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Typing become slow in just a few minutes


Ohm

Idea

I'm using Evernote Mac client. The thing is, for months since Evernote have updated the design to tasteless UI, typing on Evernote have become very annoying.

 

I'm a fast typist, and I love to be able to move my cursor using directional key (up, left, right, down) quickly. But, when I start typing on Evernote for a few minutes, the keyboard response will become super slow compare to when I just start typing. The slowness happens when you hold the directional key down to navigate through multiple characters, to the point where moving mouse or repeatedly click the navigation key has become a faster method.

 

To solve this, I have to click any other note and get back to the current note I have been typing and the cursor will become faster again, for another few minutes.

 

If Evernote's core product is the note-taking, then this should be priority.

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I can verify the slowness that grows over time, especially on keyboard navigation (also when toggling italics via cmd-'i'). Last week I upgraded from OS X 10.8.x → 10.10.2, partially because an Evernote upgrade on 10.8.x resulted in toggling italics becoming broken. The slowness problem did not exist until the OS upgrade. I was upgraded as far as I could go with Evernote, at the time. This continued well after the re-indexing of notes took place.

 

Evernote 6.0.6 (451290 App Store)

OS X 10.10.2

 

P.S. I do not experience the "switch notes" ⇒ "temporary speedup" phenomenon that Ohm reports.

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I have since noticed that typing (and other mentioned operations) sometimes speeds back up to normal, during e.g. typing up sections from a book. Perhaps a garbage collection takes place? Note that performance degrades again.

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I can verify that since I upgraded to Yosemite and upgraded to the latest Evernote typing has been slow - it wasn't as slow in the Evernote before the one that was compatible with Yosemite - maybe that was before version 6.0?

I too get the slowness of cursor moving when i hold down the arrows and it's quite annoying.

 

I haven't been able to discover any other particular factors which reproduce the issue

 

James

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I am facing the same issue with typing becoming very slow on my fully loaded macbook air. Notes are simple text notes with no images so I don't see the reason it's so slow. It's pretty annoying for a note-taking app as now I can't catch-up with speakers when taking notes in meetings. Please do something about it!

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We're actively working on this issue.

 

I wonder if continuously indexing a note while it is being edited, whether for context or search (or perhaps the same indexing for both), is at all responsible for this.

 

Do you suggest anything better than OS X's "Activity Monitor" which I could use to try and see whether the slowness is due to CPU, memory, or disk? I'm pretty sure it's not network. I used to be a Windows guy and perfmon was awesome; I haven't investigated good alternatives on OS X. I use iStat Menus for global indicators, but they've proven insufficient.

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This issue is becoming increasingly frustrating. It reliably happens when I am editing large notes (e.g. 79.0 KB, 10,817 words, 67,575 characters, no images). I live in SF proper and I know there is an Evernote office complex nearby along SR 101. Would it be possible for me to come in, have you install a debugger/profiler, and look at the problem in action?

 

Let me reiterate. This slowness is making Evernote unbearable for my use. I really do like what Evernote does, but this slowness is increasingly unacceptable. Note that I am a paying customer.

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Hi.  As a paying customer you will be able to raise a support request after logging in here > https://www.evernote.com/SupportLogin.action you'll also have access to a Chat option (7am-7pm weekdays,  PST).  We're a user forum,  so no-one here is based anywhere in particular.  

 

It's not relevant to the issue,  but I keep my notes much shorter that the ones you're detailing above - if I have lots to record on a subject,  I'll add extra information as new notes,  so that overall a 50-page print out will be contained in about that number of notes.  They're linked by title or tags,  and where the order is important I'll use numbers to keep it together - 001 / 002 etc in titles.

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This is happening to me as well. Restarting Evernote makes it better. When the situation is at its worst, Activity Monitor shows Evernote using up all the CPU.

 

This has been the case for a few months.

 

I will reluctantly leave Evernote if this doesn't get better soon.

 

-Dan

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This is happening to me as well. Restarting Evernote makes it better. When the situation is at its worst, Activity Monitor shows Evernote using up all the CPU.

 

This has been the case for a few months.

 

I will reluctantly leave Evernote if this doesn't get better soon.

 

-Dan

 

You could temporarily disable the "Context" function.

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We just launched 6.0.11 which has tons of performance fixes.  Please upgrade and let us know if you're still seeing issues.

 

@SoftwareMarcus, I have just updated to 6.0.13 and am still experiencing the slow typing phenomenon on notes. It seems to happen more frequently on longer notes, most recently on a note of 2500 characters. I have been a Premium customer for a couple years now and use Evernote for everything. This performance issue has been persistent since the 6.0 update and is common with some of my coworkers as well. Hope you guys figure this out soon. The idea of turning off Auto sync, rebuilding databases, or deleting and reinstalling the app aren't viable solutions either. Thank you

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@SoftwareMarcus, I have just updated to 6.0.13 and am still experiencing the slow typing phenomenon on notes. It seems to happen more frequently on longer notes, most recently on a note of 2500 characters.

 

 

Same here. Reoccurring issue since v6. Has become worse with 6.0.13.

 

For goodness sake take some of those resources working on innovative nonsense with printers and business cards and contextual suggestions and whatever else and make basic note editing work! Without that the whole product is dead!

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@SoftwareMarcus, I have just updated to 6.0.13 and am still experiencing the slow typing phenomenon on notes. It seems to happen more frequently on longer notes, most recently on a note of 2500 characters...

 

Same here as well. The problem seems to be especially bad for me if I'm using bullet points, toggling bold (cmd+B) or changing text colours (the program takes a few seconds to catch up every single time).

 

I have a Premium subscription and really like Evernote, but having this sort of issue with such a core feature (note taking!) means that I'm considering switching to OneNote...

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just upgraded from 6.0.05 to 6.0.13 and it's SLOW.  this is insane.  running OSX 10.7.5  

 

6.0.5 seems to be okay, so back down I go.  Every upgrade i've tried after 6.0.5 has had the slowest.  I tried, .07 .10 and now.13     

 

I would love an upgrade to the software that was faster, how about rereleasing version 6.01?

 

I have a version 4 something on a power pc.  and it's snappy!  any possibility you would let us downgrade to more stable snappier versions?

 

thanks

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It seemed to get better for a little while.  However, the past week, the slow typing is becoming unbearable.  I can type three full lines ahead of its ability to show on the screen!  That's not functional for me.  I have used EN Premium for a while.   Please fix this issue.  We should not have to wait on EN to catch up to our typing.  Oh, by the way, when you hit "Return" to create a new line, the beach ball cursor takes at least 15 seconds to get to the next line.  

 

 

Running:  MacBook Pro (Late 2008) with latest version of Yosemite and 4-gig.  Using EN version 6.0.13

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Seriously - looking back over the posts this slow typing problem on a Mac with Evernote is still present in 6.0.13

 

It looks like many of us have made a huge time investment in using Evernote and paying for the premium version and we still are having to live with this!!

 

I'm a huge Evernote fan but this is just becoming impossible to live with and all we get is "its being worked on" and "please start a new thread for the new version".

 

DONT ASK US TO START NEW THREADS. THIS IS THE DAMN SAME PROBLEM. ITS STILL SLOW TYPING ON A MAC. PLEASE FIX ASAP ELSE I'M GOING TO HAVE TO WASTE HUGE EFFORT IN FINDING SOMETHING ELSE.

