Evernote Slow and Unresponsive

[blackcows 9]

I have been using EN for about a year now, I have close to 4200 notes with a good portion of those notes as pdf files.  When I first started with EN it was awesome....quick, powerful, and simple but I am starting to think it's turning into bloatware rather than software.  It reminds me of the older versions of windows that would "clock" all of the time.  It seems like each time I change notebooks or try and perform a search I get the spinning circle and the ap becomes unresponsive for several seconds.  Do I have too many notes?  Is anyone else having these issues?

[gazumped 11,663]

16,000+ notes and no major problems.  Have you tried a general PC clean up?  Revo uninstall / reinstall?  backup and rename database and allow Evernote to rebuild it for you?  There are several options you can try - Googling the details will get you more information on any or all of the above.

[jbenson2 2,147]

I have been using EN for about a year now, I have close to 4200 notes with a good portion of those notes as pdf files.  When I first started with EN it was awesome....quick, powerful, and simple but I am starting to think it's turning into bloatware rather than software.  It reminds me of the older versions of windows that would "clock" all of the time.  It seems like each time I change notebooks or try and perform a search I get the spinning circle and the ap becomes unresponsive for several seconds.  Do I have too many notes?  Is anyone else having these issues?

 

I've also been very concerned about Evernote's scalability since I upgraded from version 4.7 to 5. Other users have made similar comments. Some have reverted back to an older version. The speed slowdown was very noticeable, especially with the new pop-up search window (which cannot be turned off).

I have run the Evernote debug option and the lag is still there. I am in the process of moving half of my notes to a 2nd Evernote account in an attempt to minimize the lag.

The difference in responsiveness of the program (4.7 to 5) certainly might be due to all the changes they have made in the program.

[gazumped 11,663]

I must've been lucky to avoid all of the above,  because I really haven't noticed Evernote's responsiveness getting worse - as far as I can see it's actually better and more reliable now than previously.  

 

Obviously mileage varies,  but I did go through a "database upgrade" process when I initially switched to 5 - took about an hour to complete.  And then I had unrelated problems which meant renaming the database and letting the server rebuild it.  That took four days.  Runs (fingers crossed) sweetly now...

 

Plus I'm a performance nut.  My laptops endure checks with JV16,  Glary Utilities,  a couple of different malware apps - and frequent clean-outs of 'old' files to archive drives,  of which I now have terabytes.  I keep as little irrelevant stuff as possible on my current C: drive which has 55% free space.  Defragging (I'm told) isn;t necessary with W8 - although you can force-start the process.  I know.  I looked into it.

 

No criticism or disrespect for anyone who's posted on performance,  but I would encourage everyone to do a massive system cleanup (there's lots about this in Google!) before assuming that it 'must' be the Evernote upgrade that helical wood-fixinged their particular pooch.

 

Edit: PS - 16,000+ notes and counting...

[atangel 33]

@Gazumped makes a valuable comment. I'm with him. My 5 year old system is still faster with Windows 7 (I upgraded) than many of my peers have with new systems who allow everything under the sun to run and install and click every email from the "IRS" with an executable file attached. after 6 months they're systems are crawling and never quite the same.  It really really pays to keep things a little lean and checked (malware, start up items, background processes), It just does.

 

However, like @jbenson2 I got nailed by the 4 > 5 lag and had to roll back and went through the DB upgrading and even forced a reindexing in debug mode. It could be that they didn't code EN for older systems or there could be other reasons. Not sure they are worried about it either, but a support ticket might be your best hope.

[jbenson2 2,147]

I have learned it is a good idea to hold off on Evernote upgrades for a couple months and let others identify the bugs, and then work with the Developers to resolve the upgrade problems.

So I sat on the sidelines and waited. I upgraded on December 1. Even though I have 30,000+ notes, the database upgrade process was a non-event. It ran over night and in the morning everything was fine (except for the nagging search pop-up window lag). After several weeks, I contacted Evernote Support about the lag and they confirmed that the pop-up window could not be turned off. They would pass my comments on to the developers.

Evernote was running fine 24 hours before the upgrade. This delay became evident immediately after the upgrade and has continued to pester me. I doubt that this lag can be attributed to data clutter on my machine. I ran the debug option a couple weeks ago and it reduced the lag slightly down to 2 seconds. It might not seem like a big issue to some users, but as others have reported, I can confirm it certainly affects my efficiency using Evernote.

To clarify, the delay is is not in the actual search or in editing notes. It is the time spent waiting for the new Search pop-up window to appear. If there was a way to shut down this intrusive new pop-up, the program would be as fast as the old version.
 

[dlu 628]

If you've seen the debug menu, you might want to try both reindexing as well as optimize database

[jbenson2 2,147]

If you've seen the debug menu, you might want to try both reindexing as well as optimize database

 

Thanks for the suggestion for the 2nd option (reindexing).

