GB of RAM

You don‘t list your drive. Is it a turning disk drive, or a SSD ? How much free space is available ?

[nonobio 40]

SSD with 25 GB free space

[PinkElephant 8,120]

OK, that’s partially good, because a turning disk drive and EN doesn‘t go along well (which was already true for legacy). It‘s partially bad because 25GB is little, and will reduce the lifetime of your SSD. A SSD tries load balancing, which means it sends new storage to cells that have been used less. This extends the total lifetime of the SSD.

From your specs I think the bottleneck in your case it the weak CPU. And yes, as you already assumed there is no cheap workaround.

The best advise I can give you is to use EN in the web client, instead of using the installed client. When you use the installed client, try to use it with as little additional load on your computer as possible. The 2 cores will be saturated fast.

Personally I don‘t expect any optimization from EN on the demand of the v10 client. Why hardware acceleration was removed you need to ask support.

[nonobio 40]

Thanks for your advices.

I wrote to Evernote Support about this specific issue 2 months ago now, and 2 weeks ago I got this response:

Quote

Rest assured, your concern has been noted and reported to our developers. While we may not have an immediate solution at hand, please know that we're working hard to prevent any such issues from arising in the future. Enhancing the user experience of Evernote remains a top priority for us.

[MvdH 407]

5 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

If you are running the app on a computer from 2018 (or older), what are the rough specs of this machine ? CPU, GPU (if any), RAM, drive ?

It may be worth to check for a hardware bottleneck if you claim that hardware acceleration turned ON makes your app crawl.

Thx for offering help @PinkElephant

My primary laptop is a Microsoft Surface Pro 9, bought last year. 1TB SSD that came with the machine. With wired 1Gbit up/down glass netwerk.

My secondary laptop is newer and faster. Same problems.

Do you have any advice in this area? I'm willing to invest heavily in hardware to get my workflow and Evernote running as before (v6). It is costing me loads of money the sluggyness of it all right now.

Where is the hardware acceleration option you talk of? That might be worth to look into for me.

Thx in advance! 🙌👊👍

[s2sailor 2,206]

21 minutes ago, MvdH said:

Where is the hardware acceleration option you talk of?

This was a setting that has been unfortunately removed.  Some seem to get better performance with it enabled, and others not.  The setting to change it needs to come back.

[MvdH 407]

OK, so my main/only hope is that they keep investing on making my second brain  Evernote ninja fast, or at least as fast as my own brain.

Well it gives me some hope that they already did a lot in this area. The first versions of v10 were unusable and dramatic.

Currently I would label it "poor". It feel for me like I am using the tool in "survival mode" and it is costing me a lot of sentiment too. Happy with the route. Not happy with the status.

It's not only electron and slowness of operations. It's also design, UX. Missing v6 features like hide-unused-tags in the edit tags dialogue, which saved me a ton of time too before. Or not being able to sort on the tags column, is horrible for me. Just to mention a few. 

[s2sailor 2,206]

12 minutes ago, MvdH said:

It's not only electron and slowness of operations. It's also design, UX. Missing v6 features like hide-unused-tags in the edit tags dialogue, which saved me a ton of time too before. Or not being able to sort on the tags column, is horrible for me. Just to mention a few. 

I agree.  BS has made notable improvements but more can and should be done to improve speed and remove user friction.  Keep pushing with bug reports and feature requests.  They have priced this as a premium app, let's help push them there.

[nonobio 40]

3 hours ago, MvdH said:

Where is the hardware acceleration option you talk of? That might be worth to look into for me.

It is no longer present, this is actually my problem: I have to use an old version of Evernote to be able to deactivate hardware acceleration and have a usable Evernote. I am currently on version 10.66.5

If you want to do a test, to see if you have the same problem as me, install 10.66.5 and disable hardware acceleration by checking the box in the settings (preferences\application : advanced) :
 

I used this site to download the old version

: https://evernote.fr.uptodown.com/windows/versions

But maybe your Evernote has not this problem, it's just slower than the legacy one you used before, and for that I don't think there's anything to do for the moment unfortunately. Look at my comparative measurements above between v10 and legacy here (Expand my quote, legacy measures are at the end): 

Quote

 

In short, following your message I did speed tests, both on my laptop PC which is the one where I mainly use Evernote, and also on my faster and more recent desktop PC, but which is unfortunately not the one on which I use Evernote daily.

