Undo Doesn't Work Properly

[Tom Vaidyan 0]

Hello,

 

I'm currently running the Evernote Windows Client (v 5.8.4.6870 (274870) Public).

 

When I paste in some text from a website or another program and I decide to remove it from I note, I press Ctrl + Z and nothing happens.  The pasted data is still there.  I navigate to the "Edit" Menu and clicks "Undo."  Still - nothing happens.  The pasted data is still there.

 

I've noticed this behavior on multiple machines, running Windows 8.1.  I've "Googled" the symptoms and see other folks complaining about similar issues, dating back to 2013.  Has anyone else come across this problem?  Have you found a solution?  Any helpful advice would be much appreciated.

 

Tom

[RobertJSawyer 167]

I've noted in Evernote on Windows 7 32-bit that I sometimes have to press Ctrl+Z multiple times; it's as if it's simply ignored some of the time.  Usually, when it's not working, third time's the charm for me.

[gazumped 11,643]

Hate to be smug,  but Ctrl-Z seems to work fine for me - I mainly use it when editing text,  but just tested a few pastes from web pages and they disappeared on first click.

[rdenzel 3]

This happens to me quite often, although sometimes undo DOES work. I haven't found a pattern yet.

It SEEMS to happen when I paste something in, but I'm not sure that's the only time yet.

Windows 10

EN 5.9.1.8742 (276742) Public

[RobinHood 2]

This is happening for me on Windows 10 loads.

I keep on pasting in web content and forgetting to remove the formatting. 

I try to undo it and it doesn't remove the pasted text, I need to manually delete it. I've noticed it for a few days now after multiple restarts.

[gazumped 11,643]

Have you tried simplify / remove formatting?

[Ondra 1]

Hello guys,

This problem is still there - Windows 10 and Evernote 6.0.6.1769. Happens when I copy formatted text from mail or website and forget to paste it without formatting. Then neither CTRL+Z nor Undo in the menu works properly.

From a point of view of SW developer, I wonder how such simple bug could prevail for more than a year in a software that is paid. Pure amateurism.

Cheers,

Ondra

[Olive3 0]

I have started using Evernote a week ago and this is already bothering me a lot. Yesterday, I accidentally tried out simplify/remove formatting, all my tables were gone and couldn't get them back with undo nor ctrl+z, so I had to start all over. Today, I accidentally clicked remove row in stead of column, same story. 

I have googled the undo problem, and it appears to exists for several years already. I find this very worrying to read that people lost part of their notes because of malfunctioning of the software. Because of this I am looking into other note taking software products!

[eol 9]

I also have this problem. It seems to have become worse lately. Aside from undo not working, the editor scrolls to the start of the note when clicking ctrl+z which is really bothersome when working on long notes.

[gazumped 11,643]

Hi.  Have you tried Ctrl-Z more than once?  Sometimes I have to do it a couple of times to get a change back...

[eol 9]

54 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Hi.  Have you tried Ctrl-Z more than once?  Sometimes I have to do it a couple of times to get a change back...

Yes, that's why I said that "it seems to have become worse lately". It used to work after I pressed ctrl+z multiple times, but now it rearly does. What's worse, now it immediately scrolls up so even if undo works once in a blue moon, then I don't know what I'm undoing and when to stop. And since in those cases "Redo" doesn't work either... 

The only solution as of now is to manually select the text and delete it, but if it was pasted with formatting then leftovers of the formatting sometimes stay and make the surrounding text look ugly.

[gazumped 11,643]

Hmmn.  The reason I asked about it was I had some undos to do today and my (latest beta) version was OK with Ctrl-Z..  Can't recommend that you upgrade to the Beta on the offchance,  but it's worth raising a support request to get some confirmation that there has been a change...

[Austin G 527]

49 minutes ago, eol said:

What's worse, now it immediately scrolls up so even if undo works once in a blue moon, then I don't know what I'm undoing and when to stop.

This sounds like an issue we had with a previous version. Can you select Help>Check for updates to update to our latest release (6.2).  Let me know if you're already there. Thanks. 

[eol 9]

18 hours ago, Austin G said:

This sounds like an issue we had with a previous version. Can you select Help>Check for updates to update to our latest release (6.2).  Let me know if you're already there. Thanks. 

I'm using the newest version, I've checked. 

Interestingly, today the undo seems to work consistently, when yesterday it wasn't. I haven't update the client in the meantime. I wonder what exact conditions have to be met to observe this error.

