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(Archived) Evernote deleting note content


ahh

Idea

Dear forum users

I've just experienced 2 notes having all their content wiped out. I don't know what's happening or whether I can get the data back...? Though looking back through old notes i see a quite a few are empty. What's going on?

It seemed to happen as I switched between notes, I'm running 5.0.4 on a Mac.

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45 replies to this idea

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  • Level 5*

This is happening to me as well—just happened for the 4th time in about 3 months. Been using Evernote happily for years and I can't remember this ever happening until about 3 months ago. The note and the title still exist, but all of the content disappears. Only seems to happen when working with the Mac client, not iOS. (I never use the web client.) My rough idea of the steps (though I can't reliably reproduce the error) are: I have a note open, I close Evernote, I open Evernote again later, I search for the note and when I pull it up it's empty.

OS X 10.8.2

Evernote 5.0.4 non-App Store version

It's a new bug (never happened before to me either), and I am certain it is the Mac client doing it (I was fortunate to catch it at the moment it occurred on my Mac client). I sent in the Activity Log and detailed steps about what I was doing at the time, but apparently it didn't reveal anything. Perhaps with more reports (Activity Logs and a write-up of the incident) they could track it down. Please think about starting a support ticket (see link in my signature).

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Logging a ticket now. Just discovered the steps to recreate it: opening a note directly from Spotlight.

Screencast: http://screencast.com/t/KKhk0AEZz

Logged as ticket #16051-222030.

I do not think I was opening my note from Spotlight, so I don't think that is the only way to provoke the gremlins, but hopefully by finding one way, it will lead the developers to others. THANKS!

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I have created another reproduction of this bug. It happened yesterday and I lost some important stuff.

As much as I like Evernote, I must say that I am *very* disappointed. This should not happen. Ever.

http://dl.dropbox.co...vernote_bug.mov

I hope this helps resolving the issue :)

That was painful to watch, but I sure hope it helps. Thanks for providing the info! This still doesn't seem like what happened in my case, because I don't use the helper, for example, but like the movie above, maybe this data can help the developers track down the culprits.

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This exact same thing happened to me! I am a freelancer, and I just lost the note that kept track of all of my hours - we're talking a month's salary, not a small note that I could reproduce. I'm in a blind panic.

It seems to happen when I switch between notes - doesn't seem to be related to syncing.

Anyway to get this back since I'm not a premium user?

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Jackolicious, I'm happy to share my activity log if you give me a recommended way of delivering the file. I was going to link it in this post, but I'm not sure what's in that log and I don't want to make it publicly available.

Portmanteau: I opened a support ticket with a description and a screen capture of the issue. They bumped my account to Premium for one week so I could recover my data with the Note History feature. I was able to revert to old versions of my notes and I'm all good now—though I don't open notes via Spotlight anymore :).

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Jackolicious, I'm happy to share my activity log if you give me a recommended way of delivering the file. I was going to link it in this post, but I'm not sure what's in that log and I don't want to make it publicly available.

Portmanteau: I opened a support ticket with a description and a screen capture of the issue. They bumped my account to Premium for one week so I could recover my data with the Note History feature. I was able to revert to old versions of my notes and I'm all good now—though I don't open notes via Spotlight anymore :).

Hi. I think if you attach them to a reply for your support ticket that would be fine. Alternatively, you could message Jackolicious directly on the forums with it. Either way, there is nothing terribly revealing in the logs (besides titles), but no reason to share them with the world either :)

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This is happening to me as well—just happened for the 4th time in about 3 months. Been using Evernote happily for years and I can't remember this ever happening until about 3 months ago. The note and the title still exist, but all of the content disappears. Only seems to happen when working with the Mac client, not iOS. (I never use the web client.) My rough idea of the steps (though I can't reliably reproduce the error) are: I have a note open, I close Evernote, I open Evernote again later, I search for the note and when I pull it up it's empty.

OS X 10.8.2

Evernote 5.0.4 non-App Store version

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In my case the activity log is empty. (Do I need to turn on activity logging somewhere?)

I don't think you have to turn it on. Did you try Help > Activity Log?

Yup. That's emtpy.

Strange. Well, that isn't something I have encountered before. If we don't hear from any staff in the thread, you may want to contact customer support (see the link in my signature), and they can help you out with it. You ought to have some activity!

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Just updated to 5.0.5 beta and the issue appears to have been resolved—at least, I can't duplicate the issue through the steps I followed in my screencast. Bravo!

I'll be keeping a close eye out for this issue in the coming weeks. Thanks for paying attention to my post.

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I don't yet have the new beta. However, after much pain I discovered that the wipes were caused by opening Evernote from the elephant icon in the menu bar. Now that I have turned this off in preferences, albeit reducing functionality, my problem is solved. So no more web-clipping for me...

