(Archived) Disappearing Attachments and Self-Deleting Notes

[Mary R 2]

I've had attachments disappear (leaving only an icon for a broken link) several times in the last 12 months (over many different upgrades/versions of the software). Has anyone else noticed this?

Additionally, just recently I had a look in my trash folder because it appeared to have notes in it. This was odd as I nearly always clear it before I close a session in which I've deleted notes. There were a number of notes from a single folder that had been moved to the trash which I ~absolutely had not deleted~. I've seen rumours of this elsewhere on the web and it seems to be something that happens to people using the iPad version. There is no way I could have deleted those notes as I would have had to do it one by one on the iPad (and would most certainly have remembered doing that!) or selected all of them in the windows client, and I hadn't been in that particular notebook in days.

I'm starting to become quite nervous about the long-term safety of the notes I keep in EN. Data redundancy is all well and good, but if something breaks (such as an attachment or self-deleting files) and you have the misfortune of having a sync happen or clearing your trash before you notice it, you lose attachments or notes you didn't even know were at risk! The last attachments I lost were medical records that can't be recovered elsewhere, and the self-deleting notes I nearly lost were EXTREMELY important notes from a work folder. I'm not sure if others are experiencing this as well and would really like to know b/c if I need to keep a backup of the notes I'm keeping in (and therefore backing up using) EN, what exactly is the point of having EN?

Are there others experiencing these problems?

[brian b 0]

I'm having the same problem. For the past couple of weeks, one particular (and important) note was not in sync on certain computers. I would re-sync but no luck. They were just different. It would also duplicate itself sometimes as well. Very odd behavior. Now I open my laptop and the note is completely gone! I really need this note and it's not in my deleted folder or anywhere. I'm going to go home tonight and disable internet for my desktop computer and open Evernote so that it can't re-sync and lose the data. Then I'll export to XML file and re-import it. SOOOO frustrating.

I also upgraded to Premium today b/c they say that this will let me keep a history of all my notes. Then I'll be able to recover them when they self-delete. If that doesn't work I have tech support to holler at someone. It's sad that I have to be a Premium member just to use the app safely.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

For the past couple of weeks, one particular (and important) note was not in sync on certain computers. I would re-sync but no luck. They were just different. It would also duplicate itself sometimes as well. Very odd behavior. Now I open my laptop and the note is completely gone! I really need this note and it's not in my deleted folder or anywhere.

It sounds like you're making changes on multiple computers/devices with out sync'ing. You don't say which client(s) you're using. If you're using a Windows or Mac client, check all computers you use with the Windows/Mac client on it for a notebook labeled "conflicting notes". If you make a change on say, your home computer but don't sync, then make a change to that same note on your work computer & then sync, when you sync your home computer, you've now got two versions of the same note. Evernote doesn't know which one is the correct one, so one will get put into the conflicting notes notebook.

It's very important to fully understand how the Evernote sync works, if you're going to be switching between computers and/or devices.

Then I'll be able to recover them when they self-delete.

Evernotes do not "self delete."

[brian b 0]

Hi BnF,

I can see where if I don't sync then Evernote servers can get confused. But I only use one computer at a time. For example I'll turn on my Windows desktop computer, work on that project's note, then shutdown my computer. The next day I might turn on my Mac Book Air, make some changes, then close. I don't work on multiple computers at the same time. Then today I turn on my Windows laptop at the office and my note is completely gone! I was just working on it yesterday on my Windows desktop and all was fine. Where did it go? I have no idea. I understand that notes don't self-delete, but it was there yesterday when I shutdown my computer and today it's gone. :-( Tonight I'm going to disconnect my Windows desktop from the internet and load Evernote to make a backup of it before it can sync it out of extinction.

Plus, there has been a couple times on my desktop where I had two copies of the same note. They are right next to each other (and not in the conflicted folder). One will be a few days old and the other has my latest changes. Don't these notes have unique IDs on the server and if it is my viewer twice, then I would think that each note has a different internal identifier. If there was a conflict, I would have that that it puts it in the Conflict folder instead of making a copy of it and showing them to my in my main viewer. I don't know.

Brian

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I can see where if I don't sync then Evernote servers can get confused. But I only use one computer at a time. For example I'll turn on my Windows desktop computer, work on that project's note, then shutdown my computer. The next day I might turn on my Mac Book Air, make some changes, then close. I don't work on multiple computers at the same time.

That's not the issue. The issue is that you must sync first, then edit, then sync again before leaving that computer/device.

It's very simple. The EN servers (IE web client) are the "source of all truths." Any changes made on one device need to be sync'd up to the EN servers before those changes are accessible from the web client or any other device/computer. If you make any changes with the web client, you are changing the EN servers directly, so no sync (up) is involved. Any changes made to the EN servers need to be sync'd down to any other computer/device before they are accessible from that device/computer.

If you create/modify a note on a desktop/laptop & then shut down w/o it getting sync'd to the EN servers, that note will not show up on the web client or be sync'd down to any other devices/computers UNTIL, you then start up the desktop/laptop & have EN running long enough to do an auto sync or you force a sync. The best way around this is to manually sync the laptop/desktop if you're going to be using another computer/device before the next auto sync or are shutting that computer down/hibernating/etc.