FYI I have 26740 notes, and thousands of tags and my internet connection is ADSL1 (8Mb/1Mb)

Evernote 10.73.4 (hardware acceleration enabled) on my laptop PC CPU Intel Core i5 4310U GPU Intel HD Graphics RAM 8 GB SSD

 

• note creation 12s 14s 20s 17s 43s and the window does not respond 
• note display note panel 7s 5s 3s 3s 8s
• open in new window 16s 9s 8s 8s
• paste image 5s 5s 3s

Suffice it to say that it is very difficult to use in these conditions 😓.

Evernote 10.66.5 (hardware acceleration disabled) Laptop PC CPU Intel Core i5 4310U RAM 8 GB SSD

• creation note 4s 3s 3s 3s
• note display note panel 2s 1s 3s 8s
• open in new window 8s 5s 4s 5s 8s
• paste image 1s 1s 1s 1s

I've been using Evernote at this speed for years (the move to v10), it's not very fast but I try to be patient 🧘.

Evernote 10.73.4 Desktop PC CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics RAM 16 GB

• creation note 1s 1s 1s
• note display note panel 3s 1s 1s 2s 2s
• open in new window 2s 1s 3s 2s
• paste image 0.5s 0.5s 0.5s

I tested the desktop applications or store, the same results.

Evernote Legacy 6.25.3.9348 Desktop PC CPU AMD Ryzen 5 5600G with Radeon Graphics RAM 16 GB SSD

• creation note 0s 0s 0s 0s
• note display note panel 0s 0s 0s 0s
• open in new window 1s 1s 1s 1s
• paste image 0s 0s 0s 0s

As you can see, this activated hardware acceleration thing doesn't please my laptop at all and makes the application difficult to use.

But I also noticed that apart from this problem, the performance of my laptop means that Evernote does not run as well as on my faster PC.

Evernote is greedy. The thing is that I don't have any plans to change my PC for the moment, but maybe adding RAM could help a little, finally if the hardware acceleration option problem is solved...

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,120]

You can only contact support a out it.

There had been problems with this setting in the past - maybe that’s the reason why they removed it. Your case being on an extremely weak hardware was probably not tested before removing it.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,967]

1 hour ago, s2sailor said:

I agree.  BS has made notable improvements but more can and should be done to improve speed and remove user friction.  Keep pushing with bug reports and feature requests.  They have priced this as a premium app, let's help push them there.

They're definitely hard at work removing friction points. For instance, the handy gear icon to access settings at the top of the left panel disappeared with the new UI. Some report that the arrows to go forward and backward among notes in that same region is also gone. So much less friction. 😆

[s2sailor 2,206]

1 minute ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

They're definitely hard at work removing friction points.

I agree.  I don't want them to ease up 🙂.

[mackid1993 731]

Last week they seemed to have updated the top chrome of the window border on Windows and then rolled it back suddenly. Thing are really in flux right now, I think now that they made those backend migrations from the monolithic architecture last year this year they are focused on client side improvements.

Plenty of Electron apps are super fast, Discord and VSCode come to mind. Hopefully Evernote will get there. 

[MDA13 34]

39 minutes ago, mackid1993 said:

Last week they seemed to have updated the top chrome of the window border on Windows and then rolled it back suddenly. Thing are really in flux right now, I think now that they made those backend migrations from the monolithic architecture last year this year they are focused on client side improvements.

Plenty of Electron apps are super fast, Discord and VSCode come to mind. Hopefully Evernote will get there. 

I see that v10 will never be faster.

Looks like it has a very bad architecture.