 

1.) I ran the "Debug Optimize" option a few weeks ago. I ran it again yesterday, watched it change from "Updating database notes..."  to "Rebuilding full text search index..." and went to bed.  I assume it completed sometime during the night. (There was no completion confirmation).

 

2.) This morning I tried the "Debug Reindex" option but there was no visual indication that anything was happening.

 

3.) Same with the "Debug reindex type ahead..." - nothing showed up, nothing happened.

 

I will submit a Support Request to find out what is going wrong.

[KariRose 2]

My Evernote is SO Slow, it's time to find a new product.  I thought it was my computer (provided by my employer), so I requested and received (2 weeks ago now) a complete re-image and doubled the memory from 4 to 8 gigs.  There has been no change to the constant stalling of Evernote.  Grab the scroll bar -- wait.  pixel by pixel it moves down the screen.  Click on a file - Wait even longer.

 

What was once my favorite product, is not a pain in the butt to use.  I don't have time to wait for each click of the mouse.  It sounds like this is a product flaw and not a computer it's installed on flaw.  I really thought this was going to be a life changing product and have put a lot of time into integrating it into my life - but it have been slow for many months now.  Time to move on I guess.

[gazumped 11,663]

My Evernote is SO Slow, it's time to find a new product.  I thought it was my computer (provided by my employer), so I requested and received (2 weeks ago now) a complete re-image and doubled the memory from 4 to 8 gigs.  There has been no change to the constant stalling of Evernote.  Grab the scroll bar -- wait.  pixel by pixel it moves down the screen.  Click on a file - Wait even longer.

 

What was once my favorite product, is not a pain in the butt to use.  I don't have time to wait for each click of the mouse.  It sounds like this is a product flaw and not a computer it's installed on flaw.  I really thought this was going to be a life changing product and have put a lot of time into integrating it into my life - but it have been slow for many months now.  Time to move on I guess.

 

Hi - if you want to speed up your Evernote,  you might try recreating the database

 

Exit Evernote

Rename your database folder (as a backup in case things go wrong)

Restart Evernote to recreate the database (and indexes) from the server.  

 

Export any local notebooks and unsynced notes to ENEX files before you rebuild - they aren't stored on the server,  therefore can't be recreated.

[CalS 5,280]

My Evernote is SO Slow, it's time to find a new product.  I thought it was my computer (provided by my employer), so I requested and received (2 weeks ago now) a complete re-image and doubled the memory from 4 to 8 gigs.  There has been no change to the constant stalling of Evernote.  Grab the scroll bar -- wait.  pixel by pixel it moves down the screen.  Click on a file - Wait even longer.

 

What was once my favorite product, is not a pain in the butt to use.  I don't have time to wait for each click of the mouse.  It sounds like this is a product flaw and not a computer it's installed on flaw.  I really thought this was going to be a life changing product and have put a lot of time into integrating it into my life - but it have been slow for many months now.  Time to move on I guess.

Running the web version in a browser or the Windows Download?  If the web version, the slowness could be related to the internet connection that your company has, either raw speed or some controls that have been enabled.  If the Windows client, what version?

[evernote321 0]

March 2015 now. Has been using evernote since 2012. It was a good working simple note program. Good old days. Then I started to experience sync issues between devices-PC-web programs. Addressed this issue several times to EN, no luck.  I believe many user fed up with EN problems, but people just don't have a choice.I tried to find other similar programs, unfortunately there's nothing out there that I like compare to EN.  It took 2 years for EN to fix the sync issue on multiple platform. I agree about recent updates effecting EN performance.

Perhaps EN try their best to fix those bugs, but it may be over their limit now.  I've been experiencing the many text became BOLD-text every time I open the note on different devices & platform. Again it only happened recently.

Also EN slow and unresponsive for the past few months. I thought it was my computer. Then I found the same when I use different devices & OS' (notebook, smart phone, ipads).

 

I am wondering, if a note program like EN is so popular and useful, why there's no company out there who even close try to compete with EN and create a better, useful, simple and reliable software?!?

[kz1231 1]

My EN install is running incredibly slow. I'm a writer and I rely on EN a huge amount for research and story notes. This makes me very nervous. I'm afraid to recreate the database because I'm worried about losing old notes. I'm looking at back up options but basically this just bums me out. I've been a big advocate for the product. Sadly, now I'm looking for a new one. I need reliability. Without that, I can't use what EN has to offer, no matter how good it is.

 

I don't see any serious response from the company here - am I missing something? It really makes me sad that I have to look at migrating to a different tool.

