EDIT! Nah. It broke again.
Leaving my post below for historical purposes, but I am losing patience.
Meanwhile they replied that yes they are aware of the problem (DOES ANYONE THERE TEST THIS STUFF BEFORE SENDING IT OUT INTO THE WILD?), and have advised me to install an earlier version.
Oh, Joy. And here they are trying to ram an upgrade to the next level down my throat.
ALL of us paying customers deserve a year of free service, starting AFTER this mess is fixed.
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POSSIBLE FIX:
First of all, in my current Android version of evernote, I don't see an option to disable updates.
Next, I seem to have fixed the problem by either clearing the cache and/or clearing the search history.
Settings (then scroll down) / Search and Storage / Clear cache + (maybe needed but no big deal if it is) Clear local search history
Interesting because uninstalling and re-installing evernote did not correct the issue, while this apparently has.
On my 2nd 2 XL, it didn't work for a couple of tries, or maybe I needed to wait some time after clearing cache(s) for the fix to work. Seems OK for now.
But (of course) evernote should be more responsive to support tickets, and provide this info. I did not know the setting was there. Clearing cache under the Android menus did not seem to help.
This has been an enormous waste of my time.