I have to say - my ticketed support was partial, to say the least. Besides restoring notes from history, the only advice I was given was to make a clean re-install, which didn't work. 2 out of 5 Evernote!

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I seem to have the same problem others are posting in this thread. Content in notes from several days ago disappear when I am using the Evernote desktop app (Mac OS 10.6.8). It's usually only a single note, not everything. I think that today when I first started using Evernote the note contents were there, but later they disappeared. I had not opened, changed, or even viewed this note's contents before this happened. It is a small, text only note. I just looked at the activity log and it is empty.

 

Previously when this has happened I was able to retrieve the note contents by using Time Machine and restoring the old file with this particular note (whichever one I lost, there have been several instances in the past few weeks). However, I have not seen any "conflicting notes" files appear for these files.

 

I have only seen this problem on one computer (the Mac Mini I use at work), not at home on my PowerBook, or on my iPhone. Not sure if this is relevant. It is a very annoying problem!

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Dear Jackolicious

 

Thanks for the heads up, I downloaded the new version, reinstalled the Elephant icon in settings and all now appears to be working fine. Back to full functionality and the Evernote I can trust! Good stuff!

 

Emfarrell, the symptoms you describe do sound exactly like those I suffered from and I too was running OS10.6.8. I hope you manage to pinpoint the problem soon. I empathise with the frustration... perhaps you too will discover the cause through experimentation in preferences. Have you updated to Evernote 5.0.5?

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Thanks for responding. Nothing in Trash - besides it's not the Note itself disappearing, merely content of the note.

Anyway I went to my iphone to call up a local list, made a change to the most crucial note and synced to get it back. Now however, I've 2 conflicted changes notebooks in addition to my salvaged note.

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  • Level 5

good to know you got your notes back. Apparently there was a syncing conflict. Log into the Web version by going to Evernote.com.

Look up your notes (there should be a notebook: "conflicting notes"). Delete one (or several) of the conflicting notes and keep the ones you need. You should be all clear.

Wern

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This is still happening to me! I open evernote and find empty notes.

It's not a syncing conflict since I haven't used other devices in the last few days.

I see from the forum that since May at least this has been happening to other users. Evernote used to be great, I used it for years with no problem, sadly, now it seems that the software has become too unstable to use, especially for important data.

What is the bug that causes loss of data from notes????

Looks like I'm going to have to find an alternative. Any suggestions?

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The same thing just happened to me! After using Evernote for years, one of my files that I had been slowly adding information to over the years was completely wiped. Not the file, but the content on the file! I feel the same way about Evernote being too buggy and am at a loss with what or how to replace it.

When I first started using EN it was effortless, and seems to grow more cumbersome and buggy with each iteration.

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  • Level 5*

The same thing just happened to me! After using Evernote for years, one of my files that I had been slowly adding information to over the years was completely wiped. Not the file, but the content on the file! I feel the same way about Evernote being too buggy and am at a loss with what or how to replace it.

When I first started using EN it was effortless, and seems to grow more cumbersome and buggy with each iteration.

Sorry to hear that :(

Could you tell us exactly what you were doing when it happened? Also, could you give us your computer, operating system, and Evernote version? Thanks!

As for your data, if you are a Premium member, you can retrieve the content using the note history. If you are not a Premium member, you can contact customer support, and they'll take care of you. Either way, I expect you will get it all back.

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I have experienced the same problem twice recently. I am on a 2011 MBP with Version 5.0.4 (400704). Not sure what is happening, but it seems to happen to notes that I have recently searched for. I go to Evernote, search for something, switch to another application and sometimes quit evernote, and when I go back the note is blank. I am trying to isolate the problem as I use the iPhone and iPad Evernote apps as well.

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It's very important to understand how EN syncs, especially when you are using it with multiple computers/devices.

http://discussion.ev...ow/#entry101095

This is still happening to me! I open evernote and find empty notes.

It's not a syncing conflict since I haven't used other devices in the last few days.

Just because you've not used any other device in the last few days doesn't mean it's not a syncing issue. Say last week you made a change on your iPad & sync'd it to the EN servers. But you've not used or sync'd your desktop computer since then. Then today, you fire up EN on your desktop computer but don't wait until it's sync'd any/all changes down from the EN servers & you go ahead & try to change that same note. You're going to get a conflict.

IMO, if you are switching between computers/devices, the absolute rule to follow is be sure to sync the device/computer fully before moving to another computer/device. Then..after moving to another computer/device, let that one fully sync before changing any notes.

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OK, it just did it again. I selected some text from a website and copied it. Then I clicked the "paste to Evernote". When Evernote opened the note was there, but I immediately clicked the notebooks to put it in the notebook I wanted. Then poof the note is there, but the content was blank.

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  • Level 5*

We haven't been able to reproduce any issues with Related Notes in-house.

Thanks. I'll turn it back on and see what happens. Maybe I should wait for the next update later this afternoon :) Surely, there is one on the way, right.

