Evernote for Windows 6.5 Beta 2 Released

[Chantal Leonard 213]

Today we're releasing version 6.5 Beta 2 - you can download it here. We're excited to announce two new features.

• Shared view: can now quickly browse all notes you've received via Work Chat from the "Shared" section in the left panel.

 

• On demand sync: an option if you want note content to be downloaded only when you see the note in the note list. This is ideal for users with many thousands of notes who want to save some disk space. You can enable this by checking the "Enable on demand sync" option under Tools>Options>Synchronization. If you do not check this option, Evernote will download all the notes content in advance. 

 

In addition we've fixed many bugs between Beta 1 & Beta 2. We continue to work on stability and fixed 4 crashes and addressed a few localization issues. Let us know what you think about the above capabilities and if you spot any issues. 

Thanks,

Chantal and the rest of the Windows team! 

Evernote for Windows 6.5 Beta Notes

New:

• Easily browse notes and notebooks you've received via Work Chat from the "Shared" section in the left panel.
• Choose to only download recently and frequently used notes using on demand sync by checking the "Enable on demand sync" option under Tools>Options>Synchronization.

Improved:

• Improved handling of large resources 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.

[gustavgi 308]

@kvitekp I know I have asked for this before, but is it possible to make the Ctrl+Q window maximum width match the maximum number of letters allowed for a tag name, since the box is already size adaptable. The maximum adaptable width today excludes the last 13-15 letters (when there is a scroll bar on the right).

I usually have some important symbols/comments at the end of a tag, which are lost if the tag name itself is long. It would be very helpful!

[kvitekp 298]

4 hours ago, gustavgi said:

I know I have asked for this before, but is it possible to make the Ctrl+Q window maximum width match the maximum number of letters allowed for a tag name, since the box is already size adaptable

 

Done. Thank you for suggesting!

[mygwdisk 2]

Hi! I use 6.5.3.4452(304452) and...
When I type Win + Shift + F(shortcut key for "Find in Evernote", probably default),
in the past(I am not sure when it was or which version it was), it automatically made search-target notebook into "All Notebooks"
But now it does not.

Is it a bug?

Thanks

[kvitekp 298]

2 minutes ago, mygwdisk said:

When I type Win + Shift + F(shortcut key for "Find in Evernote", probably default),
in the past(I am not sure when it was or which version it was), it automatically made search-target notebook into "All Notebooks"
But now it does not.

 

Try checking the Tools/Options/Search <Search Options> [X] "Clear context on search"

[gustavgi 308]

6 hours ago, kvitekp said:

Done. Thank you for suggesting!

Much appreciated, thank you!

[mygwdisk 2]

On 2017/2/27 at 4:38 PM, Addis Geordie said:

That's brilliant - worked a treat.  Thank you very much

Thanks! It works fine now!

[eafpres 111]

On 3/12/2017 at 1:30 PM, eafpres said:

"...the Windows client has some issues for me where items are not found in search while they are found on all other platforms."

With the latest pre-release build the search problem appears fixed!  Thanks to the EN team!

[keisoko 56]

3 hours ago, eafpres said:

With the latest pre-release build the search problem appears fixed!  Thanks to the EN team!

But how do I get the latest prerelease? I am currently running 6.5.3.4452 (304452) Prerelease. The link in an announcement points to this version. When I try to run "Check for Updates" in the Help Menu, I get the message that no updates available at this time and that I am currently running the latest version of Evernote. The option  "Enable beta features and updates" in Tools-->Options-->General is enabled.   

[s2sailor 2,183]

14 hours ago, keisoko said:

But how do I get the latest prerelease? I am currently running 6.5.3.4452 (304452) Prerelease

My update shows this as the latest too.  I think the prior version was beta 2 and not a prerelease.

[CalS 5,280]

16 hours ago, keisoko said:

But how do I get the latest prerelease? I am currently running 6.5.3.4452 (304452) Prerelease.

I believe if you go back up the thread you will see that @eafpres was having some issues and @kvitekp offered him a release post the current published beta.  

[eafpres 111]

My bad on the incorrect term. What I have is not release or prerelease. Nonetheless Evernote is working hard on some real improvements and I applaud them. I know there are plenty of complainers about support; for me they are helpful and more so if you are respectful and understanding!  Evernote is my workflow and as an independent consultant my workflow is my livelihood. 

[eafpres 111]

Having an issue running 6.5.4.4684 in Windows

I noticed the sync issue notification (little red circle with the exclamation point) was on

I tried manually syncing, no change

Checked the log--there are 12 notes that will not sync to Windows.  They are in web and in iOS

(note: I redacted 2 note names that reflect confidential material)

20170316 Evernote sync issue.txt

[eafpres 111]

13 minutes ago, eafpres said:

Checked the log--there are 12 notes that will not sync to Windows.  They are in web and in iOS

Update--the items mainly appear to have been deleted in Windows, but are not in trash in web.  I checked several and verified this.  I think there are a couple as well that were merged with other notes in Windows, but are not shown that way in web.

[eafpres 111]

56 minutes ago, eafpres said:

Update--the items mainly appear to have been deleted in Windows, but are not in trash in web.  I checked several and verified this.  I think there are a couple as well that were merged with other notes in Windows, but are not shown that way in web.

