Evernote Very Slow Sync Updating Client Database

[Fergus 0]

I've noticed when using Evernote that the sync process is very slow sometimes. I just imported about 150 notes and the 'Updating Client Database' section of the sync onto a new computer has been running for about 10 minutes and is at 37%.

The initial sync of about 2,000 documents took nearly all day.

It seems incredibly slow. Is this normal behaviour? Is there any way to speed it up?

Thanks.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Hi. Welcome to the user forums!

There is no way to speed up the sync, as far as I can tell. The speed seems to vary. If I have a lot to upload, or if I have an initial sync to perform, I usually leave the computer on overnight

[Fergus 0]

Wow - seems like it's a relatively small amount of data to transfer so surprising it's so slow. Does having a Pro account affect it at all?

[Candid 167]

Wow - seems like it's a relatively small amount of data to transfer so surprising it's so slow. Does having a Pro account affect it at all?

Not in my experience.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I have a Premium account and I see no difference.

One thing I would recommend trying is closing and re-opening the app. I did that this morning on my Windows machine, and it uploaded some notes I had been waiting to have synced. I think the downloads for shared notebooks had been preventing it from uploading the new notes (I am in the midst of an initial sync, so it is a long process, especially with tens of thousands of notes).

Anyhow, I have had very fast syncs in the past, so I am guessing that the speed varies depending on factors outside of our control.

[gazumped 11,652]

Speeds are also going to vary depending on the capacity of your local internet connection and the traffic at that time of day. I can remember a post somewhere about Evernote being pretty busy most of the time but traffic peaking at (I think) their early evening time. May be a help to try out one of the internet speed checkers -see Goo your search engine of choice for details. I'm another advocate of letting the machine run while I sleep to fix slow connection problems.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

I think Gaz is probably right about Evernote's servers being busier at certain times, but at least on my end, I've got a wide open high-speed Internet connection with plenty of bandwidth. I've transfered several gigabytes of data in and out of Dropbox and GDrive in the same amount of time that a few dozen notes in my account have synced (obviously, I am not doing these activities at the same time!).

My guess is that Evernote is throttling the speeds in order to reduce the load on their servers. If my speculation is correct, then it makes sense, and I am fine with it, because I would rather Evernote stay up and running than crash. However, it would help to know if this is the reason, and I'd be happy to arrange my syncs for times when the servers are less busy. For various reasons, I have had to perform several initial syncs of the Windows and Mac clients over the last month, and it has been a slow process. I have less than 10,000 notes, but it still ends up taking a couple of days for each initial sync. I think this is an area where Evernote could improve -- of course, that might be an expensive proposition!

[Fergus 0]

Interesting! Thanks for the feedback guys.

I would suggest it's unlikely to be a bandwidth issue on my end as it would appear to be running significantly slower than our internet connection (perhaps 1 hour to transfer ~15MB). However, Evernote throttling speed would make sense from their point of view if fast syncing is not an issue for most people, and if they have resource constraints.

[dlu 628]

Having a pro account won't change the speeds. I don't know of any throttling on our end, but that's not my department so I'm sure there are lots of things about the servers that I don't know about

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Having a pro account won't change the speeds. I don't know of any throttling on our end, but that's not my department so I'm sure there are lots of things about the servers that I don't know about

Of course, I am just making all of that up, because I cannot explain what is happening from my end, where I have plenty of bandwidth and computer processing power to spare.

Again, not a complaint necessarily, because it may be that Evernote needs to dole out its server resources in a way that is fair to everyone. And, it certainly isn't uncommon for relatively slow speeds in transferring data -- Carbonite is a service that comes to mind. However, it would be nice to know, because even on good initial syncs, it can take me about two days to complete it. It is only a few gigabytes of data. I transfer much more than that to and from Google Drive in just a few hours (there is a reason for the large transfers, but that is a topic for another thread). I'd be happy to schedule these syncs at a time that would be better for Evernote servers.