I don't know about all mobile clients, but AFAIK, the iPhone client only syncs when you first start the program or make a change/add a note. (It tells you it's sync'ing.) So if you make a change on a desktop but it's not sync'd to the EN servers yet, then start the iPhone client, the desktop changes will not sync down to the iPhone. If you remain in the iPhone client while the desktop sync's the changes up, you would need to manually sync the iPhone client to get the changes down to the iPhone.

[brian b 0]

So Evernote doesn't automatically sync when I close it? Interesting. I thought it would have done that when the app's Close event is triggered. Ok, I'll make sure to do a sync before closing the app then. That was probably the source of all my problems. It would be nice if it was automatic though. It will be easy to forget.

Thanks,

Brian

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

The Windows client has an option to sync upon exit. But you have to make sure it's selected & you have to make sure you get it sync'd before leaving that computer. You may need to fully exit the app (even from the system tray.) IDK.

And again, when you move to another computer or device, you'll need to sync (changes down) first, if you want to edit existing notes. That's probably why you're getting the multiple notes.

[jessialavender 0]

For the past couple of weeks, one particular (and important) note was not in sync on certain computers. I would re-sync but no luck. They were just different. It would also duplicate itself sometimes as well. Very odd behavior. Now I open my laptop and the note is completely gone! I really need this note and it's not in my deleted folder or anywhere.

It sounds like you're making changes on multiple computers/devices with out sync'ing. You don't say which client(s) you're using. If you're using a Windows or Mac client, check all computers you use with the Windows/Mac client on it for a notebook labeled "conflicting notes". If you make a change on say, your home computer but don't sync, then make a change to that same note on your work computer & then sync, when you sync your home computer, you've now got two versions of the same note. Evernote doesn't know which one is the correct one, so one will get put into the conflicting notes notebook.

It's very important to fully understand how the Evernote sync works, if you're going to be switching between computers and/or devices.

Then I'll be able to recover them when they self-delete.

Evernotes do not "self delete."

My evernote doesn't have conflicting notes any more, how can I restore it? Please HELP!

[natv 9]

I'm having the same issue with images missing (showing as broken attachments)

I do understand after reading this thread that I should have sync'd first and not made changes to the same note both PCs with them out of sync...

However, it sounds like what was *supposed* to happen in this case - was the note should have been found in "Conflicting Changes", But, it is not there and now those screen shots I had pasted into Evernote are lost forever

[Mary R 2]

BurgersNFries, the issue for me was definitely not that the notes were being edited in too many places, unsynced. The notes from which I lost content were notes that hadn't been updated in many moons (but that I'd seen recently, and were fine). The attachments simply got removed. It's all the more frightening to me that it ~wasn't~ a recently changed note because I worry that other important attachments have disappeared / are disappearing without me knowing it and, seeing as I haven't worked on them recently, finding their content would be impossible.

[yadayada 10]

I just had the same thing happen to me with a spreadsheet I was updating daily. It probably is sync related I'll admit.

Good news though, I was able to find my attachment by going into: TOOLS > OPTIONS. Then in the General tab there is a link at the bottom of the window "Open Database Folder". Sure enough, there's a temp folder called attachments and a backup of the file was there. Note, it was labeled" blahblah.xlsx.backup so I made a copy of the file and removed .backup. That easy, I had my file back.

Not saying this will work every time since I believe these are temp folders, but it saved me. Hope it helps. I'm using a PC btw.

[Pat123 0]

It's more than a year later since the last post, but this just happened to me (it had also happened to me back in april). The Excel attachment in the note just disappeared. 

 

But thanks to yadayada's tip, the attachment was intact in the attachments folder in the database folder. Thank you, you saved me hours of work!

[Schooner 26]

Similar incident 2013.11.23 - spreadsheet "disappeared" from EN 4.6.7.8409/Win7, synced non-default notebook.  Support ticket opened, waiting for Monday reply.

Synced devices (EN5current/Win7, iOS devices & cloud) unaffected (but for missing most recent datum entered on subject machine prior to trouble).

Trouble machine shows absolutely current version in /EN/attachments directory - but no-show in the note itself.

History reads identically on all devices (does not include most-recent datum), but it's odd in that "current version" is timestamped earlier than immediately prior line.

Syncing does not corrupt remote instances, nor does it recover bad instance on troubled PC.

Sole environmental surprise was an MSXL "out of resources / can't proceed with UNDO option intact" or something (was working on multiple massive spreadsheets), hours before.

Issue not remediable by EN shutdown/restart nor by Win7 restart.

No "conflict" indication in EN.

 

File in question is a macro-enabled MS Excel spreadsheet.  (No NAV running, just Win security, unlikely to be an A/V intercept).

File in question is heavily "versioned" by EN, currently occurs as filename(15).xlsm on troubled machine, presumably indicating history of crashes etc.

File in question is edited daily ONLY upon troubled machine.

Note in question contained 7 MS XL attachments including several XLSMs, of which only 1 is corrupted/gone.

I have redundant baks of this file in particular, and simply replicated the broken note with correct version inserted as a momentary fix.

 

I remain

- seriously alarmed at implications for EN trustworthiness.

- curious as to whether there is an undiagnosed issue with MSExcel spreadsheet attachment integrity

- attentive to recommendations to avoid repeat

 

/Schooner