Update (2)--at least some of the items are ones that are shown as deleted in Windows, but appear in saved search results on a specific folder.  They do show the buttons indicating deleted with the option to restor or erase.  I had reported on an issue where this happens--deleted items showing up in search where (I thought) they should not.  More recently, it appeared the behavior was they would show up for a short amount of time, as deleted but in notebook scope search results, then go away.  However, there are a few that are perhaps legacy from previous version actions.  There are at least two I've identified that consistently are showing up on saved search but have been deleted for days.  And those two are among the 12 that aren't syncing from Windows to web (Windows has the most recent situation; the items were legitimately deleted but web doesn't show that).

[kvitekp 298]

1 hour ago, eafpres said:

Checked the log--there are 12 notes that will not sync to Windows.  They are in web and in iOS

 

Would it be possible to describe the history of these notes? I.e. were they created on this client or down synced to it? If the latter, what client they were created on and was OnDemand Sync enabled when they were down synced?

[eafpres 111]

23 minutes ago, kvitekp said:

Would it be possible to describe the history of these notes? I.e. were they created on this client or down synced to it? If the latter, what client they were created on and was OnDemand Sync enabled when they were down synced?

Here is one example:

The note with "Cobalt Power" in the title was created on 3/14 via email to Evernote, into my default noteobook, at 7:24 AM.  Later, I deleted it from the default folder at 1:10 PM.  I checked, and as far as I can tell, On-Demand Sync was on throughout this note's history.  I began trying On-Demand Sync around 3/8, based on reviewing this thread.

There is a small possibility it was turned off at some point in the timeline, as I was experimenting and documenting some issues, which your team has fixed.  

 

Here is another example:

The note with "Cypress Semiconductor" in the title was created on 3/11 via email to Evernote, into my default notebook, at 2:03 PM.  On 3/13 at 11:28 AM I merged it with several other notes on the same topic.  This particular one was not removed from the notebook on web, but was on Windows.  The content is correctly still in the merged note on both platforms.

Again, there is a small chance On-Demand Sync was off.

[kvitekp 298]

1 hour ago, eafpres said:

was created on 3/14 via email to Evernote

Looks like "created via email to Evernote" is common for those notes. Do you use some proprietary script or publically available service like CraigsList to send those emails?

[eafpres 111]

1 hour ago, kvitekp said:

Looks like "created via email to Evernote" is common for those notes. Do you use some proprietary script or publically available service like CraigsList to send those emails?

I use several methods.  The main ones are: IFTTT (if this then that), Zapier (like IFTTT but more robust), forward from gmail by filter (rules), Google alerts using my Evernote email, and registering my Evernote email on various sites that send email newsletters.

For these particular ones, the first two (Nvidia, and Cypress) are from Google Alerts (you can see that in the note title)

The remaining 10 are all direct emails from various sites (all 10 are from different sites)

At any given time I have from 20ish to 500ish notes in my default notebook that 99% come from these sorts of sources.  These 12 are the only ones showing any issues.  My guess is that it is a legacy issue caused somewhere updating versions.

I suggest I delete them on web, see if that clears the sync error, then monitor to see if it happens again.  Does that sound OK?

[ej8899 175]

2 hours ago, eafpres said:

I use several methods.  The main ones are: IFTTT (if this then that), Zapier (like IFTTT but more robust), forward from gmail by filter (rules), Google alerts using my Evernote email, and registering my Evernote email on various sites that send email newsletters.

For these particular ones, the first two (Nvidia, and Cypress) are from Google Alerts (you can see that in the note title)

The remaining 10 are all direct emails from various sites (all 10 are from different sites)

At any given time I have from 20ish to 500ish notes in my default notebook that 99% come from these sorts of sources.  These 12 are the only ones showing any issues.  My guess is that it is a legacy issue caused somewhere updating versions.

I suggest I delete them on web, see if that clears the sync error, then monitor to see if it happens again.  Does that sound OK?

I missed parts of the thread, but are these notes in your trash and the same machine isn't syncing?  Delete them "permanently" from the trash if so.  I had a sync issue when I was using folder imports and a couple of text documents were way too big.  Deleting didn't help, but permanent delete from the trash notebook solved it.  Appologies if you've already done that, I didn't read all the messages about this problem.

[eafpres 111]

 

44 minutes ago, ej8899 said:

I missed parts of the thread, but are these notes in your trash and the same machine isn't syncing?  Delete them "permanently" from the trash if so.  I had a sync issue when I was using folder imports and a couple of text documents were way too big.  Deleting didn't help, but permanent delete from the trash notebook solved it.  Appologies if you've already done that, I didn't read all the messages about this problem.

If it isn't resolved by deleting in web (which would, potentially, re-align the two systems), I'll try your suggestion.  For me,everything is working fine; new things are syncing, it is just these 12 notes.

[eafpres 111]

18 hours ago, eafpres said:

 

If it isn't resolved by deleting in web (which would, potentially, re-align the two systems), I'll try your suggestion.  For me,everything is working fine; new things are syncing, it is just these 12 notes.

Update

1) Deleted all unsynced items from notebook on web.  Also, it appeared that 3 notes were in the notebook on both platorms, but not syncing.  Deleted those on both platforms.  Did not change anything.

2) Expunged the notes on Windows.  In a couple cases, I could not determine the exact note as I can't sort by deleted data on web.  In those cases, I expunged all notes in a given series newer than anything in web trash.  This fixed 11 of the 12 notes.

3) Expunged all notes of the series that was still not synced.  Likely I had not expunged the offending note in (2).  Probelm resolved.

 

If it returns, I will document it.

