Word search function not working properly in Evernote

[faq75 3]

It appears that the word search function on Evernote 10.86.8 is not functioning anymore. Anyone else having the same issue?

Best,

f.

[PinkElephant 8,242]

What do you mean by „word search“ !

On which device / platform ?

[faq75 3]

The search bar on the PC app and online version.

It either delivers the most recent notes created over the past week or nothing. 

Quite frustrating as I used the function to keep track of case reference numbers in correspondence.

f.

[valmad 1]

On 5/10/2024 at 9:17 AM, PinkElephant said:

What do you mean by „word search“ !

On which device / platform ?

Yes. I came to say the same thing. The "search" in Evernote does not show the tags.  I have Mac, Evernote premium.

It has been quirky for a long while and, today, does not show the tags, even with multiple tries. In the past couple of weeks, the tags would show up after a few tries, but today, nothing. In the example below, the search is for "acetylcholine",  there are several notes for the search term,  these only show up after a couple of tries but the tag which is present in the screenshot as part of the note, does not show up in the choices for the the search term.

The search function needs to be updated, has not been functioning well with this new version of Evernote.

The second problem with search is that if an earlier unrelated tag is present in the filter and you are doing a general search for another topic, if you remove the tag, the topic search term is also removed. So you have to reenter the search term. This was not the case with legacy.

[PinkElephant 8,242]

If you want to search for myword, type myword into the search field.

If you want to search for the TAG myword, type tag:myword into the search field. Or use the filters option.

 

[faq75 3]

5 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

If you want to search for myword, type myword into the search field.

If you want to search for the TAG myword, type tag:myword into the search field. Or use the filters option.

 

The problem is that if you type "myword" into the search field, you either don't get any results or you only get those made over the past week. 

Not useful for sifting through a large number of notes and correspondence.

[faq75 3]

6 hours ago, valmad said:

Yes. I came to say the same thing. The "search" in Evernote does not show the tags.  I have Mac, Evernote premium.

It has been quirky for a long while and, today, does not show the tags, even with multiple tries. In the past couple of weeks, the tags would show up after a few tries, but today, nothing. In the example below, the search is for "acetylcholine",  there are several notes for the search term,  these only show up after a couple of tries but the tag which is present in the screenshot as part of the note, does not show up in the choices for the the search term.

The search function needs to be updated, has not been functioning well with this new version of Evernote.

The second problem with search is that if an earlier unrelated tag is present in the filter and you are doing a general search for another topic, if you remove the tag, the topic search term is also removed. So you have to reenter the search term. This was not the case with legacy.

 

I've been complaining about this for a while and even bugged one of their execs and the press office about it. Something must have happened as they came back immediately begging forgiveness and offering an additional three months of free premium service. I now use the filter tool to sift through the notes. 

The word search function was working (barely) a few weeks ago up until this latest update. Ah, well. Now I have to go back to bugging their team again asking they fix this.

It does appear that each new update seems to be more about appearance then actual data organisation...

[Mike P 2,718]

The main search bar is absolutely rubbish at finding tags. At best I get one and there doesn't seem to be any particular logic as to which one. Fortunately there are other methods of searching for tags:

• The filter tool (as mentioned by @faq75
• The main tag window (obtained by clicking "Tags" in the side bar)
• Switch to (ctrl+Q). This does a good job  but only searches for tags beginning with the characters typed

The problem with all these methods is that the filter is not "carried over" into the search area - ie the tag does not appear underneath the search input. This means you cannot then search within your filtered results. The trick is to collapse and then expand the sidebar (F10 twice) - a long standing bug which EN seem to be in no hurry to fix.

[PinkElephant 8,242]

2 hours ago, faq75 said:

The problem is that if you type "myword" into the search field, you either don't get any results or you only get those made over the past week. 

Not useful for sifting through a large number of notes and correspondence.

First you generalize and don’t mention the client. There are (subtle) differences between desktop, mobile and web.

Second you explicitly asked for tag search. If you want to search for tags, you have to tell the system that it should look for tags. Text search is something else.

Third there is a difference how search results show. If in a notes text, it’s highlighted directly. If the search term inside of an attachment, you sometimes need to search in the note, or in the document to locate it after the note is found.

[Mike P 2,718]

5 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

If you want to search for tags, you have to tell the system that it should look for tags.

No you don't. The main search box includes one token tag in the initial suggested results

"Switch to" on the other hand will list all the tags beginning with the search term added. 

In neither case have I used anything to indicate that I want to find tags.

[faq75 3]

3 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

First you generalize and don’t mention the client. There are (subtle) differences between desktop, mobile and web.

I did specify the platform in response to your first question. I said it was on Windows PC and online, which I would take to mean web. The problem is repeated on those two platforms. So not true.

 

3 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Second you explicitly asked for tag search. If you want to search for tags, you have to tell the system that it should look for tags. Text search is something else.

I did not ask for tag search. That was somebody else. I was specifically looking for word search as outlined in the first post which said:

"It appears that the word search function on Evernote 10.86.8 is not functioning anymore. Anyone else having the same issue?"

 

3 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Third there is a difference how search results show. If in a notes text, it’s highlighted directly. If the search term inside of an attachment, you sometimes need to search in the note, or in the document to locate it after the note is found.

The search bar would previously locate the search term within the document but in the past week, it is only giving notes created within the past week. It isn't going any further. 

As Evernote was previously okay carrying out this function before but not now, it counts as a bug.

Hope that clarifies what I'm reporting.

f.