[Fergus 0]

Having a pro account won't change the speeds. I don't know of any throttling on our end, but that's not my department so I'm sure there are lots of things about the servers that I don't know about

Thanks Dlu - any idea where we can get information on what affects the speed of sync from someone at your end?

[Sudarshan Iyengar 0]

It seems there was some problem yesterday which has been resolved now. I had the same problem last night, but it isn't anymore now.

[sfmike 4]

Hmmm... been using Evernote for a while now, but moving between computers more and having the same problem with slow syncing. Couple of thoughts:

• I understand the Evernote needs to manage system resources, and I have no issues with throttling uploads in principle
  
• OTOH maybe there are ways to do this smartly, e.g. prioritizing text over blobs?
  
• What's frustrating is that I have no visibility into when the sync will complete (In fact, I wonder what's the point of a sync button, when it has no discernable effect?)
  
• At a minimum, can we get something like Dropbox gives you - a % complete indicator so at least you can see what's happening?
  

Thanks - overall very satisfied with the service.

[debns 5]

• What's frustrating is that I have no visibility into when the sync will complete (In fact, I wonder what's the point of a sync button, when it has no discernable effect?)
  
• At a minimum, can we get something like Dropbox gives you - a % complete indicator so at least you can see what's happening?
  

When I sync, I see a small box at the bottom right of the screen showing what stage of the sync is happening, and what percentage of that stage is complete. Can you not see that?

[Barrymore 0]

This thread is a bit old, but I've come searching here for an answer, because I have found Evernote 5 for the Mac is painfully slow. I have a premier Evernote account and started using it again recently because I found the cross-device synchronization with my work computer and my iPad useful.

 

However, I have found that simple text entry when I take notes during a meeting is abysmal. Opening Evernote and getting to a new, blank note from a closed state can take a minute or more; opening a new note when the app is open takes a very noticeable time at best, and often 10 to 15 seconds. By then, I'm playing catch-up with the conversation in the meeting. And if I need to backtrack in a message and use the mouse to click between text, it lags a 3 or 4 seconds before I can type again. Some of the lag seems to be due to the investment of Evernote trying to find and display documents which relate to what text I'm typing in the note, which it displays below the note I'm creating. I don't need that clutter and it is not a good investment of resources for my style of work, but there's no preference toggle where I can turn that off. I'd also rather have the screen real estate than this filler at the bottom. 

 

I'm confident it is neither the computer nor the amount of data. I'm running MacBook Pro i7 with OSX 10.8.2, 16GB of RAM and plenty of open disk space, and I have only ~150 Evernote entries. I suppose it could be the type of data as quite a few of my data are images and attachments. Still, this program should really be snappy. Are there things I could do differently?

 

Sorry - after posting I found that this may be a "Windows" thread, not a Mac thread - hadn't noted that before logging in. 

[july 0]

Loved Evernote initially.  Now sync so slow as to be completely worthless!! I agree with other posters....problem is Evernote. They keep adding features which is great but without a fast sync, there is no point. I have the paid account.

[gazumped 11,652]

Didn't notice any major calls for Evernote to stop adding new stuff - and your sync speed is more or less significant depending on the version you're using.  I have a laptop for curating my notes and an Android phone to take pics / add information and act as a mobile reference point.  Despite getting on for 14,000 notes and frequent edits/ changes,  sync speed hasn't been a problem.

[JonathanStewart 1]

Its 2014 and I still have problems syncing.  Both when I setup a new computer and when its an existing one that upgrades to the next version.  You can love the system and still say it has problems.  I always love the comments that mine works and you never complained about the new features.  Not helpful.  Evernote has issues with syncing and some of us know it.  I have contacted support both on a paid and free account.  All times the experience with tech support was bad.  They would rather blame me or the Internet speed.  Never mind I might have tried syncing on multiple new computers and multiple Internet connections.  Its frustrating.