[kvitekp 298]

@eafpres I believe we've reproduced and fixed the problem, please let me know if you'd like to receive the updated build for verification.

09:51:53 [8908] 0% Updating server items
09:54:38 [8908] 0% Updating server note "Screen clip 2", resource count: 1, content: 0 B
09:54:39 [8908] 0% * guid={344c1115-0ac3-47be-8e09-2ff04d826331}
09:54:44 [8908] 0% EDAMUserException: errorCode=DATA_REQUIRED parameter="Data.bodyHash"

 

[eafpres 111]

4 hours ago, kvitekp said:

@eafpres I believe we've reproduced and fixed the problem, please let me know if you'd like to receive the updated build for verification.

09:51:53 [8908] 0% Updating server items
09:54:38 [8908] 0% Updating server note "Screen clip 2", resource count: 1, content: 0 B
09:54:39 [8908] 0% * guid={344c1115-0ac3-47be-8e09-2ff04d826331}
09:54:44 [8908] 0% EDAMUserException: errorCode=DATA_REQUIRED parameter="Data.bodyHash"

 

Sure, I'd be happy to test it!  Thanks for the feedback, glad it was "real".

[eafpres 111]

System:

Windows 10

EN 6.5.4.4714

I'm seeing issues where images are not loading on new notes.  Attached the "bad" is from one that is new as of today, and "good" is a few days ago from the same source (different content, but format is the same).

I tested on web as well and there are issues there; will add those prints in a comment.

20170320 EN image problems bad.pdf

20170320 EN image problems good.pdf

[eafpres 111]

30 minutes ago, eafpres said:

"tested on web as well and there are issues there; will add those prints in a comment."

20170320 EN image problems web (Chrome).pdf

20170320 EN image problems web (IE).pdf

 

In these you can see there were issues in Chrome.  There were also issues in IE, but by the time I went back for the doc, the images were OK.  At the time I write this, the images in Chrome web are OK now a well.  But, in Windows still as shown earlier, including after manual sync.

[kvitekp 298]

1 hour ago, eafpres said:

I'm seeing issues where images are not loading on new notes.  Attached the "bad" is from one that is new as of today, and "good" is a few days ago from the same source (different content, but format is the same).

 

Reproduced -- investigating!

[gustavgi 308]

On ‎2017‎-‎03‎-‎13 at 5:08 PM, kvitekp said:

Done. Thank you for suggesting!

Speaking of size adaptability. Is is possible to make the preview "tooltip" box adapt to the longest name in the preview list instead of the current adaptability to either the length of the source name or the name of the first note in the preview list? This means that notes in the preview with longer note names are cut of if longer than the first two.

As the preview list sort the notes based on your current sort order, it is not possible to circumvent the issue if you are switching between different sorting orders.

 

[eafpres 111]

On 3/20/2017 at 10:07 AM, kvitekp said:

Reproduced -- investigating!

The issue is resolved in 6.5.4.4720

 

Thank you!

[kvitekp 298]

2 hours ago, eafpres said:

The issue is resolved in 6.5.4.4720

Thank you for all your help!

[eafpres 111]

Question with regard to expected behavior of 6.5.4.4720 with regard to syncing notes.

From earlier comments I thought that the applicaiton (Windows) will sync notes in the current note list view as a priority.  However, what I'm seeing is that, say, I'm doing a search in a notebook and it results in 6 notes.  I click the first one and it says "loading..." then the note appears shortly.  That is more or less as expected.  However, after viewing the 1st note for a minute or so, I click the next one, and it says "loading..."  This continues even after 10 minutes.  My expectation was that the remainder of the list which I am viewing would be synced by the time I click on them.

So I would just like to understand if thiis is expected, or am I observing an issue?

As always, thanks for the support.

[CalS 5,280]

4 hours ago, eafpres said:

So I would just like to understand if thiis is expected, or am I observing an issue?

I opted in for on demand sync on my backup laptop and rebuilt my free account to test it out.  I see the same behavior as you.  Notes are only downloaded as they are accessed.  

I do remember in the early days of the release some language from EN relative to intelligent, my term, downloading occurring without access, not sure what the rules were supposed to be.  Appears not at this point though.

[EdH 1,670]

I had On Demand Sync enabled in the previous beta and just saw that it was disabled after (3 days after ) installing beta 2. Please make that preference persistent across installs.

[jefito 5,589]

5 hours ago, eafpres said:

My expectation was that the remainder of the list which I am viewing would be synced by the time I click on them.

 

From Chantal's original topic post: "On demand sync: an option if you want note content to be downloaded only when you see the note in the note list." That might lead one to believe that your expectation was the right one. But I think it's more complicated than that:

On 2/15/2017 at 8:41 PM, kvitekp said:

For example, you just installed Evernote on a new computer and logged into your existing 10K notes / 10GB account. Before you'd have to wait a few hours for all your notes to get downloaded, however, with on-demand sync enabled, all your notes meta info will be downloaded in a few minutes and first dozen or so notes will appear in the note list view which will detect that these notes are not fully synced and request their content/resources from the server. These requests are served on multiple threads each having a dedicated connection to the service, so a few large notes won't block smaller notes from downloading. If you click on a partially synced note to get it into the note view, it will be downloaded with the priority higher than the notes requested from the note list.

Now let's say you started scrolling the note list down, so each note that appears in the note list view is added to the note content downloader request queue. This downloader is smart enough to confirm with the note list that the note it is about to download is still in the note list view and disregard requests for the notes you quickly scrolled away from. This way the client only downloads the notes you are actually looking at.