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There are so many people with EN for Mac deskop complaining about this. Its your code!! Its not our hard disks or Yosemite version! Its Evernote doing lots of updating stuff behind the scenes while we are trying to type I reckon (as a former dev myself).

 

Its Yosemite 10.10.3 (14D136), 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, 121 GB Flash Storage

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I am experiencing the same slow typing issues as described by other users. I have used Evernote for several years and have loved this application and I have recommended it to colleagues. I was about to upgrade to Premium this week for the extra features but I can't even work on a simple project without endless slow downs in every sentence.

Please advise and please correct this problem!!!

 

macbook pro (Retina, 15-inch, Early 2013)

yosemite 10.10.2

2.7 GHz Intel Core i7

16 GB 1600 MHz DDR3

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Can we all report this to EN support please to ensure the issue gets the attention it clearly needs.

 

Looks like one of the top people at Evernote is already on it.

 

 

When posting here, please describe your setup. Year, OS, RAM, ideally hard drive type. 

 

But if you want, you can submit a bug report:

 

Submit a BUG report via an EN Support Ticket. In the Support Form, select "Report a bug", and start the Ticket Title with "BUG:  " to make it clear.  Reporting a bug should be available to all users, including Free Account owners.  Other Ticket types available to Free users are "Data Loss", "Crash", & "Sync Issue".

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Is there any progress being made on this issue?  I've been EN user for over seven years, and a Premier subscriber for the past three.  This slow typing issue is an untenable situation.  I have used a "Daily Log" note to keep track of all phone calls, meetings, etc.  Yet, I am bogged down while trying to type (and I type at 75 wpm).  EN cannot stay up with me, and I am constantly waiting.  When I hit "Return" to start a new line, the bouncing beachball may take up to 20 seconds before I can type another keystroke.   

 

Is anyone at EN monitoring this thread?  Is there ANYTHING being done to fix it?  Should I look for another solution?

 

As stated before, I am running:  MacBook Pro (Late 2008) with latest version of Yosemite and 4-gig.  Using EN version 6.0.13

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Is there any progress being made on this issue?  I've been EN user for over seven years, and a Premier subscriber for the past three.  This slow typing issue is an untenable situation.  I have used a "Daily Log" note to keep track of all phone calls, meetings, etc.  Yet, I am bogged down while trying to type (and I type at 75 wpm).  EN cannot stay up with me, and I am constantly waiting.  When I hit "Return" to start a new line, the bouncing beachball may take up to 20 seconds before I can type another keystroke.   

 

Is anyone at EN monitoring this thread?  Is there ANYTHING being done to fix it?  Should I look for another solution?

 

As stated before, I am running:  MacBook Pro (Late 2008) with latest version of Yosemite and 4-gig.  Using EN version 6.0.13

 

You can try updating to the latest version of EN Mac, 6.0.15, but I'm not sure it will help.  To be honest, your 2008 MBP (with a spinning hard drive) and older, slower processor could well be part of the issue.  I'm running 3 Macs, 2 MBAs, and 1 MBP, and I'm not having any performance issues.  But all of my Macs have SSDs, which are much faster than hard drives.  And the oldest Mac is 2011.

 

After re-reading this thread, the only common element that jumps out to me is that all are running Yosemite.  I have only one Mac on Yosemite, and I don't use it often.  I'll have to give it some tests tomorrow to see if I see any performance issues there.  What is a mystery to me (and probably Evernote) is why this issue affects only some Yosemite users.

 

You may want to contact Evernote support.  Since you are a Premium account owner you have access to EN Support Chat.

 

I would encourage everyone who has this issue to submit a bug report so Evernote will have the details of your Mac configuration.  Be sure to include a link to this thread in your bug report, and provide all the data that Jackolicious requested above.

 

Submit a BUG report via an EN Support Ticket. In the Support Form, select "Report a bug", and start the Ticket Title with "BUG:  " to make it clear.  Reporting a bug should be available to all users, including Free Account owners.  Other Ticket types available to Free users are "Data Loss", "Crash", & "Sync Issue".

 

See Evernote Chat Support., available business days 7am-7pm US CST. 

(Chat option appears AFTER you click “Continue” on initial “Evernote Support” page.)

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Thanks JMichael for the input.  Yes, I do have a late 2008 MBP, but EN has always worked flawlessly for me until about six months ago.  It was immediately after an EN update, and everything bogged down.  Also, as you have seen, it is an issue that has been noticed by others who have new MB.

 

At this point, I should not have to be forced into acquiring a new MBP.  Mine still runs like the day I acquired it, in March 2009, with no degradation of performance.  About three years ago, I put a new hybrid 750gig hard drive in, but that is all.

 

For so many people to have the same issue, there has to be a software issue that needs to be addressed by EN.

Thank you also about the reminder that EN Premier users have support access.  I had forgot about that.  :)
 

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Ok - EN - You are updating the card view and context (even if I've un-checked the context option) rather than keeping up with my typing!?!?!?!?

 

Its that simple isn't it? You are doing loads of processing while we are trying to type. So as we have large numbers of notes and larger notes it all slows to an un-usable crawl. Please hire a coder who can look at this objectively. The highest priority is me typing. The next is updating the card view and only if its checked - then update the contexts.

 

Its not rocket science!!!!!

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Hi, all. I'm having similar problems. Responsiveness degrades quickly with large-ish notes. Here are the facts:

  • Mac OS X 10.10.3.
  • Evernote 6.0.15.
  • Note size: ~6,000 words (though I've seen it happen with notes as small as 2,000 words).
  • Note type: Rich text (lists, HRs, etc.), but no images.

In anticipation of claims that 6,000 words is too long of a note, I'd say this:

  • Every other text editor I have can easily handle 6,000 words (including code editors that are doing much more work, like syntax highlighting and code completion).
  • I have a very modern computer (MacBook Retina, Core i7, 16GB of RAM, discrete graphics, etc.).
  • I don't have any large images in the file. Just formatted text.

It's very easy to reproduce (I see it almost every day). I've been having major performance issues since the last major Evernote redesign (I believe last fall), and it's annoying enough that the only reason I haven't switched is that people at work are still using Evernote.

 

Thanks,

Christian

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I had slowness issues ever time I did an upgrade (I always reverted to a backup after the upgrade).  But the typing slowness issues after upgrading have gone away with a complete reinstall.  (it took FOREVER!). The typing slowness is mostly back to something like normal. normal.  Evernote still has it's10 sec lag opening notes, searching notes, creating a new notes etc. but the typing, is at least close to text editor speed.  My hunch is there may be an error related to bad blocks.  I ran a tech tool test on my machine after carbon copy cloner reported a file (the dropbox file sigstore.dbx as it happened) couldn't be copied because of a bad block.  I found 8 other bad blocks. (smart status is fine).  typically the file system reassigns data to good blocks when it encounters a bad block on a write operation.  with my reinstall of evernote and redownloading all my notes I suspect I did a complete write of my evernote installation, and the file system would have marked and moved data in any bad blocks when that happened.  

 

anyway, it's something to consider, and it would explain the odd behavior that Evernote does not seem to be able to do anything about, because it is particular to individual drives.  Has anyone else done a complete reinstall with a new version?  

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Hey!! We all have a good case. There is no way we should need an SSD and the latest processors for EN to develop some software fast enough to keep up with our typing! Its comments like that that let EN off the hook for bad coding. Thats it. EN used to be a decent application and probably the best I've seen. Then they got bigger. Got sloppy. Got buggy.

