Conflicting Changes

[Bermudagirl 0]

Hello everyone. I hope someone can help me. 

I have just noticed I have a notebook called Conflicting Changes. There doesn't appear to be any notes in it (there is no number in brackets after the title) and also when I click on the notebook, no notes appear.

So I (!) assumed I could delete the notebook. I right clicked and selected delete. I got a message prompting me to confirm that I wanted to delete the notebook and all the notes in it PERMANENTLY (permanently was in capitals).

I selected "delete notebook" and then got another message "You are about to PERMANENTLY delete 2 notes This action cannot be undone.Are you sure you want to delete these notes?"

My problem is, there don't appear to be any notes in this particular notebook, and yet it says there are 2. Has anyone come across this before?

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Hello everyone. I hope someone can help me. 

I have just noticed I have a notebook called Conflicting Changes. There doesn't appear to be any notes in it (there is no number in brackets after the title) and also when I click on the notebook, no notes appear.

So I (!) assumed I could delete the notebook. I right clicked and selected delete. I got a message prompting me to confirm that I wanted to delete the notebook and all the notes in it PERMANENTLY (permanently was in capitals).

I selected "delete notebook" and then got another message "You are about to PERMANENTLY delete 2 notes This action cannot be undone.Are you sure you want to delete these notes?"

My problem is, there don't appear to be any notes in this particular notebook, and yet it says there are 2. Has anyone come across this before?

 

Yes, but not in a conflicting notebook but rather just a regular notebook.  What I do is make sure I have everything backed up (if I have any local notebooks) and/or sync'd.  Then I check the total number of notes in all notes/all my notes.  Then I delete the notebook in question.  I've found the total number of notes remains the same.  I think something gets out of whack with something else & causes this problem. 

[Bermudagirl 0]

Many thanks!

You're quite right. I did as you said, and once I had deleted the notebook, the number of notes remained the same!

[BrianJ 7]

A Conflicting Note folder appeared in my local (desktop) Evernote. I found this help article which explains why the Conflicting Note folder is created and what to do about it: http://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#/article/23275623.

[wommi 0]

I hope Evernote improves this. There just are too many conflicts when using Evernote. My style is to make notes on iPhone/iPad, laptop and desktop. Where ever I happen to be. It is crucial that ideas are preserved. With Evernote I am constantly just resolving conflicts and trying to remember if something is left out. And then I take my phone with me and everything is messed up again.

 

But I just get too many conflicts all the time. Sadly had to switch to Apple's Notes app for my idea storage.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

I hope Evernote improves this. There just are too many conflicts when using Evernote. My style is to make notes on iPhone/iPad, laptop and desktop. Where ever I happen to be. It is crucial that ideas are preserved. With Evernote I am constantly just resolving conflicts and trying to remember if something is left out. And then I take my phone with me and everything is messed up again.

 

But I just get too many conflicts all the time. Sadly had to switch to Apple's Notes app for my idea storage.

If you are regularly getting conflicts when switching between devices, then you really need to fully understand how syncing works.  Please note, this is not unique to Evernote.  It applies to most (all?) cloud based systems.  IE, if I am using Toodledo for my grocery list & add five items from my iPad but do not sync those changes, I will not be able to get those changes on my iPhone when I'm walking into the grocery. 

 

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/20092-not-very-happy-right-now/?p=101095

[wommi 0]

 

I hope Evernote improves this. There just are too many conflicts when using Evernote. My style is to make notes on iPhone/iPad, laptop and desktop. Where ever I happen to be. It is crucial that ideas are preserved. With Evernote I am constantly just resolving conflicts and trying to remember if something is left out. And then I take my phone with me and everything is messed up again.

 

But I just get too many conflicts all the time. Sadly had to switch to Apple's Notes app for my idea storage.