I boldfaced the parts that lead me to believe that just because a note appears in a note list that it will be fully downloaded. That wold imply that if you selected a notebook, then all of its notes would be downloaded, and I doubt that that's the intent. It's really to try to identify notes that you've been looking at (i.e., notes you select individually get higher priority) and download those fully. But hopefully Peter will chime in and set us all straight on that.

This question does make me wonder whether operations like "Download selection", "Download notebook", "Download note list" would be useful. I think they would, but it seems that Evernote is trying to make this facility pretty transparent with less UI involvement. Not for me to say either way, though.

 

 

[eafpres 111]

2 hours ago, jefito said:

That wold imply that if you selected a notebook, then all of its notes would be downloaded, and I doubt that that's the intent. It's really to try to identify notes that you've been looking at (i.e., notes you select individually get higher priority) and download those fully. But hopefully Peter will chime in and set us all straight on that.

Just to clarify, in my case I'm looking at a list of notes, none are scrolled away, and I work thorugh them clicking them in sequence.  So it seems to me that the stated design would have loaded the other notes by the time I clicked on them.  This statement "client only downloads the notes you are actually looking at" to me was meaning "notes you are seeing in your note list", not "notes you have clicked on".  But I could, of course, be wrong.

[kvitekp 298]

12 minutes ago, eafpres said:

Just to clarify, in my case I'm looking at a list of notes, none are scrolled away, and I work thorugh them clicking them in sequence.  So it seems to me that the stated design would have loaded the other notes by the time I clicked on them.  This statement "client only downloads the notes you are actually looking at" to me was meaning "notes you are seeing in your note list", not "notes you have clicked on".  But I could, of course, be wrong.

 

The above assumption is correct for Snippet, Card and Thumbnail note lists, but not for Table View. So if you are using a Table View, the expected behavior is to download a note only when you click on it. The reason for this is that table views usually have much higher note density so downloading all those notes implicitly may not be a good idea.

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour ago, kvitekp said:

The above assumption is correct for Snippet, Card and Thumbnail note lists, but not for Table View. So if you are using a Table View, the expected behavior is to download a note only when you click on it. The reason for this is that table views usually have much higher note density so downloading all those notes implicitly may not be a good idea.

Thanks for the insight.  On my monitor I get 10 notes in snippet, 16 in a 4 wide card view, as many as 50 in a 7 wide thumbnail view. and 44 in side list view.  Each view has its uses.  Just FYI.

[eafpres 111]

1 hour ago, kvitekp said:

The above assumption is correct for Snippet, Card and Thumbnail note lists, but not for Table View. So if you are using a Table View, the expected behavior is to download a note only when you click on it. The reason for this is that table views usually have much higher note density so downloading all those notes implicitly may not be a good idea.

Ah, that  expains my observations. I have settled into list view with side note panel.  My main use model makes this a good choice as I can sort quickly by created or modified, as well as title.  I just tested rapidly clicking down a list then starting again at the top, and they are all loaded by the time I get back to them.  So at least I have a workaround!

Thanks again for the support and for the information!

[EdH 1,670]

On 3/27/2017 at 1:24 PM, EdH said:

I had On Demand Sync enabled in the previous beta and just saw that it was disabled after (3 days after ) installing beta 2. Please make that preference persistent across installs.

Also, a few comments:

1. Love the new hollow circle to that shows the note has not been sync'd down beyond the header. 
2. Love that non-downloaded new notes show the note size
3. However, if you were on beta 1 and had undownloaded notes, those still show as zero bytes. Will that be cleaned up without forcing me to wipe my database and redownload?

[kvitekp 298]

34 minutes ago, EdH said:

However, if you were on beta 1 and had undownloaded notes, those still show as zero bytes. Will that be cleaned up without forcing me to wipe my database and redownload?

They won't be fixed automatically, sorry. Here's what you can do to fix them all:

• Click All Notes on the toolbar (or select Notebooks in the left panel) to get all notes into the note list
• Switch to Table View and sort note list by Sync column
• Select notes with the hollow circle mark (Shift+Click selection works)
• Cltr+Click Help menu item and choose "Fix Selected Notes"

[EdH 1,670]

45 minutes ago, kvitekp said:

They won't be fixed automatically, sorry. Here's what you can do to fix them all:

• Click All Notes on the toolbar (or select Notebooks in the left panel) to get all notes into the note list
• Switch to Table View and sort note list by Sync column
• Select notes with the hollow circle mark (Shift+Click selection works)
• Cltr+Click Help menu item and choose "Fix Selected Notes"

I don't have "Fix Selected Notes." I can "Fix Current Note" which only fixes the note with focus, or "I can fix all notes." SHould I do the latter, or wait for b3 which has the "Fix Selected Notes" feature? 

[kvitekp 298]

23 minutes ago, EdH said:

I don't have "Fix Selected Notes." I can "Fix Current Note" which only fixes the note with focus, or "I can fix all notes." SHould I do the latter, or wait for b3 which has the "Fix Selected Notes" feature? 

 

My bad, this change did not make it to the release build  

Please try fixing a single note and see if it will download content and resources instead of just fixing note size and if not, run the "fix all notes command".

[EdH 1,670]

1 hour ago, kvitekp said:

My bad, this change did not make it to the release build  

Please try fixing a single note and see if it will download content and resources instead of just fixing note size and if not, run the "fix all notes command".