 

Ok on any half decent Mac it should be super fast. Just look at your code please EN!!

 

Thanks and lets hope for a fix soon. 

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OS X 10.10.4, Evernote 6.0.16

I have to say that typing and move between words (using command/option key + arrows) have become really slow sometimes. And this happens fairly frequently. 

This is very frustrating and could make me switch to other note taking application if it doesn't get resolved quickly. 

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A Possible Solution to the Sluggishness

At least for my issue, I believe I have figured out the issue.  None of the recommend suggestions seemed to get rid of the sluggish typing and response problem (i.e., updates, clean installs, etc).

 
However, I began to notice that the issue may be due to large note size.  I discovered that, for me, it was only with one note.  I had created a “Daily Log” note, in which I keep detailed records of phone calls, meetings, etc., with dates and days of those events.  I began that note in April 2014 so, therefore, it was a rather length note.  I did not think that would make a difference, but apparently EN refreshes the whole note.  Anyway, I created a “Daily Log 2015” note and placed all of this year’s content in that note.  Of course, it is a much smaller size now, and it works great!  No sluggish or slow response at this time.
 
If the problem resurfaces, I’ll be sure to let you know.
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Evernote seems to me to work best with short notes.  A Daily Log forinstance could be set in one notebook with a standard title "yyyymmdd daily log" for each note (in case the created date of the note isn't the same as the actual day..).  I do something similar and use PhraseExpress (http://www.phraseexpress.com/) to insert the proper date format on a keypress. 

 

If there's a standard layout you could save a 'blank' note as a template.  I believe in using only one notebook unless it's absolutely necessary,  so my logs are just tagged 'log' and a saved search for that tag plus a quick title sort gives me notes in date order.  Using slightly smarter searches I can narrow it down to months or weeks,  or just open today's note if it was started already.

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I too am experiencing the same slowness with typing on my Samsung phone and Tablet, especially with what seems to be long notes.  Per another users comments I tried the following and it fixed the issues with these particular notes and slow typing.  It seems to have something to do with the amount of formatting in the background or perhaps multiple formats in the background, e.g. copying and pasting from various resources into the same note.

 

I copied the note, cut it out and pasted it into MS Word, clicked the unformat button to remove background formatting, cut/copy it again and pasted it back into my Evernote entry and sluggish typing was no longer a problem.

 

Maybe it will work for you also.

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When I drop it into the word processor and word count it, this is what I get.  I figure that the contents of the note probably came from 9-10 different cut and paste procedures from web pages, word documents, pdf's, typing  etc

 

Statistics:

Pages 18

Words 10,258

Characters (no spaces) 47,919

Characters (with spaces) 58,330

Paragraphs 18

Lines 941

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Yep, that would definitely be "large", maybe even XXXL.   ;)

 

I suspect that the Evernote designers never considered this as a use case to be well supported.

There are plenty of text editors that know how to page text for display from huge files, and do it very well.

But Evernote apparently is not one of them.   :(

 

I don't know if Evernote will ever change to provide good support for these very large Notes.

In the meantime, as a workaround, everyone might consider these approaches:

  1. Break very large Notes (>> 2 pages) into smaller Notes, and use Note links to provide a TOC and link to each other.
  2. Keep very large Notes in a word processor file, and attach to EN Note.
    1. It's easy enough to double-click to open when you want to edit.
    2. If you are a Premium account, EN will index/include these attachments in searches
      1. If you are not a Premium user, you can always put keywords and/or abstract at the top of the Note for search purposes.
    3. If you are a EN Mac user, you can display the attachment inline, but you probably need to check if this also causes a slow down.

 

Statistics:

Pages 18

Words 10,258

Characters (no spaces) 47,919

Characters (with spaces) 58,330

Paragraphs 18

Lines 941

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I suspect that the Evernote designers never considered this as a use case to be well supported.

There are plenty of text editors that know how to page text for display from huge files, and do it very well.

But Evernote apparently is not one of them.   :(

 

This is not the case; before a particular version, Evernote was plenty fast with large notes. The slowdown started around the time that better search was introduced and the display of "Context". Perhaps it was precisely the addition of this feature which caused the problem.

 

Note that what is perceived as slowness on large notes will still take inordinately much processing power on smaller notes, which means that Evernote has a battery usage problem. I quickly searched and found the forum threads High cpu usage and very poor performance (Windows) and Evernote Mac 6.0.5: 100% CPU Utilization (Mac).

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This is not the case; before a particular version, Evernote was plenty fast with large notes. The slowdown started around the time that better search was introduced and the display of "Context". Perhaps it was precisely the addition of this feature which caused the problem.

 

Note that what is perceived as slowness on large notes will still take inordinately much processing power on smaller notes, which means that Evernote has a battery usage problem. I quickly searched and found the forum threads High cpu usage and very poor performance (Windows) and Evernote Mac 6.0.5: 100% CPU Utilization (Mac).

 

 

Good point!  I was only guessing.  But I still wonder about the design.

 

Since you can turn off Context searching (at least in EN Mac), I wonder if you do this with your large notes will the performance improve?

 

BTW, the EN Mac CPU issues were generally seen by only a few (I never saw it), and with the early Ver 6 AppStore releases.

It was also seen briefly after an update in the early Ver 6 versions when there was a major DB restructure, and index rebuilding.

I haven't seen any complaints now that EN Mac is on Ver 6.0.16.

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Since you can turn off Context searching (at least in EN Mac), I wonder if you do this with your large notes will the performance improve?

 

I did not notice a difference when I turned it off (which I did a long time ago). The reason this is probably the case is that Context searching likely depends on the same indexing functionality which gives you better search in Evernote. Alternatively, perhaps turning it off only affects the UI and not underlying computation.

 

BTW, the EN Mac CPU issues were generally seen by only a few (I never saw it), and with the early Ver 6 AppStore releases.

It was also seen briefly after an update in the early Ver 6 versions when there was a major DB restructure, and index rebuilding.

I haven't seen any complaints now that EN Mac is on Ver 6.0.16.

 

There are two different general categories of high CPU usage. One is "one-time", like re-indexing a database—like switching from a version with "dumb" search to one based on fancy indexing. Another is the high CPU usage which accompanies slowness like is well-documented in this thread. The first thread I mentioned doesn't seem like "one-time"-style CPU usage. Anyhow, whether or not the two threads I mentioned are "one-time" or not is somewhat immaterial; the slowness mentioned in this thread will definitely result in excessive battery drain.

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Since you can turn off Context searching (at least in EN Mac), I wonder if you do this with your large notes will the performance improve?

 

I did not notice a difference when I turned it off (which I did a long time ago).

 

So it would seem that we cannot blame the EN Context feature for the slow response.

 

The EN Note Editor has been redesigned for EN Mac, and I believe for EN Win.

Perhaps in the redesign they did not properly consider very large text Notes.

 

When I have some time I will have to try testing a very large Note on my Mac.

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Yep, that would definitely be "large", maybe even XXXL.   ;)

 

I suspect that the Evernote designers never considered this as a use case to be well supported.

There are plenty of text editors that know how to page text for display from huge files, and do it very well.

But Evernote apparently is not one of them.   :(

 

I don't know if Evernote will ever change to provide good support for these very large Notes.