If you are regularly getting conflicts when switching between devices, then you really need to fully understand how syncing works.  Please note, this is not unique to Evernote.  It applies to most (all?) cloud based systems.  IE, if I am using Toodledo for my grocery list & add five items from my iPad but do not sync those changes, I will not be able to get those changes on my iPhone when I'm walking into the grocery. 

 

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/20092-not-very-happy-right-now/?p=101095

 

 

Apple's Notes handles this quite nicely. Also, there are systems like GIT which are brilliant in syncing and merging changes from many many sources, made by many people. So to me Evernote's system just is broken like it is currently. I should not have to think if some device has synced, and if not, then merge things manually. This is why this tool exists.

[BurgersNFries 2,407]

Apple's Notes handles this quite nicely. Also, there are systems like GIT which are brilliant in syncing and merging changes from many many sources, made by many people. So to me Evernote's system just is broken like it is currently. I should not have to think if some device has synced, and if not, then merge things manually. This is why this tool exists.

Apple's notes are fine when you don't need to access them from your PC.

[onegee 1]

Right. Syncing can be done well (witness: Apple), but evernote doesn't. Unfortunately Apple's solution is limited in other ways (including platform).

 

Evernote team: I love using your product... until it fails to sync, looses a bunch of my work, and recently (apparently because of a "fix" or "improvement" made within the last year) now it doesn't even warn me by putting the conflicting version of the note in question into a special folder, it just silently buries the conflicting version of the note, or portion of the note, *somewhere in the note itself*, which (if the note is more than about 20 lines long) virtually ensures I'll never even see it. And if I do find it, there is no demarcation of the end of the conflicting section that was double-inserted, and I've probably edited the note in the meanwhile, and I have no way to even pull out the conflicting text and manually diff it reliably.

 

Seriously, this is the WORST EVER handling of remote syncing. It can and must be done much better.

 

I've been a user for many years, but I am abandoning Evernote over this one critical problem. Yes, I just got screwed *again* when my updates to the critical todo list I keep @ the top of the relevant note got misfiled 100s of lines down, while leaving a NON-updated copy of that todo list at the top of the file to trick me. Worst. Handling. Of. Sync. Ever. Evernote, you had the change, you knew you had encountered a problem, and you didn't even tell me -- you just hid the problem from me. By now I have the same "todo" items 4-6 times scattered throughout a note that is 3-4x the length it should be with hundreds of lines of almost-duplicate text.... what a disaster.

 

Due to evernote's much-to-infrequent syncing (combined with cmd-S on the mac "saving" but not (!!) syncing), and this terrible handling of the resulting conflicts (it happens -- why don't you just show me the diff promptly and let me fix it???) I get this sort of problem weekly. It's ridiculous.

 

Sorry to rant, but this is such a useful product that I really want to love, crippled by one issue that has gone unresolved (and in fact gotten worse) for years. It's incredibly frustrating.

[jefito 5,589]

Evernote team: I love using your product... until it fails to sync, looses a bunch of my work, and recently (apparently because of a "fix" or "improvement" made within the last year) now it doesn't even warn me by putting the conflicting version of the note in question into a special folder, it just silently buries the conflicting version of the note, or portion of the note, *somewhere in the note itself*, which (if the note is more than about 20 lines long) virtually ensures I'll never even see it. And if I do find it, there is no demarcation of the end of the conflicting section that was double-inserted, and I've probably edited the note in the meanwhile, and I have no way to even pull out the conflicting text and manually diff it reliably.

That's strange -- I've only ever seen conflicting notes get stuck on the Conflicting Notes notebook (last one was about a couple of weeks ago), and never any kind of conflation behavior such as you describe. I run on Windows, and not Mac, maybe that's where the difference lies. I would have thought that a change in behavior like the one you describe would have been cause for lots of angry forum posts, but I haven't seen any except yours (I'm not saying that you're not seeing what you've posted about).

That being said, it would be great if syncing could handle straightforward merge cases, but it would need to be rock-solid and revertable before I'd really want it in widespread availability.