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THIS IS HAPPENING TO ME TOO.

I just lost all the information on a very important note. Using both the Mac app and the iPhone app. Yesterday I noticed there was an update for my mac's software update, so I applied it and upgraded from 5.0.4 to 5.0.5 (running 10.6.8). I dont know what version my iPhone is running, probably most recent but it definitely was not updated in the last week.

Today I opened Evernote on my Mac, and noticed that my top note was empty of all content. Nothing in my sync conflicts folder or in trash. I have Evernote set to sync when I close it and I rarely use both Mac & iOS apps at same time. I am pretty sure that both Mac & iOS were synced and both were closed before applying the update.

This is just too scary to trust. I really need that info and I am worried about my other notes now. If it is this unstable, then either ALL evernote accounts should have note history available, or they should do away with the free version if only the premium accounts get note history.

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UPDATE

This is really freaking me out.

It seems that any time I type something new in a note, and then sync, it REPLACES THE PREVIOUS CONTENT.

I closed Evernote on both Mac & iPhone. Opened on iPhone, typed something in the empty note that used to contain a lot of important info. It showed up on mac evernote. Then I added new text to this same note, on the Mac, and synced. Both texts showed up in Mac. But iPhone was Empty! Closed, reopened, synced, iphone note still empty. Then I typed something new in the iPhone note. Synced. It showed up on the Mac but replaced the previous text I had typed.

I am afraid to experiment any more, because if there is a history I don't know how far back it goes and I dont want to risk pushing off the archived history that might contain my important note info.

Anyone else have similar experience? I was hoping that, as seemed to work for someone else, adding new content and synching would result in recovering the old note info in Conflicting Changes. But no luck, nothing shows up in Conflicting Changes. This is such a bummer!

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zagyzebra, on 27 December 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

The same thing just happened to me! After using Evernote for years, one of my files that I had been slowly adding information to over the years was completely wiped. Not the file, but the content on the file! I feel the same way about Evernote being too buggy and am at a loss with what or how to replace it.

When I first started using EN it was effortless, and seems to grow more cumbersome and buggy with each iteration.

Sorry to hear that

Could you tell us exactly what you were doing when it happened? Also, could you give us your computer, operating system, and Evernote version? Thanks!

As for your data, if you are a Premium member, you can retrieve the content using the note history. If you are not a Premium member, you can contact customer support, and they'll take care of you. Either way, I expect you will get it all back.

INDEED, THAT WORKED! THANK YOU SO MUCH. I am a Premium User, and was easily able to retrieve data using note history.

As to your other questions, I have no clue what I was doing when this happened. I only noticed it after the fact.

I am using OS 10.6.8

At the time I was using EN 5.0.3. Have since upgraded to 5.0.4

Once again, thank you. It is certainly a relief to get that data back!

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zagyzebra, on 27 December 2012 - 12:02 PM, said:

The same thing just happened to me! After using Evernote for years, one of my files that I had been slowly adding information to over the years was completely wiped. Not the file, but the content on the file! I feel the same way about Evernote being too buggy and am at a loss with what or how to replace it.

When I first started using EN it was effortless, and seems to grow more cumbersome and buggy with each iteration.

Sorry to hear that

Could you tell us exactly what you were doing when it happened? Also, could you give us your computer, operating system, and Evernote version? Thanks!

As for your data, if you are a Premium member, you can retrieve the content using the note history. If you are not a Premium member, you can contact customer support, and they'll take care of you. Either way, I expect you will get it all back.

INDEED, THAT WORKED! THANK YOU SO MUCH. I am a Premium User, and was easily able to retrieve data using note history.

As to your other questions, I have no clue what I was doing when this happened. I only noticed it after the fact.

I am using OS 10.6.8

At the time I was using EN 5.0.3. Have since upgraded to 5.0.4

Once again, thank you. It is certainly a relief to get that data back!

I'm glad you got it back. I hope that you don't encounter the problem again! Thanks for providing the information.

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OK so this is still happening to me. In fact every time I open Evernote it wipes the content of a recently used note... support are on the case but there suggestion of a clean re-install didn't work.

I've also found that my ipad EN app isn't properly syncing with the OSX one. Since I've restored content back into notes (I'm saving them on alternative software now since I cannot trust Evernote) but on the ipad the notes are still blank. Though bizarrely the iphone one is fine. Go figure?

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Is anyone able to reproduce this reliably? If so, what steps can we follow to see it happen?

I cannot reliably reproduce it, but I have not encountered it again since turning off the related notes feature. I sent my activity logs (Ticket # 16051-211465), and my reading of the logs seemed to show that there was some connection. What do you think?

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There's nothing in related notes that could/should be causing any content to get overwritten/erased.

Oh. Well, that was the best I could get out of my Activity Logs. All I can say at this point then, is that it has not happened a second time. Are you sure I can turn the related notes back on and be OK?

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