In the meantime, as a workaround, everyone might consider these approaches:

  1. Break very large Notes (>> 2 pages) into smaller Notes, and use Note links to provide a TOC and link to each other.
  2. Keep very large Notes in a word processor file, and attach to EN Note.
    1. It's easy enough to double-click to open when you want to edit.
    2. If you are a Premium account, EN will index/include these attachments in searches
      1. If you are not a Premium user, you can always put keywords and/or abstract at the top of the Note for search purposes.
    3. If you are a EN Mac user, you can display the attachment inline, but you probably need to check if this also causes a slow down.

 

Statistics:

Pages 18

Words 10,258

Characters (no spaces) 47,919

Characters (with spaces) 58,330

Paragraphs 18

Lines 941

 

 

Find it very interesting that if I remove the background formatting of these long notes, that both my Samsung S4 phone and Samsung 8.4 tablet no longer have slow of sluggish typing.  Things as usual even with these very long notes.

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Find it very interesting that if I remove the background formatting of these long notes, that both my Samsung S4 phone and Samsung 8.4 tablet no longer have slow of sluggish typing.  Things as usual even with these very long notes.

 

Since this is Mac thread, as we've been discussing, how did removing the background formatting affect the EN Mac app performance?

 

BTW, exactly what do you mean by "remove the background formatting"?

Do you mean by using the Simplify Formatting option in EN Mac?

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I just ran a "large note test" on my smallest, slowest Mac:

 

MBA-13-1-Specs.png

 

 

Running the latest EN Mac Beta:  Ver 6.1 Beta 2 on my MBA-13.

 

I started with 5,423 Words, 30,358 characters (~ 12.5 pages) -- NO Issues.

  • I tested typing and backspacing at both the top and bottom of the Note.
  • Generally no issues, no delays, although I did notice occasionally a very short delay (<< 0.5 sec). 
  • I was typing at about 55 WPM during the "fast" test.

 

Doubled the Note size to 11,016 Words, 61,154 Characters (~ 25 pages) -- Backspace Issue

  • Same procedure as above
  • Forward typing fast didn't really see any delays
  • But Backspace has a delay of about 1 sec / character.

 

However, when I repeated the test on my much more powerful MBP-15R using EN Mac 6.011, I had no delays at all.

I suspect, but don't know, that this test was OK mainly because of the power of the MBP.

 

MBP-15R-Specs.png

 

For me, this is a NON issue, since I can't imagine actually editing (for any extensive time) a very large Note that is 12 pages, much less 25 pages.

Evernote just doesn't provide the page navigation tools to make this practical for me.  I would want (internal to the Note) a TOC, bookmarks/links to the various sections, etc that come part and parcel with word processors like MS Word.

 

So, I would just keep a MS Word attachment in the Note for anything over 3 pages or so.

 

When I drop it into the word processor and word count it, this is what I get.  I figure that the contents of the note probably came from 9-10 different cut and paste procedures from web pages, word documents, pdf's, typing  etc

 

Statistics:

Pages 18

Words 10,258

Characters (no spaces) 47,919

Characters (with spaces) 58,330

Paragraphs 18

Lines 941

 

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I use EN for large notes and started this thread. I have notes with 90,000 words+ and thats how I want to use it. EN is not necessarily 'designed' only to work with small notes so will JMichael kindly QUIT DOMINATING THIS THREAD!!!!

 

I have a good use case and I want EN to be able to work with large notes and so do many others. Your voice is far too loud.

 

EN - Kindly look at your code. I bet even with context lookup 'disabled' your code is searching the large notes while we are typing. This is the problem. Too much going on in the background while we are editing our notes.

 

I want EN to be a super-efficient application that can handle large notes with pasted screen images, documents etc etc AND run on a Macbook Air. 

 

EN - assure me you are still looking at this please else One Note is looking horribly like a possibility...

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I use EN for large notes and started this thread.

 

Actually, you did not start this thread.  It was started by Ohm.

 

Slow-Typing-Started-By.png

 

 

I have notes with 90,000 words+ and thats how I want to use it. EN is not necessarily 'designed' only to work with small notes so will JMichael kindly QUIT DOMINATING THIS THREAD!!!!

 

Please don't shout.  You have done this several times now.  It is impolite, and will not help your case.   :( 

 

@Kensington London, you don't have any right to ask anyone to disengage from this thread.  We are all peers here, and each can post according to his/her desires.

 

IAC, I have been trying to be helpful to all concerned.  I have encouraged everyone having this issue to submit a bug report so Evernote will have the info they need to fix.

 

Finally, I don't know the design criteria of Evernote, but everything Evernote has published certainly suggests to me that supporting very large Notes, like your 90K words (180 pages), is an edge case.  Asking Evernote to work well with a Note that is 180 pages is like asking a Ford F150 pickup truck to do the work of a 100 ton dumptruck.  It may be able to do it, but it won't be fast.   ;) 

 

We don't know if Evernote will ever support these very, very large notes as well as the smaller, 3-5 page Notes, but until they do I have offered some reasonable workarounds so people can still the job done.  Putting a very, very large block of text into a word processor file attached to a Note is one of them.

 

Have a nice day.

 

 

I would encourage everyone who has this issue to submit a bug report so Evernote will have the details of your Mac configuration.  Be sure to include a link to this thread in your bug report, and provide all the data that Jackolicious requested above.

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Ok yes - work around - just have lots of small notes.

 

In the meantime can EN look at their code. Only in the 1980s would slowness like this be expected in a 1.1MB note! I suspect some inefficient code is at work and there is likely to be a fix with a 100x speed pay-off.

 

Lets see.

 

No offence intended :-)

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Finally, I don't know the design criteria of Evernote, but everything Evernote has published certainly suggests to me that supporting very large Notes, like your 90K words (180 pages), is an edge case.  Asking Evernote to work well with a Note that is 180 pages is like asking a Ford F150 pickup truck to do the work of a 100 ton dumptruck.  It may be able to do it, but it won't be fast.   ;)

 

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say Kensington London rejects the reasoning you have expressed here; I do as well. I wrote my first line of code over twenty years ago and am well-aware of the progress in computational power since. Your argument here may work for ten years ago, but it is completely obsolete, today. This is clearly demonstrated by the fact that Evernote Mac did not always have the performance problem identified in this thread. It was introduced. Now, perhaps the performance prior to the offending update was a spurious boon and EN folks never intended that, but I think most people would see this as a post-hoc rationalization.

 

 

We don't know if Evernote will ever support these very, very large notes as well as the smaller, 3-5 page Notes, but until they do I have offered some reasonable workarounds so people can still the job done.  Putting a very, very large block of text into a word processor file attached to a Note is one of them.

 

Stating workarounds is fine, but I think the way you're coming off is that you don't ever need this feature, and so the extra clicks and so forth required by others is completely acceptable. Such reasoning relaxes the pressure on EN to actually do something about this problem. At the very least, they could publish some engineering details. I've even offered to drive down to the EN office in the Bay Area and let them install a debugger and/or profiler on my machine to see what's going on. But if the workaround is 'simple', then the urgency on this matter is reduced, making the product experience inferior for a number of people. (But perhaps we're too small a number?)

 

Furthermore, there is a "hidden problem" that I bet many won't recognize: increased battery usage. With long notes the CPU is pegged for long enough for users to notice. With shorter notes, the CPU will still be used inordinately much, but users will be less likely to notice. Instead, they'll just experience that their battery drains more quickly, and perhaps blame their laptop manufacturer. I doubt very many have a CPU trace running in their menu bar. Furthermore, people are still, unfortunately, too used to the poor performance that may have been necessary ten years ago, but is absolutely unnecessary today.

