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New Windows release(s) cannot handle a fresh EN cloud sync (+ possible solution)


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Recently, a little bit of tinkering to try and re-index my Evernote database on Windows desktop (via the Ctrl-Help menu) including an attempt to "Fix all notes" and "Recreate Full Text Search Index" from the same menu... landed me in a pile of poo poo. 

 

It was my intention to re-index quite a few images for OCR purposes that had not done so automatically after I had moved them to a new notebook months back.

 

Upon hitting the "Fix all notes" option my Windows desktop became completely paralyzed. There was no way to reverse the effects. Until that point, My desktop client, even with 20,000+ notes, had worked like a well-oiled machine. Everything one could expect from Evernote (except not having automatically re-indexed my notes). 

 

No matter how many times I restarted the app, signed out or did a thorough uninstall with Revo Uninstaller and a subsequent reinstall - nothing brought the latest Windows release out of its catatonic state. Upon any attempt to re-sync from the EN cloud servers, my app would crash after having installed no more than 50 notes. There was no way to measure the progress of the few notes that managed to sync until I started the app up again after a crash. 

 

I figured that perhaps I was throwing too much at Evernote to sync all at once - so I went ahead and deleted a notebook (previously exported via an ENEX file for backup) containing 17,965 notes (only 2.1 GB) from the web client, which form a very specific but non-essential database. This left a relatively small number of the more important notes to sync. 

 

I tried a fresh install, followed by a sync. Still a no-go. Remember, now it has nothing to do with a corrupt local database on my machine - because EVERYTHING was removed with Revo Uninstaller before the install. Any trace whatsoever of Evernote was wiped out. We're simply looking at a fresh install from scratch, from the standpoint of someone downloading and installing the Windows client for the very first time. Also, we're looking at exactly 2,400 notes in total to sync from the EN servers - many of those simple text notes and clippings. A grand total of just under 3 GB. Nothing extreme by any standards.

 

Here's what I did to get myself out of the dilemma:

(you will want to do some research on backing up local notebooks before you attempt anything - that is, notebooks that are only stored locally on your machine)

  • I went along to this site: http://www.oldapps.com/evernote.php
  • Downloaded myself the 5.4.0.3698 release from about 8 months back (you can grab a release from 7 years back if you want). The rationale behind this was to find recourse in something - anything that had worked before
  • Did a complete uninstall once again with Revo Uninstaller (30-day free trial)
  • Installed the older release and signed in to my account
  • Started the sync... all systems go! One can see the note count go up as they begin to populate your account. 
  • Imported the 2 GB ENEX file previously exported
  • Synced to the Evernote servers
  • Synced again a few minutes later - with all 17,965 notes now indexed (all containing a comic strip image)
  • Downloaded and installed the latest Windows release from within the desktop app itself. 
  • Tested the syncing of the latest release, including new web clippings clipped thereafter. No problem with the sync.
  • Everything is running smoothly... only thing is I'm not going anywhere near that Ctrl-Help "hidden" menu again - at least not with the current release, and will definitely not choose a database-wide option.

I've left out a number of other earlier failed attempts. The above is what worked to get me back to the previous working order of my Windows desktop client (latest release). I would try this as a last resort if you are experiencing similar problems while trying to sync, or with a frozen/ lagging account in general. The latest release (at least for me) seems to not be able to handle database-wide optimization/ syncing of any kind. 

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Frank,

 

Sorry for the pain, but thanks for the great explanation of how you got it fixed.  Thanks also for the Achtung! on the Ctrl - Help option.

 

To be fair, the Ctrl - Help option helped me get rid of a stubborn tag that was a remnant from a notebook I had joined and since deleted. 

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  • Level 5*

@ Frank:  Since Ver 5.4.0 worked and sync'd fine, but the latest Ver 5.7.2 did not, this clearly suggests to me that Ver 5.7.2 has a major bug.  Have you reported it?

 

. . .

No matter how many times I restarted the app, signed out or did a thorough uninstall with Revo Uninstaller and a subsequent reinstall - nothing brought the latest Windows release out of its catatonic state. Upon any attempt to re-sync from the EN cloud servers, my app would crash after having installed no more than 50 notes. There was no way to measure the progress of the few notes that managed to sync until I started the app up again after a crash. 

. . .

 

Here's what I did to get myself out of the dilemma:

(you will want to do some research on backing up local notebooks before you attempt anything - that is, notebooks that are only stored locally on your machine)

  • I went along to this site: http://www.oldapps.com/evernote.php
  • Downloaded myself the 5.4.0.3698 release from about 8 months back (you can grab a release from 7 years back if you want). The rationale behind this was to find recourse in something - anything that had worked before
  • Did a complete uninstall once again with Revo Uninstaller (30-day free trial)
  • Installed the older release and signed in to my account
  • Started the sync... all systems go! One can see the note count go up as they begin to populate your account. 
  •  

. . .

  • Tested the syncing of the latest release, including new web clippings clipped thereafter. No problem with the sync.
  • Everything is running smoothly... only thing is I'm not going anywhere near that Ctrl-Help "hidden" menu again - at least not with the current release, and will definitely not choose a database-wide option.