[gazumped 11,663]

Hi.  See my last post (#10) - if recreating the database doesn't work,  or you have any doubts about whether you got all your notes back,  you can simply replace the new database with the old one and you'll be in exactly the same position you are now.  Evernote don't seem to think it's an EN software issue that databases slow down - just a question of local hardware and housekeeping.

[kz1231 1]

Hi Gazumped -

that worked like a charm (post #10, ya'll - got the job done as far as I can tell). I was leary of tinkering with anything, but the database re-created no problem and everything is back to zipping along.

 

It's hard to overstate how much I love Evernote. The only product I use in conjunction is Pocket, and that's basically just until I can get it into EN. So thanks. For now, my loyalty is re-established.

 

Cheers and thanks again.

kz1231

[BobMcC 12]

Read Post #10 this morning. After being frustrated for a good month or so...Decided to give it a try.

 

Been using EN all day as I do everyday and.... so far so good.  Looks like Logging out,  renaming the Database folder, Logging back in and allowing it to rebuild did the trick.

 

Thanks Gazumped!

 

and thanks kz1231 for validating this worked for you...

[MikeBT 1]

"Simplify Formatting" worked for me.   Edit > Select All > Right Click on note > Simplify Formatting.

 

This was successful on a multipage to-do list with hundreds of checkboxes and html hyperlinks. Before the fix the note was lagging when clicking or typing.

[chkymnky 0]

I want the Evernote developers to know that I have the same problem. I have two systems: one running Windows 7 and the other running Windows 8. Evernote Desktop runs slow on both machines, hanging up the entire system. I just did a clean reinstall of Windows 7 on one of the machines. Though the only software installed are antivirus protection, browsers and Evernote (have not even installed Office yet), I am experiencing the same issues with system lags and Evernote being "nonresponsive." Since the database has been rebuilt and the system is rather clean, I hope that Evernote can figure out how to optimize performance on older systems. I'm about to be traveling in places with limited internet connectivity, so having a fully functioning desktop version is critical. 

 

Thank you, Evernote team, for your attention to this matter.

 

Evernote Premium user since 2011

[gazumped 11,663]

I want the Evernote developers to know that I have the same problem. I have two systems: one running Windows 7 and the other running Windows 8. Evernote Desktop runs slow on both machines, hanging up the entire system. I just did a clean reinstall of Windows 7 on one of the machines. Though the only software installed are antivirus protection, browsers and Evernote (have not even installed Office yet), I am experiencing the same issues with system lags and Evernote being "nonresponsive." Since the database has been rebuilt and the system is rather clean, I hope that Evernote can figure out how to optimize performance on older systems. I'm about to be traveling in places with limited internet connectivity, so having a fully functioning desktop version is critical. 

 

Thank you, Evernote team, for your attention to this matter.

 

Evernote Premium user since 2011

 

Hi.  I've used Evernote on Vista / 7 / 8 and 8.1 (still getting around to 10) and while I've gone through laggy stretches,  it's always been curable - by Evernote if there's a recognised general problem,  and by me if it's a system or a database issue.  AFAIK there's no 'recognised' issue ATM,  so I'd strongly suggest raising a support ticket - click Troubleshooting in the Help Center (link below in my sig) and scroll to the bottom of the page to see the 'Contact Support' button.  Evernote can't wave a magic wand to cure this unless they find and understand the problem,  and you may find that one of the many suggested fixes for slowness actually works...

[Lynngineer 1]

There is a response from Evernote about "Windows API causing the app to hang and not respond" in this thread:

Where dconnet Evernote Employee said:

"Posted 12 Nov 2015 · Report post

On 11/12/2015 at 10:52 AM, rjparker1 said:

If this were an application problem it would crash with an error "unknown problem, or database too large, or file corrupted" but it's Windows API causing the app to hang and not respond.. that is NOT an application controlled issue.  That's Windows.

 

No, it's us. We suspect a deadlock with worker threads and the UI thread. Since it's timing related, reproduction and fixing is extremely tricky. "

 

and then dconnet posted again to explain:

" Timing. The OS will schedule threads as it sees fit. No one's computer is exactly the same. So when you're dealing with debugging a timing issue, simply attaching a debugger to the process changes _everything_. (Heck, the packet of information you just requested from the server may take a different route through the internet than the packet that you requested a moment before. It might even get lost.) "

 

This is the only remotely official word that I've heard of, but sounds incredibly accurate. I wish that there were more official acknowledgement of this issue, but in the meantime the people experiencing the issue will just continue to provide information on their system, OS, indexing options, hard drive, database size, results of various rename/reindex/reinstall procedures, number of notes, number of tags, amount of lag, other processes running on their system during the lag, network resources, and blood type. 

I suspect that eventually Evernote will find the actual problem which is between the Evernote application and Windows, and fix it. I agree with dconnet that it is a tricky engineering bug to reproduce; and that makes it a real bummer for everyone experiencing it.