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Before I respond to @LukeB, I'd like to remind everyone of this:
 

One of the top managers at Evernote has already acknowledged this issue,
and is asking for data from all of you to help solve it.  Don't expect an immediate fix.  It may take several months, or even much longer.  I have no idea.
 
So I take that to mean that Evernote is seriously investigating this issue, and if they can identify the cause of the problem, they most likely will fix it.  That's all just my opinion.
 

 

When posting here, please describe your setup. Year, OS, RAM, ideally hard drive type. 


 
I would suggest that you also include the size of your Note:  Words, Characters, Bytes.
 
You can get this from the Note Info screen, ⌘⇧I
 



 

If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say Kensington London rejects the reasoning you have expressed here; I do as well. I wrote my first line of code over twenty years ago and am well-aware of the progress in computational power since. Your argument here may work for ten years ago, but it is completely obsolete, today. 

 
You and anyone else are free to reject my reasoning.  Evernone is entitled to their opinion.
When you wrote your first line of code is irrelevant.
 
Even today, apps can be overloaded with too much data to perform well.  I have seen this in today's MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to a far greater extent than I have seen it in Evernote.  I have just recently copied a large, complex, web page and pasted into MS Word.  It took it about  a minute before the entire content was shown in Word.
 
MS has devised the wise approach of having "master documents" that link to "child documents".
Rather than putting 500 or 1,000 pages into one file, it allows the user to break it down into much more manageable chunks for editing and reviewing.  Of course, this also greatly improve the performance of opening, editing, and saving the file.
 

Stating workarounds is fine, but I think the way you're coming off is that you don't ever need this feature, and so the extra clicks and so forth required by others is completely acceptable. Such reasoning relaxes the pressure on EN to actually do something about this problem. 

 
This is a complete misreading of my posts.  In no way have I excused Evernote from needing to make a fix, nor have I suggested that this is not an issue for other.  All I ever said was that it is not an issue for me.  YMMV.   ;)
The purpose of workarounds is not to excuse the developer, but to provide people who want to get the job done now with a means of doing it.  That's all.  Offering workarounds is a very common thing to do by many people who post in these forums.
 
In all honesty, except for the threads posted by Evernote employees announcing a new release, IMO the posts by users here are unlikely to have a significant impact on the EN development team.  There are exceptions, of course, like when EN makes a release that has major bugs.  However, it has been said that someone from Evernote reads every post.  I make so such assumption.
 
If you want Evernote to hear you, then submit a bug report with lots of details about your setup.
The more users that submit a bug report on the same issue the more likely Evernote will fix it.
 
 

Furthermore, there is a "hidden problem" that I bet many won't recognize: increased battery usage. With long notes the CPU is pegged for long enough for users to notice. With shorter notes, the CPU will still be used inordinately much, but users will be less likely to notice. Instead, they'll just experience that their battery drains more quickly, and perhaps blame their laptop manufacturer. 

 
I am not seeing this massive amount of energy/battery consumption that you refer to.  Perhaps you could post some real data to support your assertion.
 
Here's a screenshot of my MBP-15R taken today, that shows  Evernote is consuming far less energy that other apps like Chrome and Keyboard Maestro.  So, to use your words, I "reject" your assertion and logic.   :)
 
EN-Mac-6011-Energy-Impact.png

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You and anyone else are free to reject my reasoning.  Evernone is entitled to their opinion.

When you wrote your first line of code is irrelevant.

 

You are welcome to deny that long experience with software development gives me expert knowledge in this topic, declaring the matter "opinion". However, this does not make what you say true. There are objective truths in this realm. I gave you an existence proof: prior to a certain version, Evernote performed very well with long notes.

 

 

Even today, apps can be overloaded with too much data to perform well.  I have seen this in today's MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint to a far greater extent than I have seen it in Evernote.  I have just recently copied a large, complex, web page and pasted into MS Word.  It took it about  a minute before the entire content was shown in Word.

 

We could look at the amount of computation required for "a large, complex, web page" and compare it to 90 KB notes which are mostly text with very little formatting. I did a force-refresh on page one of this thread and Google Chrome's Web Developer Tools noted 1.6 MB transferred. Much less of that was raw text and much more was formatting; it is much more computationally expensive to render formatting than to render text. And once again, you ignore the 'existence proof' that prior to an update, Evernote was lickety-split fast with 90 KB notes.

 

 

This is a complete misreading of my posts.  In no way have I excused Evernote from needing to make a fix, nor have I suggested that this is not an issue for other.  All I ever said was that it is not an issue for me.  YMMV.    ;)

 

There is a difference between excusing and influencing the priorities. It is the difference between a binary influence and an analogue influence. You are not allowed to dictate, by fiat, what the impact of your words are on the relevant people. You can say whatever you want about what you meant to communicate, but the actual impact—e.g. how big of an issue Evernote thinks this problem is—can indeed be altered by what you write. I am concerned that the net impact, the objectively true impact, is that many folks will consider this a non-issue. Whether this is the case or not is not 'opinion'. Evernote must expend its resources wisely, which means that if a problem is a non-issue for sufficiently many people, that problem will receive correspondingly less effort to resolve.

 

 

If you want Evernote to hear you, then submit a bug report with lots of details about your setup.

The more users that submit a bug report on the same issue the more likely Evernote will fix it.

 

I have. The result was a hacky fix that made the slowdowns spottier, jerkier. That's almost worse, because it'll be lickety split for a while and then all of a sudden slow down, messing up the rhythm of editing the note. The root problem simply was not solved.

 

 

I am not seeing this massive amount of energy/battery consumption that you refer to.  Perhaps you could post some real data to support your assertion.

 

Here's a screenshot of my MBP-15R taken today, that shows  Evernote is consuming far less energy that other apps like Chrome and Keyboard Maestro.  So, to use your words, I "reject" your assertion and logic.   :)

 

If slowness, caused by CPU pegging, scales with the length of note, then deductive logic indicates that people who regularly work with notes greater than a certain size will indeed experience precisely what I say they will experience. That you do not experience this indicates that your notes are sufficiently small, and/or you spend sufficiently little time using Evernote in comparison to other applications. In no way do your data constitute a refutation of my point. What does remain to be seen is how many people actually operate in the domain where Evernote will inordinately drain their batteries. My point is that this symptom will be largely hidden from most users who operate in a domain between yours (smaller notes and/or less proportional usage) and mine (large notes, where I'm mostly using Evernote for my session at my computer while on battery power).

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@LukeB:

I'm not going to debate this with you.  You continue to claim that, for some mystic reason, you have unique insight into " objective truths ".  You've presented no data.  As far as I'm concerned, everything you have stated is just your opinion.  Which is fine, as long as you don't try to turn your opinion into facts.   ;)

 

At this point, it seems to me that you have make your point, and I think we are seriously drifting off-topic, so I'll decline to further debate these esoteric, off-topic, issues.

 

Have a nice day.
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I don't see this as being off-topic in any way. The resulting impression people have of how important this performance problem is will impact how much attention the performance problem gets. For those actually experiencing this problem, we want more attention. For people like you who aren't experiencing this problem, you perhaps want less attention paid to this issue, because there are bugs and/or new features which would benefit you, competing with this performance problem.