 

[Mike P 2,718]

41 minutes ago, faq75 said:

The search bar would previously locate the search term within the document but in the past week, it is only giving notes created within the past week. It isn't going any further. 

That's not my experience. It is both finding older notes containing the word and highlighting the word within the note.

Have you tried the web version to rule out a local database problem or just refreshed your datbase by signing out and choosing to "remove my Evernote data from this device"?

[faq75 3]

3 hours ago, Mike P said:

That's not my experience. It is both finding older notes containing the word and highlighting the word within the note.

Have you tried the web version to rule out a local database problem or just refreshed your datbase by signing out and choosing to "remove my Evernote data from this device"?

Unfortunately, not happening in my folders. I just tried on two PC's, my phone and online with several commonly used search terms and it only shows newly created files or nothing.

Is there a maximum limit to Evernote notebooks. This one has over 6000 notes inside.

f.

[Mike P 2,718]

3 minutes ago, faq75 said:

Is there a maximum limit to Evernote notebooks. This one has over 6000 notes inside.

I don't know and they seem to have deleted the system limits page from the website. However my notebook has over 6000 notes in and isn't causing me any problems.

The web version is the closest you can get to what data EN has on it's server. I assume you can all the notes but search doesn't find them which sounds like an indexing problem - new notes are being indexed but old ones aren't. I wonder what happens if you go to an old note and make some small change to it - does it then become visible in search? Also does filtering, as opposed to searching, have the same issues?

[faq75 3]

1 hour ago, Mike P said:

I don't know and they seem to have deleted the system limits page from the website. However my notebook has over 6000 notes in and isn't causing me any problems.

The web version is the closest you can get to what data EN has on it's server. I assume you can all the notes but search doesn't find them which sounds like an indexing problem - new notes are being indexed but old ones aren't. I wonder what happens if you go to an old note and make some small change to it - does it then become visible in search? Also does filtering, as opposed to searching, have the same issues?

Thanks. I just tested changing an older note and then searching and yes, it did find it. So currently it's only locating recently uploaded/changed notes. 

Using tags to filter is currently operating okay but I tend to use a combination of the two to nail down the relevant documents for work.

So if the issue is in indexing, what could be the fix for it?

[Mike P 2,718]

27 minutes ago, faq75 said:

So if the issue is in indexing, what could be the fix for it?

Well the obvious answer is to request help from EN but they are not being at all responsive at the moment!

It's possible that it will correct itself as part of whatever server checking procedures happen (or don't!) in the background.

The only thing I can think of that you could do yourself would be to update all your notes! Does simply adding a dummy tag to a note make it searchable? That's about the easiest change you can do but you can still only add a tag to 100 notes at a time. I suppose you could export the entire notebook and then reimport it.

No obvious standout answers that I can think of, although somebody else might come up with a better idea.

[megb 6]

Having this same issue - search (both when trying to find the note from the main window, and when searching for it to create a Note Link to that note) is not finding an older note. I did recently open that note, but haven't edited it. Using Windows desktop app.

VERY frustrating.  

Evernote keeps increasing their sub fees and changing their plans so that we're forced to upgrade/pay more... and yet basic functionality like SEARCH doesn't work.

[Mike P 2,718]

11 minutes ago, megb said:

search (both when trying to find the note from the main window, and when searching for it to create a Note Link to that note) is not finding an older note.

I don't think I would expect the note I am looking for to necessarily come up in Evernote's "go to..." suggestions. What happens when you press enter and get the full list of results that meet the criteria? You can then filter those or order them in a way that helps you find what you are looking for. 

If you know the title, or part of the title, you can use the intitle: modifier

intitle:"why teams fail"
intitle:"why teams fail*"

Does switch to (ctrl+Q on windows) give you the same results?

[faq75 3]

On 5/15/2024 at 1:22 PM, Mike P said:

I don't think I would expect the note I am looking for to necessarily come up in Evernote's "go to..." suggestions. What happens when you press enter and get the full list of results that meet the criteria? You can then filter those or order them in a way that helps you find what you are looking for. 

 

I rarely use "Go to" now as EV mucked that up last year but I still use a combination of filter and word search to find what I'm looking for or, even better, to find a reference in a document that I may have missed. 

My work involves reviewing a lot of government documents and reports. So my notebooks have lots of text searchable PDF's.

Evernote's recent search failures have made my job a lot more difficult in reviewing material now.

[PinkElephant 8,242]

If only very recent notes are found, you either have a corrupted search index, or a weird malfunction.

Search does work on my full account content, years back as well as recently added content.

It may be that it takes some hours until newly applied tags have proliferated themselves to all devices. But that's the only problem I am currently aware of.

[faq75 3]

16 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

If only very recent notes are found, you either have a corrupted search index, or a weird malfunction.

Search does work on my full account content, years back as well as recently added content.

It may be that it takes some hours until newly applied tags have proliferated themselves to all devices. But that's the only problem I am currently aware of.

This search isn't to do with tags but word search. Before I could enter a term and it could find them easily. Now, it only locates the most recent document.

I updated to the most recent version today but still having problems.

[PinkElephant 8,242]

I enter the text, hit Enter and get a complete list, that I can sort with the usual options.

This works as it ever did.

If it doesn’t for you, contact support.

[faq75 3]

15 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

I enter the text, hit Enter and get a complete list, that I can sort with the usual options.

This works as it ever did.

If it doesn’t for you, contact support.

Already did, sent them a video, no response as usual. 

Will be escalating then... as usual.