Cannot fix a single note because when I select it to fix it, it downloads and corrects the 0byte column, thus self-fixing.

I can wait until b3. Just glad there is a path forward vs starting over.

[eafpres 111]

On 3/29/2017 at 10:20 AM, EdH said:

Love the new hollow circle to that shows the note has not been sync'd down beyond the header. 

I wasn't aware of this until you pointed it out. I've adjusted to have the sync column visible in my note list panel (side list).  That makes it easy for me to see if I want to "click ahead" to get notes to sync while I'm working on a long list.

Question--what is the tiny black dot that sometimes appears?  I can't perfectly match it to a scenario

[EdH 1,670]

50 minutes ago, eafpres said:

I wasn't aware of this until you pointed it out. I've adjusted to have the sync column visible in my note list panel (side list).  That makes it easy for me to see if I want to "click ahead" to get notes to sync while I'm working on a long list.

Question--what is the tiny black dot that sometimes appears?  I can't perfectly match it to a scenario

The black dot shows unsync'd notes. So make a change and the dot turns black. When EN sync's, it goes away. It is like the green triangle in iOS on a note.

[eafpres 111]

48 minutes ago, EdH said:

The black dot shows unsync'd notes. So make a change and the dot turns black. When EN sync's, it goes away. It is like the green triangle in iOS on a note.

Thanks.

[kvitekp 298]

On 3/29/2017 at 0:41 PM, EdH said:

I can wait until b3. Just glad there is a path forward vs starting over.

Great! BTW, the next beta will make the step in On-Demand Sync implementation: it will be able to purge content of the notes that were not viewed for a while. In this context "viewed" means opened in the note view or shown in the note list view. This prevents database with on-demand sync enabled from growing to 100%.

[EdH 1,670]

32 minutes ago, kvitekp said:

Great! BTW, the next beta will make the step in On-Demand Sync implementation: it will be able to purge content of the notes that were not viewed for a while. In this context "viewed" means opened in the note view or shown in the note list view. This prevents database with on-demand sync enabled from growing to 100%.

Sounds good. Is that a user setting? So I could set it to 1 month, or 6 months?

[ej8899 175]

Hey Evernote.. just wondering if there is a method I can use to create 'saved search' criteria, or even tags/notebook links into a note? Currently we can create external links (to web sites) and internal links to other notes.  But 'awesome' would be being able to create a link to "anything" within Evernote and paste that into a note.  I'm thinking that it can't be that difficult to implement can it (depending on how EN already parses internal note links I suppose).  Thoughts?

[keisoko 56]

 

Here some workarounds in meantime. With saved searches, one of the methods you can use is to create Table of Contents note. Then you can copy a note link of this note by pressing Ctrl+Alt+L and pasting it where you want. As to notebooks and tags, you can use ENScript.exe utility, which included with Evernote, to create the folder containing search shortcuts in Windows and then drag the prudent shortcut from this folder into the note you want. To illustrate the first method, here is the link to the ENScript.exe saved search Table of Contents note: http://www.evernote.com/l/AJnCjL0BL2VE260yC9gbEYe-V21TTTRAAyw/ with all the relevant ENScript.exe notes. Hope this will help you.

Here is a screenshot of a note, containing a couple of shortcuts created with ENScript.

[kvitekp 298]

14 hours ago, EdH said:

Sounds good. Is that a user setting? So I could set it to 1 month, or 6 months?

Yup, 1 day granularity.

[eafpres 111]

I wanted to provide an update to my user experience with 6.5.4.4720

I am seeing occasional "Not Responding".  However, they are brief.  I interpret this as the dev team is making smart tradeoffis in syncing etc.  On-demand sync definitely helps, I think.

I had reported previously that when RAM utilization exceeded 60% that EN would grind to a halt, hang, etc.  This appears to no longer be the case.  A result is that my system is more stable on the whole.  This is a great thing for me.  I have one test I plan to run and will update again.  I have noted in the past that my lenovo suffers in part from a mediocre hard drive, which has some un-intelligent firmware that causes performance issues.  This seemed to exacerbate the EN issues.  As part of trying to improve this, I acquried a sotware called Diskeeper.  There is an option in that software to dynamically use RAM for caching beyond what would occur normally.  The idea behind Diskeeper is to more intelligently manage read/write behavior to improve system performance.  Unfortunately, when the caching was engaged, it took RAM utilization way up, and EN would hang.  With this latest version, I will try again and report back.

Happy Friday!

[EdH 1,670]

BUG:

Editing a hyperlink replaces the text.

I had a link to another note in Evernote but used the hyperlink feature (vs pasting the link and letting Evernote put the green link in). I later merged some notes and wanted that to be behind the hyperlink. Right-Clicked the text with the hyperlink, clicked EDIT, pasted the new link in. The hyperlink and text were changed. Only the hyperlink should have changed.

Only workaround I can find is to remove the hyperlink first, then add a hyperlink.

[jefito 5,589]

1 hour ago, eafpres said:

As part of trying to improve this, I acquried a sotware called Diskeeper.  There is an option in that software to dynamically use RAM for caching beyond what would occur normally.  The idea behind Diskeeper is to more intelligently manage read/write behavior to improve system performance.  Unfortunately, when the caching was engaged, it took RAM utilization way up, and EN would hang.  With this latest version, I will try again and report back.