 

 

You continue to claim that, for some mystic reason, you have unique insight into " objective truths ".  You've presented no data.  As far as I'm concerned, everything you have stated is just your opinion.  Which is fine, as long as you don't try to turn your opinion into facts.   ;)

 

First, "professional experience" ≠ "mystic reason". Second, I have presented a very important fact (whether you call that "data" is irrelevant):

 

I can verify the slowness that grows over time, especially on keyboard navigation (also when toggling italics via cmd-'i'). Last week I upgraded from OS X 10.8.x → 10.10.2, partially because an Evernote upgrade on 10.8.x resulted in toggling italics becoming broken. The slowness problem did not exist until the OS upgrade. I was upgraded as far as I could go with Evernote, at the time. This continued well after the re-indexing of notes took place.

 

See: "The slowness problem did not exist until the OS upgrade."

 

 

 

I suspect that the Evernote designers never considered this as a use case to be well supported.

There are plenty of text editors that know how to page text for display from huge files, and do it very well.

But Evernote apparently is not one of them.    :(

 

This is not the case; before a particular version, Evernote was plenty fast with large notes. The slowdown started around the time that better search was introduced and the display of "Context". Perhaps it was precisely the addition of this feature which caused the problem.

 

This is where I reiterate what I said in the second post in this thread

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Like many users I've also been experiencing poor performance since about v6. Evernote has become almost unusable.

 

Unfortunately much time has passed with no real fix and, as there are no viable alternatives, my only hope is Evernote get serious about this issue and fix it.

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Like many users I've also been experiencing poor performance since about v6. Evernote has become almost unusable.

 

Does the poor performance you are experiencing apply to all Notes, or only those that are very large (>5K words)?

 

As Evernote manager Jackolicious, on 26 Jun 2015 - 10:18 AM, said:

When posting here, please describe your setup. Year, OS, RAM, ideally hard drive type. 
 
Also, please post what versions of OS and Evernote are you running.
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Hi JMichael,
 

Does the poor performance you are experiencing apply to all Notes, or only those that are very large (>5K words)?


All notes. Most recently noticed it on a note with only a couple of hundred words with no special formatting, images, etc.
 

As Evernote manager Jackolicious, on 26 Jun 2015 - 10:18 AM, said:
When posting here, please describe your setup. Year, OS, RAM, ideally hard drive type. 


I'm running OS X 10.10.4 on a 2013 MacBook Air 11in, 1.7GHz i7, 8GB RAM, 500GB flash storage. Recently ran it against a friends brand new MacBook Pro 13in i5 and, much to their disappointment, it won.
 

Also, please post what versions of OS and Evernote are you running.

 

v6.0.16.

Let me know if there's anything else, happy to help if I can.

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Hi JMichael,

 

Does the poor performance you are experiencing apply to all Notes, or only those that are very large (>5K words)?

All notes. Most recently noticed it on a note with only a couple of hundred words with no special formatting, images, etc.

 

I'm running OS X 10.10.4 on a 2013 MacBook Air 11in, 1.7GHz i7, 8GB RAM, 500GB flash storage. Recently ran it against a friends brand new MacBook Pro 13in i5 and, much to their disappointment, it won.

 

Let me know if there's anything else, happy to help if I can.

 

Thanks for all the details about your setup.  I'm sure Evernote will find this helpful.

Also, if you haven't already, please submit a bug report (links above).

 

I am sorry to hear that you are experiencing poor performance in general.

I have a similar Mac, except mine is a 13-in with 2GHz, 2012 model.

I've been running EN Mac 6.0.15 without any performance issues, except on very, very large (>10K words) Notes, which I only have as a test (described above).

 

So I'm not sure why EN Mac is running slow for you.

If it enough of an issue that you'd like to put some effort into fixing, you might try a clean install of EN Mac.

Of course, I can't guarantee or promise this will fix your issue, but from my years in IT I have found that sometimes a clean reinstall of an app will fix some sticky issues.

 

If you're running the AppStore version I'd recommend switching to the Direct D/L ver at Evernote.com.

 

See How to Completely Remove and Reinstall EN Mac 

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We have made numerous performance improvements over the course of the past 6 months with a huge push about a couple of months ago which seemed to solve a number of people's issues.  However, it appears that is hasn't solved everyone's issues and possibly for some of you the issues have come back.  I want to point out a few things.

 

1) Issues that only affect a small number of people are difficult to solve so the more we can find common threads among the group affected the easier it will be to solve.  So please provide information regarding your particular situation and Evernote environment.  For example, it would be really helpful to know the machine type, if you have lots of tags and how long your note is and what type of note it is.  The discussion about the long notes has been great and very helpful.

 

2) What is clouding or making it more difficult for us to fix this issue is that it's probably a combination of things that are making the performance bad.  For example, we know that people who have a MacBook Air tend to see this issue more often.  I don't know what it is about the MacBook Air that exacerbates the problem but it appears to be a common thread.  It could be an underpowered CPU.  It could be small storage space so it's likely that one will run low on storage space making virtual memory run inefficiently.  Things like how much RAM you have and how much remaining storage space may be helpful to help us solve this problem.

 

3) We also know that the problem seems to affect notes that are basically meeting notes.  The characteristic of these are notes that have short sentences, lots of bulleted text and are very long.  We rewrote how we handle Undo and carriage return in the text editor 2 months ago and this is what seems to have helped a lot of people.  We also think there may be an issue with spell check slowing things down.  So if you have a lot of incorrectly spelled words or jargon that the spell checker picks up these types of things could be contributing to the performance issue.

 

4) We also know that people who have lots and lots of tags also see performance issues.  We have someone working on this now.

 

5) Finally, there could be a bug where for some reason your notes are always getting indexed.  Indexing is a very CPU intensive issue and will slow everything down.  I noticed earlier in this thread someone mentioned that they are seeing performance issues after 6.0.5.  Well that's probably because we are reindexing all of their notes.  If there is a search bug that we fix most of the time we have to reindex all notes for it to get fixed.  We've done that in the past and this contributed to some people saying perf was really slow.  Once indexing finished, the perf was fine. 

 

In any case, we're looking for common themes so we can direct our developers to specific areas of the product where we're seeing issues.  Continue to provide this type of information so we can figure out where to investigate.  I know this is frustrating but we have been and continue to work to improve this performance issue.

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Thanks JMichael for the help. Completed fresh install overnight, will let everyone know how I get on.

 

Thanks SoftwareMarcus for the candid response. I read my earlier post and it seems a little harsh, apologies. As a programmer I understand the technical challenges in diagnosing edge cases. It sounds like the Evernote team is working hard on resolving any performance issues.

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My previous post was premature. Performance isn't as bad as before but certainly seems to be slowing down again.

 

Sorry to hear that.

May I ask how many notes, notebooks and tags you have?

Recent tests shows that a lot of tags *may* adversely affect performance.

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Typing slowness has been an issue also for me for the last 6-12 months. I have not seen any improvement since it started.

 

I have been using Evernote Premium since 2008. I keep Evernote always running on my 2012 iMac and 2013 MacBook Air (top models), with the latest software versions. I use Evernote primarily for writing daily logs and saving web clips. None of my notes are very large.

 

At least once or twice per week, keyboard response suddenly slows down, starting with 1-2 seconds delay, and then gradually getting worse, until I quit and restart Evernote. I never experienced this behavior before some Evernote upgrade 6-12 months ago. I have got used to this workaround, but it is annoying when this happens during important meetings.

 

Please continue investigating and fix the issue.