[gazumped 11,643]

Very odd - if you have the problem again,  it may be worth syncing your content,  then uninstalling / restarting and reinstalling the app.  Maybe an update left you with some lingering 'ghost' files or settings that are causing the issue.  But meantime - if it ain't broke...

[Bob Baughman 1]

Same issue as everyone else.  The mistake also synced over to my iPhone and my Mac.  This happened on Windows version 10.0.14393 with Evernote version 6.3.3.3502.  Working with a table.  Cut and pasted three rows.  Evernote overwrote my top 18 rows.  so I lost a bit of work.  Have done undo repeatedly, it seems to bounce between a couple different sets like all the history previous to the cut/paste was erased.  Simple edits going forward, no problem, undo's just fine.  Someone suggested simplify/remove formatting - not helpful.  Yes, am using a premium account.

[gazumped 11,643]

Hi.  Tried Note History yet?

[Bob Baughman 1]

@gazumped  Thank you very much!  Note History allowed me to recover most, if not all, of my lost information.  Thanks for making me aware of this awesome feature!!!

[Litteroddity 0]

I have this problem regularly, then it seems to work again, but it's been months now without an ability to undo - most often when I'm working in a table. Also, I've noticed that redo doesn't work sometimes either. 

[gazumped 11,643]

If there was a fix it may have been undone by recent updates.  If you can find the release thread for your current version of Evernote,  a post there about your issues may get better attention.  You can also,  of course contact Support...

[JonJon 0]

Downloaded Evernote again after a few years of not using it and this issue is driving me nuts. Sad to see that this thread is so old.

Sometimes holding down Shift-Z seems to work (opposite to spamming Shift-Z multiple times) .

[gazumped 11,643]

Ctr-Z works for me - sometimes requires 2 goes,  but if it didn't work the second time you need to be looking at other options.  Are you using the installed app or the web version?

[candibrae 0]

New:

• Spend less time searching–view all your shared notes and notebooks from the Shared section in the sidebar.
• Speed up the syncing process–limit sync to recently changed and frequently used notes. To turn it on, go to Tools > Options > Synchronization and select "Enable on demand sync."

Improved:

• Handling of large notes including those with big images or attachments on 32-bit systems.

Fixed:

• An intermittent error syncing when connecting to a business account for the first time.
• Issues with the printing of notes with tables.

[RyB2242 1]

My undo function also does not work properly.  Turning into a pretty big inconvenience, and is raising concern on content permanence. If I delete something in a new note, but try "undo" to get it back I'm out of luck. The history isn't helpful either in this case because Evernote doesn't back up that frequently. Not sure if there's a way to change that. No updates are available for the current version I have: 6.5.4.4720

[gazumped 11,643]

9 hours ago, RyB2242 said:

My undo function also does not work properly.  Turning into a pretty big inconvenience, and is raising concern on content permanence. If I delete something in a new note, but try "undo" to get it back I'm out of luck. The history isn't helpful either in this case because Evernote doesn't back up that frequently. Not sure if there's a way to change that. No updates are available for the current version I have: 6.5.4.4720

Hi.  Undo works pretty well for me when I need it - can you give any examples of the sort of change that it wasn't possible to roll back?

If you're using the installed desktop version an easy backup for important notes when editing is just to create a temporary copy - or you could use an external editor (Notepad or Word) to do any long edits on note content.  Either way if you take system backups (and you definitely should) you'll have copies of the Evernote database folder from which yesterday's note content will be available.  (Evernote does the history backup around twice per day though,  so your local backups aren't any more up to date than the last note history entry.)

"Content permanence" shouldn't be an issue though - you'll have a local copy of the current database,  hopefully backups,  the server current copy and the note history versions to pull from in the event of any issues.

 

[T.MPL 0]

I had the same problem. Just lost a to do checklist of the whole month because the undo tool didn`t work. I don`t think I had this problem before so it might be just a bug that happens from time to time. It`s just unacceptable such unreliability. Also I just learned how the support is poor, the only way is this community?? 

[JB420 0]

I'm having the same issue !!  This bug should be priority #1 !! 