Ugh. Sounds like just another product that promises to make your computer go super fast by doing things that your operating system already does for you. If it's just going to chew up RAM, then that takes it away from the OS's supply for managing its virtual memory system. Unsurprising that it didn't help. Defraggers, "*****" cleaners? Bah, not on my systems.

[EdH 1,670]

37 minutes ago, jefito said:

Sounds like just another product that promises to make your computer go super fast by doing things that your operating system already does for you

Diskeeper is actually a reputable product, or was. They have since been acquired by Condusiv, whom I've never heard of. DK was the original defragger for Windows NT and it was critical to have. I've seen servers not boot due to heavy defragmentation in the past.

Less and less important in the age of SSD's, and all MS Windows products have built in defraggers that are usually "good enough."

But yeah, the RAM thing sounds sketchy.

[eafpres 111]

1 hour ago, EdH said:

But yeah, the RAM thing soun

The RAM usage is only an issue if some apps become sensitive to available RAM.  I don't know why EN was behaving that way for me before, but it isn't now.  Diskeeper seems to be well behaved in that it dynamically uses RAM if it is otherwise available.  So far, my system including EN is happy with 81% RAM in use, which was crippling before.  

What I'm waiting to see is if, once Diskeeper catches up and is managing caching etc., do the minor "Not Responding" events go away or not.  That would be a very nice result, but I'll see and report back.

[CalS 5,280]

4 hours ago, eafpres said:

I have noted in the past that my lenovo suffers in part from a mediocre hard drive, which has some un-intelligent firmware that causes performance issues.

Ever consider an SSD?  I think you can get a 240 GB drive for $100 plus or minus (cost me $240 four years ago).  Though there is wide variability in ease of replacing by machine, I think most Lenovos are on the easier end (slides out from the side).  Cloning software works well also.  Just another option.

[eafpres 111]

18 minutes ago, csihilling said:

Ever consider an SSD?  I think you can get a 240 GB drive for $100 plus or minus (cost me $240 four years ago).  Though there is wide variability in ease of replacing by machine, I think most Lenovos are on the easier end (slides out from the side).  Cloning software works well also.  Just another option.

The migration is what is holding me back.  It takes a long time to get everything just right on these Windows machines.  I have not personally tried to clone.  I'm worried about the registry in such a migration.  Have you done it successfully?  I've been considering taking my laptop to a professional to upgrade the drive, but that still make me nervous.  I have been considering this for at least a year.  I guess if I keep waiting it will be time for a new laptop soon.

[CalS 5,280]

12 minutes ago, eafpres said:

The migration is what is holding me back.  It takes a long time to get everything just right on these Windows machines.  I have not personally tried to clone.  I'm worried about the registry in such a migration.  Have you done it successfully?  I've been considering taking my laptop to a professional to upgrade the drive, but that still make me nervous.  I have been considering this for at least a year.  I guess if I keep waiting it will be time for a new laptop soon.

I did it myself in 2013.  Got a Corsair Force Series 3 from Amazon, not promoting the product just being specific.  It came with the cloning software and connector.  Did the clone, swapped the drive, never noticed a difference other than the major speed improvement in EN and everything else.  

Using the same Lenovo today and it is still fast, 8GB of RAM.   YMMV. 

[eafpres 111]

Thanks!  I'll look into it more seriously.  I know it will make a big difference.  When I got this machine, I was misled (my fault) by the specs which show a SSHD, which is bascially just a drive with some dedicted cache.  And, it turns out not a very well implemented one!

[gazumped 11,652]

Hmmn.  Here's something that no longer works..  I have a series of notes with attached CSV files that I wish to save to a folder,  then merge into one spreadsheet and exclude duplications.  This the Win 10 laptop that has sync on demand activated.  All of the notes (32 of them) have an associated size,  and no dot or circle in the sync column - so I assume they're all locally available.  Select all notes and 'save attachments' (either right-click or the pop-up menu) and.... nothing happens.  Not all files actually have attachments - about 6 are just text,  but still...

Select one file with a definite attachment and try 'save attachments' again - nada.  Nothing saved.

Try several files with attachments - same result.

It appears not possible to extract these attachments other than by opening each note one by one...

[CalS 5,280]

1 hour ago, eafpres said:

Thanks!  I'll look into it more seriously.  I know it will make a big difference.  When I got this machine, I was misled (my fault) by the specs which show a SSHD, which is bascially just a drive with some dedicted cache.  And, it turns out not a very well implemented one!

You are welcome.  Need anything PM me if you like.

[eafpres 111]

11 hours ago, kvitekp said:

Yup, 1 day granularity.

So is it determined that local database size is related to performance issues?  Are you referring to local or server dB? (I'm assuming local since the server is the definitive copy). We've had dialogue that the dB size isn't that large. Also if already synced how does that impact things?

[jefito 5,589]

23 hours ago, EdH said:

Less and less important in the age of SSD's, and all MS Windows products have built in defraggers that are usually "good enough."

Exactly. It's not necessarily an issue of reputability, it's actual utility in the face of better OS capabilities. Norton Utilities ca. 1983 or so was a lifesaver and a necessity. In these days, it's strictly in the category of "I don't need any of this".

I do love me some SSD these days...

 

[EdH 1,670]

17 hours ago, eafpres said:

So is it determined that local database size is related to performance issues?  Are you referring to local or server dB? (I'm assuming local since the server is the definitive copy). We've had dialogue that the dB size isn't that large. Also if already synced how does that impact things?

I am not sure if it is size, number of notes, or composition of notes (attachments vs note text for example) but I can confirm since switching my PC to On Demand Sync, no UI freezes. My DB was north of 8GB with nearly 19,000 notes.