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I'm experiencing the same issues as what other users have posted here. 

 

In a 755kb  note with ~2,600 characters and some formatting but only a couple small JPEGS. It has made taking notes nearly unbearable. The note contains mostly bulleted lists and short sentences, as SoftwareMarcus described. 

 

Here are some stats and specs as requested:

 

2,800 total notes

~100 tags

 

2015 MacBook Pro, 2.8 GHz i5, 8GB ram running direct download v. 6.1 

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I've been dealing with this issue since January of this year. 

 

I use lots of bulleted text in my notes, but no images or anything fancy. Right now I'm having trouble in a note w/ 2.2kb, 219 words, 1,384 characters.

 

Here is other info:

 

Late 2011 Macbook pro - 2.4 GHz, 8GB of RAM

Running direct download 6.1 

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Same problem here on both of my Macs (MacBook Pro mid 2010 El Capitan and iMac mid 2011 Yosemite). 

I am a writer and this problem is a real pain in the ass. 

Please, people there in Evernote, try to fix it because the new Apple Notes app in El Capitan offers some luring specs... 

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Complaints about 'slowness' and demands for a fix are all very well,  but I believe Evernote's crystal ball is permanently offline.  The majority of users don't seem to have a major,  permanent issue with slowness,  so until Evernote can work out why this situation occurs for certain users,  there can be no fixes.  They need input.

Please check whether you can get any help from Evernote's support pages,  and if you can't find any answers,  contact support.  The number of reports will show Evernote how biug this problem is,  and your contact details will allow them to contact you -if necessary- to investigate whether there are any coincidences of OS,  or hardware,  or use case,  that they can address to improve matters generally.  The more information they have,  the quicker and more effective the fix.

If you can't deal with the issue and need another app in the short or long term,  then please use it.  There won't be a quick solution in the short term.  If you want to post more information about your OS and the type of issues you're experiencing,  then other users here will try to help.

The immediate checklist is:

  • Make sure you're
    • using the most up to date version of Evernote for your device
    • able to sync your notes successfully.
  • Use shorter notes and exit Evernote on any device on which you're not active.
  • Switch off as many unused features as you can - like Context,  if you have it,  and don't regularly use it.
  • Try other versions of the app - desktop / web / mobile;  do they all struggle?  Could you use an alternate?

- more suggestions welcomed.

And just for the record.  I'm not condoning the app running slowly or saying that any of this will help,  or expecting users to do the developers' job.  But if you want Evernote to work effectively we need to do some checks to find out exactly what's causing the problems...

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Using the most up to date Evernote is the WORST advice.  It's the upgrades that create this issue.  I know what has fixed this problem in the past.  downgrading!   make it easy to revert.  I am so hesitant to upgrade to any new version because i've been burned by this problem repeatedly.  if Evernote corp made downgrades easy, then all these users who suffer from this problem could simply roll back to the last version they had which worked. 

The only advice that works is to completely back up your copy of evernote, apps and data.  And if a new version causes slowness, delete the new version, replace all your data with the old data, and use the old app with the old data.   Or trash your evernote completely, revert to the old app, and let it redownload everything from the evernote cloud.  but be warned.  local notebooks are lost in that scenario.   Evernote should make downgrading easy. 

But I will give Evernote props for making a very stable .enex format.   That I still run Evernote on PPC macs and on new hardware and o my phone makes my life so much easier.  there really is no replacement for it... which makes the slowness problem so frustrating!

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  • Level 5*
4 hours ago, gazumped said:

The majority of users don't seem to have a major,  permanent issue with slowness

@gazumped, I don't know how you would know this, unless you have Evernote inside information.  Only Evernote staff, which excludes us, would have accurate info on this.

4 hours ago, gazumped said:

The number of reports will show Evernote how biug this problem is,  and your contact details will allow them to contact you -if necessary- to investigate whether there are any coincidences of OS,  or hardware,  or use case,  that they can address to improve matters generally.  The more information they have,  the quicker and more effective the fix

This I definitely agree with.

So, all you folks that are having performance issues with EN Mac, please submit a bug report.

I recommend that everyone who experiences a bug to submit a bug report.  This will make sure that Evernote is aware of the issue, provide your environment data to help identify/fix the issue, and put more pressure on Evernote to fix.

 

Submit a BUG report via an EN Support Ticket. In the Support Form, select "Report a bug", and start the Ticket Title with "BUG:  " to make it clear.  Reporting a bug should be available to all users, including Free Account owners.  Other Ticket types available to Free users are "Data Loss", "Crash", & "Sync Issue", "Payment/Billing Issue", and  "Log in issues".

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7 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

I don't know how you would know this, unless you have Evernote inside information.  Only Evernote staff, which excludes us, would have accurate info on this.

No inside knowledge,  just applying experience and logic.  If the majority of users found "typing in Evernote very annoying",  Twitter,  Facebook and various forums including this one would be deluged by complaints from X millions of users. 

This particular thread has zero votes and 6 participants (so far) besides us;  and both you and I - and the other major contributors to the forum - seem to use Evernote on a daily basis - with frustrations,  I'd agree;  but no continuing major upsets.  So,  unless (like @csihilling ;)) we're 'special',  it seems most folks get on with their Evernote lives moderately agreeably.

And @arthole yes,  using the 'latest version' isn't always the best idea,  but Evernote Support are going to tell you to try anyway if you ask them,  and it makes sense to get the latest features bug fixes to see if they make a difference,  and start from a level playing field so they can analyze what about your setup is causing your issues.  Support will also tell you to downgrade to a stable version (if there is one) and they can't fix it. 

But if you don't help Evernote they can't help you.  So please - if you have a problem,  report it!

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I have the same problem, and it really is not clear what info they want us to share or where to submit a bug report.  The problem for Evernote is that the vast majority of users will never complain, they will just stop using the software.  I can tell you that over the past year, I have definitely used evernote much less because of the annoying delay in typing.  I don't really want to be a beta tester or submit problem reports.  I just want software that works.  Apparently a year+ after this thread started, maybe it is not something that will be fixed so myself and others need to find other solutions for taking notes on Mac.

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On March 10, 2016 at 10:44 AM, aukirk said:

I have the same problem, and it really is not clear what info they want us to share or where to submit a bug report.

Then let's be clear - submit a support ticket.  The link is at the bottom of my post.

>>I don't really want to be a beta tester

Then don't participate in the beta testing program.  
You can restrict your updates to post-beta versions.
You may want to hold off on upgrades a while to make sure any problems are identified. 
That's not to say bugs don't get through, but that's in the minority.

 

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Many months ago I logged a support ticket with EN, provided all details, provided a QuickTime video of the slow typing as they requested and even provided some of my larger notes. As an ex developer myself the slowness is clearly related to EN doing background processing while we are trying to type in large notes. They have all the info they need. Just no interest in resolving it!!

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15 hours ago, gazumped said:

No inside knowledge,  just applying experience and logic.  If the majority of users found "typing in Evernote very annoying",  Twitter,  Facebook and various forums including this one would be deluged by complaints from X millions of users. 

Actually, you really know that either.  There has been plenty of software that I didn't like, or thought was flawed, that I simply stopped using, and never bothered to submit a bug report or enhancement request.  
Do you have any experience as a commercial software developer/publisher?