Using Windows 8.1 x64

[jimmybnewman 0]

For me, Undo works fine other than when using tables. So if I edit text in a cell, or delete a column or row, Undo is completely non-functional. If I move the cursor outside the table, type some text or whatever, and then CTRL + Z, behaviour is as expected. But any operations carried out inside a table are, apparently, invisible to Undo. Not a complete deal breaker but it does mean that I have to take extra care when using tables, and that slows me down. Hoping for a fix soon...

[Andrew Nisbet 0]

Greetings, 

I see undo issues all the time! Always take multiple attempts. 'Some' actions appear to be irreversible. The undo option appears available, i.e. not greyed out. Same behaviour with ctrl+Z and menu drop-down. 

The last occurrence was a table column insert delete. Further testing, simple typed text is also currently not undoing, regardless of attempt numbers.   

Suspect there is some intermittent behaviour and mode or key mapping issues. 

Running windows 7 on a Dell latitude. Evernote version is 6.7.5.5825 ... (can't cut & paste). Has been going on for years, I've just thought less of it as a program, possible quirky cross-platform issues - and moved on. 

Functionally this stops me from doing any real text editing given the unpredictable editing behaviour. 

Any insights appreciated. 

Best regards, Andrew

 

 

[gazumped 11,643]

16 hours ago, Andrew Nisbet said:

Any insights appreciated.

Hi.  You seem to have the situation pretty much under control - yes,  there are issues;  the editor is still in development,  so things might get better - but there's no information from Evernote (they're not usually chatty about work or fixes in the pipeline) about when or whether things might improve.  You have my attitude - if one thing doesn't work,  try another - and I use Word where layout and style is important,  and attach the DOCX file(s) to a note.  With most documents I used to copy and paste the text of the first draft into the note as indexable wordage,  but don't normally bother now as Evernote indexes inside Office formats for Premium users.  (Print to PDF files if you need easy visibility of the original text)

Using Word has other benefits - it's got all my jargon in the spellchecker,  so I don't get a red rash over draft copy;  there's grammar and spelling in there too,  and I can share with others and collate comments and corrections better in Word than in Evernote.

[CalS 5,280]

2 hours ago, gazumped said:

the editor is still in development

Sorry, got a chuckle when I read this...    Nothing mean spirited intended, just got a chuckle.

[jefito 5,589]

8 minutes ago, CalS said:

3 hours ago, gazumped said:

the editor is still in development

Sorry, got a chuckle when I read this...    Nothing mean spirited intended, just got a chuckle.

Synonymous with "the universe is unfolding as it should".

Meditate on that...  

[CalS 5,280]

7 minutes ago, jefito said:

Synonymous with "the universe is unfolding as it should".

Meditate on that...  

I am a child of said universe.

[FactMan 196]

On 12/1/2017 at 1:44 PM, CalS said:

I am a child of said universe.

And the answer to everything is 42?

[gazumped 11,643]

For the truly nerdy:  42 is the ASCII code for "*" and the theory is that Douglas Adams,  being a very smart guy,  was suggesting via Deep Thought that the the answer to everything (to a computer) is 'everything' -or- 'anything'.

This of course makes exactly as much sense as '42' and Adams would have been proud to have made people think about it.

Thanks for the fish...

[Shay O. 0]

I just recorded audio from a very important interview and went I went to edit the title of the note, the audio file disappeared! I hit undo several times and nothing appeared! I am crushed. I have been a diehard Evernote fan for many years and have never had any issues, let alone something major. In Evernotes' defense, I never had a problem while using its Mac desktop, IPhone, or web versions. I recently had to purchase a PC (Dell) for work and this occured on the Windows 10 desktop version. UGHHH!!! So bummed. If anyone can advise, it would be much appreciated. This literally JUST happened so I don't hold out much hope that it can be recovered, but perhaps there are some tricks to using Evernote in Windows that I'm unaware of.

 

Thank you! 

[gazumped 11,643]

On 10/14/2021 at 10:15 PM, Shay O. said:

I went to edit the title of the note, the audio file disappeared

Hi.  No reason for this that I can think of,  but I know all too well from personal experience that a careless keystroke can often have disastrous results in Windows.  Unless your note had synced it's unlikely that the recording was actually received by Evernote - all the action would probably have been taking place in local temporary storage.  When things like this go wrong,  a brisk Ctrl+Z repeated a few times can sometimes help - as can killing your internet connection if you're editing an existing note so that changes aren't synced back to the server.

You could raise the query with Support (we're mainly just other users) to see if they have some special magic they could use,  but I'm afraid it's most likely that your recording is lost.