My Mac, on the other hand, has them all locally and no problems. The db they use for Windows though is just not up to the task. On Demand Sync resolves that for me, but at the cost of having everything locally available.

I think if everything is sync'd, and this new setting is enabled, it will start removing local content not touched in X days, so your DB should begin to shrink itself.

That will be painful to see I think as the vacuum process the DB does to shrink itself is one of the worst ways to lock the UI for a period of time. But at least it is moving in the right direction.

Though I wish they would just switch to another database. I've hoped for that for years. Given these new features though they seem committed to this database format on Windows. 

 

[JMichaelTX 4,117]

9 minutes ago, EdH said:

Though I wish they would just switch to another database. I've hoped for that for years. Given these new features though they seem committed to this database format on Windows.

I'm not sure if it is the actual brand of SQL database, or the DB design.  I believe both EN Win and EN Mac use SQLite.

EN Mac stores ONLY the Note metadata (and minor admin stuff) in the DB, and stores the actual Note contents and attachments in folders/files.  So the actual SQLite DB is very small.  This has lots of advantages, including making incremental backups feasible.

[jefito 5,589]

 

[eafpres 111]

On 2/28/2017 at 6:29 PM, kvitekp said:

If you set  HKCU/Software/Evernote/Evernote/LargeResourceThreshold to 1, all resources larger than 1MB will be stored in a subfolder named <your_database_name>.exb.attachments. Your main database file will become smaller and it will take less time to vacuum it. This should prevent those unresponsive application states.

Reading back through I wonder if I should play with this setting?

I'm a bit nervous about the idea that local stuff could be removed in the future case using the setting to get rid of local data that hasn't been viewed for a configurable amount of time. If I change this setting to push more to the subdirectory will that content stay regardless of the time since last viewing setting?

in reality I probably won't care about local or not as s lot of stuff I do is in the cloud anyway.  So I mainly want to figure out optimized settings.

 

[EdH 1,670]

3 hours ago, JMichaelTX said:

I'm not sure if it is the actual brand of SQL database, or the DB design.  I believe both EN Win and EN Mac use SQLite.

EN Mac stores ONLY the Note metadata (and minor admin stuff) in the DB, and stores the actual Note contents and attachments in folders/files.  So the actual SQLite DB is very small.  This has lots of advantages, including making incremental backups feasible.

I wish they would do the same on the PC. My MacBook (the new one with the anemic processor) runs circles around an i5 Surface Pro 4 with a 512 SSD. 

That is messed up. 

[CalS 5,280]

3 hours ago, eafpres said:

Reading back through I wonder if I should play with this setting?

As others, I don't know the heart of the issue for those that have it:  note count, word count, DB size, RAM, CPU, EN software inefficiencies, whatever.  Just know that I have no response issues with17GB and 32,300 notes, 17,500 of which contain PDFs.

I think it is RAM and SSD that makes it work for me, may be just a use case thing.  Broken record, but the brute force fix for me was SSD.  EN lagged before that and doesn't now.  

[ej8899 175]

On the issues/concerns of performance... I have four laptops running Evernote (along with two tablets - one android, and one ios, and two android phones)  

I have roughly 25,000 notes with a 10gb database size.   Some are text documents, some are documents with PDFs, some are web clippings, some are just photos, some are photos of hand written notes.   My worst performing laptop is a 2012 Lenovo with a troublesome hard drive (similar to problems to @eafpres described).  Here Evernote lags, and sometimes seems to even stall out for a minute or so.  I'd just as soon toss this laptop (soon actually, it's my day-job laptop, and I'm over due for a replacement). 

My next 'worst' performing laptop is a 2009-era Acer Aspire with 8gb ram, but I did install a 256gb SSD quite some time ago - absolutely no performance issues at all, Evernote responds quite well for such an old laptop.  I then have a Panasonic toughbook with 8GB ram, 256 gb SSD (no issues), and finally a Surface Pro 4 i7 with 16gb RAM and a 1tb SSD - needless to say, Evernote responds almost instantly with never a stutter.

In summary, same database, same notes - different computers - the only one that gives me grief is the one with a mechanical  hard drive - but then, that hard drive is on its way out anyway - sometimes it gets stuck even booting up.

[EdH 1,670]

If I could just reiterate for those searching with Demand Sync enabled, please give us some visual indicator that:

• The search is still happening - it happens in 2 stages
  • local search - lightening fast - searches all note subjects, tags, and locally stored note bodies
  • cloud search - to search through the rest of my note bodies not locally stored. - not lightening fast. Not even super fast by today's standards, however, it would be totally tolerable if there was an indicator that it was still searching. The moving dots from left to right seems to be the latest fad, but w/e.
• The search isn't complete - this can be very dangerous
  • if the PC is offline, or Evernote's servers are not responding for whatever reason (weekly maint, etc), then the search only returns:
    • notes that meet the search via the subject line
    • notes that meet the search via the tags
    • notes that meet the search via the other header info (modified date for example)
    • notes that meet the search via the note body if locally stored.
  • Note bodies that are not locally stored are obviously not searched, but the search results give you no indication that happened.