Case in point:

9 hours ago, aukirk said:

The problem for Evernote is that the vast majority of users will never complain, they will just stop using the software.  I can tell you that over the past year, I have definitely used evernote much less because of the annoying delay in typing.  I don't really want to be a beta tester or submit problem reports.  I just want software that works.

IAC, our assessment of the magnitude of the issue is irrelevant.  In order for something to change, Evernote has to perceive there is a real, serious issue that needs to be fixed.   And in that case, perception is reality, for them.

My point is that I don't think we should try to influence whether or not people report issues here.  Making comments that imply there are not many users who have this issue could put a damper on others who also want to report the issue.

There is always "not many reports of an issue" when people just start reporting the issue.

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8 hours ago, Kensington London said:

I logged a support ticket with EN, provided all details

I  would encourage everyone who has submitted a support ticket in which the issue is still unresolved, to keep replying to the support ticket email once a month until it is resolved.  I can't guarantee it will get the issue resolved, but it can't hurt.  

I'm sure most of you have heard:
The squeaky wheel gets the grease!

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On 10/03/2016 at 11:54 PM, gazumped said:

If you can't deal with the issue and need another app in the short or long term,  then please use it.

On 10/03/2016 at 11:54 PM, gazumped said:

check whether you can get any help from Evernote's support pages,  and if you can't find any answers,  contact support

On 10/03/2016 at 11:54 PM, gazumped said:

just for the record.  I'm not condoning the app running slowly or saying that any of this will help,  or expecting users to do the developers' job.  But if you want Evernote to work effectively we need to do some checks to find out exactly what's causing the problems...

On 11/03/2016 at 0:44 PM, gazumped said:

But if you don't help Evernote they can't help you.  So please - if you have a problem,  report it!

So just to summarise: I'm saying that

  • if you can't get on with Evernote,  then for heaven's sake use something else,  don't accept the unacceptable performance.  That in itself is feedback to Evernote,  if their churn rate goes up,  any half-decent management is going to want to work out why. 
  • but in your own interests,  have a look at the pretty comprehensive self-help information that Evernote has provided,  and if that doesn't help,  ping Support.  If you pay already,  you're entitled to their help,  and even if you're a Basic user they'll be interested in new bug reports - especially if there's loads.
  • based on my 15-20 years in IT product and software development,  I can appreciate the view that if you find a tool to do a job,  whether or not you pay for it,  you're annoyed if it doesn't work perfectly.  Unlike chairs and tables that have been around for a while however,  and are pretty fixed in their basic design,  software is often one company's developers' opinion on how something should work.  If you want it to improve to your satisfaction,  you need to give feedback!

I'm NOT saying people shouldn't report issues.  While we're throwing aphorisms around though,  remember 'the boy who cried Wolf!'  Check your facts before you complain.  (And I speak as one who has done this myself.  It's embarrassing...)

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11 hours ago, gazumped said:

I'm NOT saying people shouldn't report issues.  While we're throwing aphorisms around though,  remember 'the boy who cried Wolf!'

No one is crying wolf.  Just responding what you post, and the fallacy of your logic.

No one claimed what the "majority of users" do or don't do, until you claimed to know:

On 3/10/2016 at 5:54 PM, gazumped said:

The majority of users don't seem to have a major,  permanent issue with slowness,

On 3/11/2016 at 6:44 AM, gazumped said:

No inside knowledge,  just applying experience and logic.  If the majority of users found "typing in Evernote very annoying",  Twitter,  Facebook and various forums including this one would be deluged by complaints from X millions of users. 

And then there is the user who refutes your assertion:

On 3/11/2016 at 0:44 PM, aukirk said:

The problem for Evernote is that the vast majority of users will never complain, they will just stop using the software.

I don't know what the majority of Evernote users think or don't think.  I have no way of knowing, and neither do you.
But based on my experience with users, most of them never bother to complain directly to the software maker, or even on a forum.
Evernote claims to have well over 100M users, worldwide.  How would you know what they do???

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Er,  the crying wolf thing was related to reporting faults that aren't,  which -as I said- is something I've done couple of times.  And since I already made the point that voting with your feet is as good as reporting a fault (just considerably more short-sighted,  since you'll never know if the issue gets fixed),  I'm not longer clear what you're so up in arms about. 

I have an opinion.  I could easily be wrong.  Everyone is entitled to think what they like about either of those things,  but I still get to say it..

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@gazumped

I would submit that many people who look at these issues, may not be active in participating. It took me 3 tries to log-in to this forum. Many would just look for their own answer rather then go through the hoops to say 'me too'. That does not make it right, and I fully agree that EN needs the support of its users in reporting issues, but assuming silence is agreement is a dangerous strategy.

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9 minutes ago, Damian IOE said:

That does not make it right, and I fully agree that EN needs the support of its users in reporting issues, but assuming silence is agreement is a dangerous strategy.

How about using the vote count as an indication of interest/concern.
This issue has a vote count of .......1

Please use the voting buttons at the top of the discussion.

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Experimented recently troubleshooting some lagging issues and discovered that the "Simplify Formatting" function can improve responsiveness significantly for particular notes.

Also, there could be a correlation with notes using a large number of bullet points. 

Hope this helps someone. =)

-mark

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Im just about out on this app. Im a paid user and have used it for years. But, on my two laptops (Macbook Pro, mid 2015, El Capitan 10.11.6 and Macbook Pro, late 2016 latest Yosemite) the typing lag is near unbearable on the Mac app. Ive turned off the context and that didn't help. This has been an issue for a long time with this app and Ive complained to support before. None of their suggestions helped. Last ditch effort, is there anything Im missing? I haven't seen anything on this forum that has helped, but maybe Ive missed something.

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6 hours ago, Damian IOE said:

I wonder if after I export all my data (tried this before), reimporting would help. Arghh

Just a warning: last time I checked (sometime in 2016), inter-note links will not be maintained with imports, as the GUIDs for the notes themselves are not exported. Hopefully this has changed, but sadly I doubt it. One solution would be to put a note link to the note itself in the beginning of every note (perhaps via some automation utility) pre-export, doing search/replaces after import. But if you don't have the right skills to do this, it would be quite onerous.

 

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8 hours ago, Damian IOE said:

So still no answers except to switch. I wonder if after I export all my data (tried this before), reimporting would help. Arghh

If you delete the database, it will be rebuilt from the servers.
Warning: The rebuild doesn't include Local Notebooks or unsynced notes

I would reinstall the app at the same time

This is a better process than export/import
con: The data has to be downloaded
pro: The data is restored without changes.  An export/import creates new notes

 

 

 

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Thanks @LukeB It is a bit of an effort. I will keep that in mind. Fortunately I have not trusted EN for much cr4oss linking yet.

@DTLow Appreciate the suggestion. I tried that suggestion at the recommendation of tech support a couple of times and it did not solve the issue. But maybe they got better at the database tools behind the scenes since then, but it seems like we are just guessing what is happening in the black box.

I wonder if there is just a bad record in my database? If so, how do I find it. I would gladly kill one note for having the rest be usable. Of course, that does bring up ongoing trust issues. Or is it a certain type of note (HTML webclipped pages over selected text or image screen shots or notes over x large or....)? Or certain type of formatting on device x created with version y at some point?  

/snark It seems like I/We should not be the ones to have to figure this out. But I guess that is the approach in the era of low fidelity and hyped marketing. I want to recommend this tool to others because then I can collaborate easier with them and help share best practices with them. But more and more, I am hearing the siren songs of MS OneNote calling me. /endsnark

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