[Kioshiki 6]

...there are systems like GIT which are brilliant in syncing and merging changes from many many sources, made by many people

 

While it is true that Git does an impressive job of merging changes (I know since I've only recently been learning to use it for programming) it will ask a person to intervene if two people have create a branch, edited the same part of the same file and tried to merge them both back into a master.  Software may be good at merging if done well but it wouldn't be a good idea for software to fully automate situations like this because someone would lose work.  That's why a person needs to be involved to decide why the conflict happened which may involve talking to other people involved first.

 

If Evernote's syncing reliability was improved that would help but it won't prevent the need for occasional manual conflict resolution being necessary.

 

Due to evernote's much-to-infrequent syncing...

 

I agree with onegee that the infrequent syncing is certainly a part of the issue though there are likely other parts to it.  I can imagine it being hard for a cloud company to support very frequent syncing though.  Some People might not want it on mobile devices if they have a limited data allowance and it would drain battery life faster.  

 

Evernote could always default to a infrequent sync but allow some users to increase the frequency, I'd say its fair to allow that for paid accounts only since heavy users are quite likely to have paid accounts, at least that's my view.

 

 

Yes, I just got screwed *again* when my updates to the critical todo list I keep @ the top of the relevant note got misfiled 100s of lines down, while leaving a NON-updated copy of that todo list at the top of the file to trick me. Worst. Handling. Of. Sync. Ever. Evernote, you had the change, you knew you had encountered a problem, and you didn't even tell me -- you just hid the problem from me. By now I have the same "todo" items 4-6 times scattered throughout a note that is 3-4x the length it should be with hundreds of lines of almost-duplicate text.... what a disaster.

 

Like jefito, I've also don't recall having this type of issue, I commonly have notes of 1000-2000 words and a recent note that I edited frequently has hit 10,000 words. I don't think I've had a conflict on that one though I probably mostly edited that on a single Windows client and rarely on others (I use Android and Windows but not Mac).

 

...it just silently buries the conflicting version of the note...

 

I've noticed this issue today, you get a copy of the note with 'Note Conflict' added as a prefix to the note title.  The copy is placed in the same notebook as the original.  Again I'm sure I've only had this issue rather than parts of notes getting mixed up.

 

It would be better if the Evernote client gave a clear warning that a conflict has been found.  Their knowledge base article Can I edit a note at the same time as someone else? talks about the Conflicting Changes notebook but does not mention conflicting notes created in the same notebook.

[GrumpyMonkey 4,319]

Right. Syncing can be done well (witness: Apple), but evernote doesn't. Unfortunately Apple's solution is limited in other ways (including platform).

 

Evernote team: I love using your product... until it fails to sync, looses a bunch of my work, and recently (apparently because of a "fix" or "improvement" made within the last year) now it doesn't even warn me by putting the conflicting version of the note in question into a special folder, it just silently buries the conflicting version of the note, or portion of the note, *somewhere in the note itself*, which (if the note is more than about 20 lines long) virtually ensures I'll never even see it. And if I do find it, there is no demarcation of the end of the conflicting section that was double-inserted, and I've probably edited the note in the meanwhile, and I have no way to even pull out the conflicting text and manually diff it reliably.

 

Seriously, this is the WORST EVER handling of remote syncing. It can and must be done much better.

 

I've been a user for many years, but I am abandoning Evernote over this one critical problem. Yes, I just got screwed *again* when my updates to the critical todo list I keep @ the top of the relevant note got misfiled 100s of lines down, while leaving a NON-updated copy of that todo list at the top of the file to trick me. Worst. Handling. Of. Sync. Ever. Evernote, you had the change, you knew you had encountered a problem, and you didn't even tell me -- you just hid the problem from me. By now I have the same "todo" items 4-6 times scattered throughout a note that is 3-4x the length it should be with hundreds of lines of almost-duplicate text.... what a disaster.