[eafpres 111]

 

6 hours ago, EdH said:

If I could just reiterate for those searching with Demand Sync enabled, please give us some visual indicator that:

• The search is still happening - it happens in 2 stages
  • local search - lightening fast - searches all note subjects, tags, and locally stored note bodies
  • cloud search - to search through the rest of my note bodies not locally stored. - not lightening fast. Not even super fast by today's standards, however, it would be totally tolerable if there was an indicator that it was still searching. The moving dots from left to right seems to be the latest fad, but w/e.
• The search isn't complete - this can be very dangerous
  • if the PC is offline, or Evernote's servers are not responding for whatever reason (weekly maint, etc), then the search only returns:
    • notes that meet the search via the subject line
    • notes that meet the search via the tags
    • notes that meet the search via the other header info (modified date for example)
    • notes that meet the search via the note body if locally stored.
  • Note bodies that are not locally stored are obviously not searched, but the search results give you no indication that happened.

This is problematic to me if a full description of what is happening.  

For my main use model, I can see notes I'm trying to search (they are new) and if they are synced (the circle thing).  But I also often search existing content.  Going back to the other thread about the upcoming feature to delete local content that isn't used recently, this could blow up my business if I miss things I should find in search that have "expired".

This could be especially problematic for notes I have sent directly into notebooks (instead of the default, which I use as an "inbox").  I route notes based on topic/content and expect they will be in search results in the future, even if I have never read them before.

I think I can work around this by more or less negating the benefits of on-demand sync, by ensuring that new stuff is synced, then contorolling settings to ensure nothing ever expires.  The problem would remain for directly filed notes, so I'm concerned about that.

Anyone care to straighten me out?

[EdH 1,670]

Circled things are not synced. Only header. Dots are pending a local change to be synced back to server. Blanks are fully synced. 

Search does everything synced or not but only if online and the cloud search of the circles is slower to respond. 5-15 seconds perhaps but no indication that the search is still working after local results returned. 

[CalS 5,280]

Stating the obvious, but it seems to me unless you have disk space or performance issues there isn't much upside to on demand sync.  If you have either problem then a good tool to have in the kit, other than the search lag.

[EdH 1,670]

1 hour ago, csihilling said:

Stating the obvious, but it seems to me unless you have disk space or performance issues there isn't much upside to on demand sync.  If you have either problem then a good tool to have in the kit, other than the search lag.

Agreed. It is a hacked workaround I wish I didn't need on my Windows PC. My Mac works fine and even if On Demand Sync comes to Mac, I won't be enabling it there given current good performance.

[eafpres 111]

On 4/3/2017 at 0:55 PM, EdH said:

Agreed. It is a hacked workaround I wish I didn't need on my Windows PC. My Mac works fine and even if On Demand Sync comes to Mac, I won't be enabling it there given current good performance.

I wanted to post an update.  I have reverted back to *NOT* on-demand sync.  The reason for me is the behavior where notes that were synced locally are being removed from the local dB, so when I access them later, I have to wait through "loading".  My use model is I clip and store tons of information on various topics, including a lot of PDFs but other things just as note content.  I constantly search and review notes in the search results.  There isn't much of a predictable pattern, so I'm seeing often the open circles on content previously available.  The performance hit there was too much for me.

Having said that, the issues I had before with extreme sensitivity to RAM utilization seem to have been abated.  I have no idea why.  Perhpas the issue will return once my dB is fully populated again.

Bottom line, on-demand sync for new stuff was good, but pruning the dB is not good.  I realize there are issues in the Evernote dB setup for Windows.  I really appreciate the efforts to improve, but this one doesn't work for me.

[eafpres 111]

Reporting a bug.  It has been around for a while, just getting around to reporting it.  EN 6.5.4.4720 on Windows 10 lenovo Y50 laptop.  The deleted notes should not reappear.  Note that this is a search, and it is scoped to one notebook, so once they are on the trash, they should not appear in this search.  I believe the same thing happens without a search, but I'm reporting it as I found it.

 

[eafpres 111]

Not sure if this is the best place to post a suggestion on this version, or if I should post to the 6.5 GA, but here goes:

I would like to see on-demand sync be a notebook property, meaning I could select only certain notebooks to be handled on-demand, and leave the others alone.  I think such a feature would allow users to apply on-demand sync to less active folders, for example.  In my case, I have a lot of material coming into my default notebook from external sources (emails).  The bugs I have reported notwithstanding, I could apply it only to that notebook and it would significantly improve performance, without de-syncing my other notebooks.  I could learn to work around the downsides (for me) if it were limted to a few notebooks.

[eafpres 111]

I found a bug regarding merging notes that are not synced:  I sent this to support, but if it is real, then those of you using on-demand sync could probably repro.  If you don't merge things, this is irrelevant.

EN Windows 6.5.4.4720
Windows 10
lenovo Y50

Previously I had enabled on-demand sync
I discontinued using as I had issues with waiting for notes to load
After de-enabling, some notes were un-synced (hollow circle icon), both recent, and past history
Performed a merge of several notes in one notebook where some were not synced
Expected result: EN would load the notes, then sync, then place source notes in trash
Actual result: EN merged to an incomplete result
I verified this by inspecting notes in the trash
Some I had to wait for "loading...." to complete (in trash)
After that, I found there were fewer entries in the merged note than in all the original notes
Also, the merged note has the headers in odd sequence--in some areas of the resulting (merged) note, there are several headers without content all in a row
There is also one "extra" note in the trash with partially merged content.

[eafpres 111]

6 hours ago, eafpres said:

I sent this to support, but if it is real, then those of you using on-demand sync could probably repro.

Support confirmed this is a real issue and has been added to their queue to fix.