(Archived) I'm new but surely this shouldn't have happened.

[David DB 1]

Have just signed up as I'm doing a distance learning course where I have to keep a learning journal.  The ability to take notes, attach files/web pages etc etc seems (and does) fit the bill.

 

So, I settle down and write my first entry.  Initially I'm doing it on my iPhone but after one line of entry, the kids watching a movie prove too distracting, so I go the Mac client and finish it off there.

 

Sometime later I turn on my phone and the one line written entry is up.  Odd I think, surely that entry should have been synced and had the 45 mins work I'd done in the mac.  Oh well. This must be saved as a different note and I don't need this one. I'll delete it.

 

So, imagine my horror when I discover that deleting that one line entry has also deleted the full, finished note everywhere else.  Gone.  Not even in Trash.  What a quite incredibly ridiculous assumption for the system to make.

 

So, fingers burnt there and a "feature" I shall not forget.

[gazumped 12,068]

I'm sorry for your loss,  but its not a good idea to assume that the system will make the 'right' assumptions about your work.  Also it's not a good idea to make further changes to notes immediately if you think things have gone wrong.  It sounds like Evernote was actually behaving correctly in your scenario.  Starting a note on the iPhone doesn't automatically sync it with the server unless you had manually synced it when you finished your temporary session.  Starting again on the Mac,  you presumably began a new note - the content of your original start wouldn't necessarily have been there unless you synced the Mac before you started working.  Once you left the finished note,  you would have had to sync again to see any of the content on the iPhone.

 

At this stage I have no idea whether you've actually lost anything - but I suggest you check for a 'conflicting edits' folder in both clients,  and that you have a look online to see what the web client has saved - that's the place to which both the iPhone and the Mac would have saved..

 

Whatever the outcome,  just remember to sync both before and after you edit if you're working on more than one client.

[David DB 1]

Thanks for the reply.

 

I have no doubt it was a lack of knowledge on my part, and I shall just dust myself down and carry on having learned my lesson.

 

It's just not "natural" behviour in my book and from the things I've read about evernote I guess I just expected a little more intelligence on it's behalf (ie - which of the two entries was last updated?).  I also just assumed syncing happened under the hood.

 

The problem I was faced with was that I could see no way out of the iPhone note entry. I could "save" (which I obviously didn't want to do as I would be saving an incomplete entry over one I had completed on another client) or I could cancel.  I was trapped!

 

I shall indeed be more careful and explicit in my usage from now on.

[ZZZ 135]

Sometime later I turn on my phone and the one line written entry is up.  Odd I think, surely that entry should have been synced and had the 45 mins work I'd done in the mac.  Oh well. This must be saved as a different note and I don't need this one. I'll delete it.

 

So, imagine my horror when I discover that deleting that one line entry has also deleted the full, finished note everywhere else.  Gone.  Not even in Trash.  What a quite incredibly ridiculous assumption for the system to make.

 

IMO EN has a lot of areas where it could use improvement but in this one I'm afraid the mistake, though understandable, was your own.  From what you are writing it sounds to me like the note just hadn't synced up to the iPhone yet.  Regardless, the note IS the note.  Regardless of whether changes have synced to it, deleting it is going to delete all versions of it across all devices, which is as it should be.  Imagine the confusion that would result if deleting a note on one device only deleted it on other devices if it had synced, or if it then magically recreated itself on the iPhone after you deleted it because there was a new version somewhere else.

 

That said, I don't understand why some version of it would not be in the trash, if that's the case, that is a huge EN issue.

[Derpcicle 4]

It might have been their mistake sure, but, if the sync option was more obvious it might be used more often, on impulse.  I can't help but think that.  :S  Sorry for your loss, OP.

[Jackolicious 808]

You should have a notebook on one of your devices called "conflicting changes". 

 

Data loss is something we take very seriously and do everything we can to avoid. Let us know how it goes.