 

Due to evernote's much-to-infrequent syncing (combined with cmd-S on the mac "saving" but not (!!) syncing), and this terrible handling of the resulting conflicts (it happens -- why don't you just show me the diff promptly and let me fix it???) I get this sort of problem weekly. It's ridiculous.

 

Sorry to rant, but this is such a useful product that I really want to love, crippled by one issue that has gone unresolved (and in fact gotten worse) for years. It's incredibly frustrating.

Hi. This is a long-standing iOS issue I discuss here. As you can see, I have my own tale of woe.

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/25197-howto-diff-a-conflict-with-the-original/?p=173274

The app is actually performing as expected. I just don't like the design decision, because (as you pointed out) there is no indication that a conflict has been made and it corrupts your note (by secretly appending a copy of it).

[JamieInOttawa 0]

 

Apple's Notes handles this quite nicely. Also, there are systems like GIT which are brilliant in syncing and merging changes from many many sources, made by many people. So to me Evernote's system just is broken like it is currently. I should not have to think if some device has synced, and if not, then merge things manually. This is why this tool exists.

Apple's notes are fine when you don't need to access them from your PC.

 

You can access Apples notes natively from a Mac, or on any platform if you use iCloud.

 

Not nearly as feature rich as Evernote though. I use both. Apple notes kind of like sticky notes, and Evernote more like a real notebook.

[Bill York 0]

On 1/9/2014 at 0:27 PM, BurgersNFries said:

 

If you are regularly getting conflicts when switching between devices, then you really need to fully understand how syncing works.  Please note, this is not unique to Evernote.  It applies to most (all?) cloud based systems.  IE, if I am using Toodledo for my grocery list & add five items from my iPad but do not sync those changes, I will not be able to get those changes on my iPhone when I'm walking into the grocery. 

 

http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/20092-not-very-happy-right-now/?p=101095

That is a terrible response. You are saying that Evernote users should adapt to the weaknesses of the system.

I am trying mightily to switch from Simplenote to Evernote for the richer features, but the continuous conflicts I get when moving among devices are going to drive me back. Simplenote basically synchronizes every time you enter some text, and shows a status indicator at the top of the document that switches between "Saving" to "Saved" so you know your work is safe.

In an era where I regularly participate in group edits of a Google Doc, watching each participant's keystrokes enter the doc in real time, it seems very backward for Evernote to have "every 5 minutes" as the smallest auto-sync interval. Please let me opt into some much lower value, roughly the time it takes me to turn away from my keyboard, take out my iPhone, open Evernote, and start typing into the note there.

Thanks. Your users will love it.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

23 hours ago, Bill York said:

That is a terrible response. You are saying that Evernote users should adapt to the weaknesses of the system.

Don't worry about the reply from BNF.  She does not speak for Evernote.

23 hours ago, Bill York said:

In an era where I regularly participate in group edits of a Google Doc, watching each participant's keystrokes enter the doc in real time, it seems very backward for Evernote to have "every 5 minutes" as the smallest auto-sync interval.

It is clear from the many, many reports of sync issues in these forums that Evernote sync is not nearly as robust as it should be.

Until Evernote improves its sync system, let me suggest this.

Although sync, IMO, is one of Evernote's primary features, it still is not as solid or robust as it needs to be.  So, I never rely solely on Evernote to automatically sync.  I always do manual syncs, and I rarely have a sync issue.

 

I have found the following to be helpful in preventing sync issues:

1. Use multiple short Notes rather than one long Note that has many/frequent edits
2. It is best to consistently manually sync, and sync often, especially after:
   1. Entry/Edit of an important note
   2. End of Session BEFORE you close or put your machine to sleep
   3. End of Day
   4. Start using a different device
      1. Even if you notice the Sync icon spinning on EN iOS when you switch to the app, do a manual sync anyway after it finishes spinning
      2. I have noticed that the initial sync does NOT always do a full sync.
      3. I'm not sure about Android devices, but I would do the same just to be safe.