 

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  • Level 5*

I tried a fresh install, followed by a sync. Still a no-go. Remember, now it has nothing to do with a corrupt local database on my machine - because EVERYTHING was removed with Revo Uninstaller before the install. Any trace whatsoever of Evernote was wiped out. We're simply looking at a fresh install from scratch, from the standpoint of someone downloading and installing the Windows client for the very first time. Also, we're looking at exactly 2,400 notes in total to sync from the EN servers - many of those simple text notes and clippings. A grand total of just under 3 GB. Nothing extreme by any standards.

 

I just did a fresh install of Evernote 5.7.1.xxxx onto a Windows 10 (X?) preview machine, and my database of about 6K notes (including shared notebooks) synced down fine; haven't gotten to the 5.7.2 version yet, but I'll probably do a clean and reinstall fairly soon. Do you know that Revo actually did a full uninstall?

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@ Frank:  Since Ver 5.4.0 worked and sync'd fine, but the latest Ver 5.7.2 did not, this clearly suggests to me that Ver 5.7.2 has a major bug.  Have you reported it?

 

i think he says in his post that the new version works fine after he went back a couple of versions and then updated within the app.

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Cal, my point is that a fresh, clean, install of Ver 5.7.2 is failing.

So, if someone installed EN Win 5.7.2 on a new PC, it would fail.

 

IMO, this is a serious bug.

 

@ Frank:  Since Ver 5.4.0 worked and sync'd fine, but the latest Ver 5.7.2 did not, this clearly suggests to me that Ver 5.7.2 has a major bug.  Have you reported it?
 
i think he says in his post that the new version works fine after he went back a couple of versions and then updated within the app.
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Thanks guys - it's nice to have people speculating on my issues for a change :)

 

A couple of points:

  • JMichael, nope... I haven't reported it. I get the feeling it'd be a drop in the ocean - so I just go with the flow and see what I can fix, if at all. Yes, you are right that in my case a fresh, clean install of version 5.7.2 is failing. I don't just assume that it would probably fail for most. There may be factors at play which are over my head. For all I know, maybe living in the Southern Hemisphere - what with the Coriolis Effect and all - my cookie may be crumbling quite differently. 
  • The reason I went to a release from at least 8 months back was to be sure I did a big enough of a jump to get further away from the software changes of the last couple of months. My guess was that 5.7.1 would be more alike than dissimilar to 5.7.2. I've got nothing else to go on ;-)
  • Jeff, I'm positive that Revo uninstaller did a complete and thorough uninstall on all occasions. I went and searched the systems files and app data files. Not a bit to be found (pun intended). 
  • Cal, just as you say... I updated to the latest version within the app (again) once I had synced everything on the older version. In fact, the latest version was working well for me - that is until I decided to mess around with optimizing the database and the likes. I don't know for sure, but I assume that if I had done a clean install of the latest version without ever trying to re-index everything, I may just have come up against exactly the same problem: the app crashing repeatedly and frustrating sync behavior. I say this because there was not a scrap of Evernote metadata/ information left anywhere prior to a fresh re-install of the latest release which continued to cause the adverse effects. BUT... what I don't know is if the things I tinkered with in the help menu initially when I had the latest release installed did something to my data in the actual Evernote servers, which screwed things up for me with the subsequent syncing. I have no reason to think so. I simply have no knowledge as to where the indexing is affected, be it on my laptop or in the Evernote servers or both. I'm grasping at straws there. All I can do is go on a couple of repeatable things I observe here and there. 

Either way, it would be interesting to know if any other users have done a clean install of the latest Windows release on a new machine and had to sync more than a couple of hundred notes from the cloud. 

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  • Level 5*
Cal, my point is that a fresh, clean, install of Ver 5.7.2 is failing.So, if someone installed EN Win 5.7.2 on a new PC, it would fail. IMO, this is a serious bug. 
@ Frank:  Since Ver 5.4.0 worked and sync'd fine, but the latest Ver 5.7.2 did not, this clearly suggests to me that Ver 5.7.2 has a major bug.  Have you reported it?

 

i didn't catch that in the prose. Oops.

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Frank, I recommend that you submit a bug report.

If everyone took your approach, Evernote would not be aware of any bugs.

It does not hurt to submit a bug report, and it may be very helpful.

 

  • JMichael, nope... I haven't reported it. I get the feeling it'd be a drop in the ocean - so I just go with the flow and see what I can fix, if at all. Yes, you are right that in my case a fresh, clean install of version 5.7.2 is failing.

 

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Either way, it would be interesting to know if any other users have done a clean install of the latest Windows release on a new machine and had to sync more than a couple of hundred notes from the cloud. 

Maybe later today -- I'll let you know what happens.

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  • Level 5*

Well, ok -- on my Win 10 machine, I uninstalled, and cleared out the registry and file system of Evernote stuff. On installing the latest 5.7.2.5753, It took about four syncs to get all of my ~6200 notes. The sync would fail, so I'd click on the sync button again. They're all there now.

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That seems fair. I doubt you could call that a bug. Nothing like I encountered. 

 

By the way, I have since discovered upon upgrading to the latest Windows release from a release from 8 months back, that when I search a notebook context, it doesn't stick:

 

For instance, I click on my "Inbox" notebook... go along to the search bar and enter any search phrase... and the context jumps to an "all notes" search. The only way for me to search a specific notebook now is to use the "notebook:" syntax in the search bar.

 

Any clue as to what might be happening? I am completely befuddled. I'm really not up to doing a clean install again.

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