[DTLow 5,736]

On February 26, 2016 at 9:47 PM, Bill York said:

continuous conflicts I get when moving among devices

I would echo @JMichaelTX's advise that when switching devices, do a manual sync.  It's the only way to be 100% certain there will be no conflict.

Otherwise, you take your chances, and as you and others have pointed out this results in conflicts.  I'm not saying what is right or wrong; just how to avoid conflicts in the current environment.

[CalS 5,280]

On 2/26/2016 at 10:47 PM, Bill York said:

In an era where I regularly participate in group edits of a Google Doc, watching each participant's keystrokes enter the doc in real time, it seems very backward for Evernote to have "every 5 minutes" as the smallest auto-sync interval. Please let me opt into some much lower value, roughly the time it takes me to turn away from my keyboard, take out my iPhone, open Evernote, and start typing into the note there.

Your iPhone should sync right after you exit the note you have edited, and seems to do this reliably for me.  On Windows at least, EN is supposed to sync after you exit the note, but there seems to be a lag which varies from 10 seconds to a couple of minutes.  IAC, as per the above, to be safe sync when you enter/exit a platform.

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

2 hours ago, csihilling said:

Your iPhone should sync right after you exit the note you have edited

Unless you have set "sync only on wi-fi" or you have no cellular access (like on a plane).

So I just assume it does not auto-sync, and make a firm habit of always doing a manual sync.

[PortlyMan 4]

Having had many issues in the past, I've tried to manually sync before and after any edits, either on an iPad or a Win7 PC. Historically I've used more machines, but recently limited myself to just those 2, and I still get issues.

Worst, and rubbing salt into the wound as it's easy to rectify, is some sort of notification that you cant miss (an edit to the end of a 800 line note is not easy to see!! Honestly!), and adding a file to a notebook, you're not likely to check each time you use EN, is equally unrealistic. Come on a proper and unmissable "you have a sync conflict in this note, the older note is saved in conflicts" is simple while the addition of "a diff file for the two is saved in the same folder for your review." would be easy to implement and save us all the headaches we keep having ... while it's not a real fix, it would help, in the short term while 2 CORE FUNDAMENTAL issues get sorted - yes EN, you are in the multi access notebook software market, and users EXPECT it to auto sync and resolve conflicts seamlessly ... YES we DO !!

The issue of fixing the sync, so it does it reliably, without the need to manually hit sync (honestly, it's not 1986, we're 30 years down the road!) is CRITICAL and long overdue

Resolving conflicts in a user acceptable, merged and marked up, with options to accept or discard etc, this should have been sorted when users started raising issues on this aspect of the software operation, yet seems to have been ignored repeatedly.

Adding more bells and whistles is POINTLESS fix the core functionality first, no-one can build anything reliable on an unreliable engine.

I have 2869 notes, many are 1000+ lines, few are 3-4 lines ... but, things are getting so painful with this sync set of issues that I'm seriously looking to move my data elsewhere, and I'm sure I'm not alone. I'm not going to be held hostage, I will leave...

I have one last thing to say, for those who need a free simple diff tool, with web interface, try this:

https://www.diffchecker.com/

I've used it a few times, it's easy and simple, quick, it's free and does what it says on the tin ... shame on you EN, get you act together.

Disgruntled that again I waste 45minutes finding by chance a sync conflict and then trying to see what is messed up, I just don't need this.

Richard

[DTLow 5,736]

6 minutes ago, PortlyMan said:

things are getting so painful with this sync set of issues that I'm seriously looking to move my data elsewhere
.....
I have one last thing to say, for those who need a free simple diff tool, with web interface, try this:
https://www.diffchecker.com/

You're not alone, I've seen this expressed many time in these forums,
expressed as; Evernote is missing <insert my requested feature>, I'm switching to ........

Please let us know what product/service you found. So far I haven't found anything that comes close to matching Evernote.

Aside from all the rhetoric
Thank you for posting that link to diffchecker.  
Its a good tool that I've been missing.