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VERY Slow: Evernote is Very Slow...


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Hi everyone, 

I've been trying to solve this problem for a very long time now. 

Evernote is very slow when I use it. When I type into my Evernote notes it's very slow and will often become "Not responding" for at least 10 seconds.

I'm running the most recent version of Evernote on my Windows 10 Pro PC.

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, but that didn't help. 

Thank you for any help!

 

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You can try some cleanup processes.  While holding the Ctrl key press the Help menu.  Then select the options highlighted below.  You can also turn off context (Tools - Options - Note, be sure and have Show advanced options checked).

Image.png.00cbbe8afc097aceabe6a96e266a74f9.png

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19 minutes ago, Juggy said:

Thanks!

Is there another way I can try to fix this problem? I'm just worried your method will damage my notes in Evernote somehow...?

 

You are welcome.  Well, I would be reasonably assured that the method won't damage your notes.  Other fixes are to rebuild your data from the servers (exporting any local notebooks so they can be imported after) or converting to a solid state disk.  I did the latter some years back and have had no speed issues since, YMMV.

In any case, low risk to run the optimizes in the help menu as a first step.  Less work too.  ;)

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  • 3 weeks later...

Your reply is much appreciated!

Evernote just completed the "Optimize Database" but I'm worried about doing the other two options you suggested as I don't want my notes to be damaged... :(

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Okay my Evernote app on my Windows 10 PC has been running the "Optimize Database" option for 10 minutes now and Evernote is not responding. 

 

I'm unable to do anything inside Evernote as it's not responding.

What can I do?

 

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Okay Evernote is now responding and it seems that it's finished "Optimizing Database."

Evernote didn't display that it successfully completed "Optimizing Database"... is it supposed to notify me that it was successful...???

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14 hours ago, Juggy said:

Your reply is much appreciated!

Evernote just completed the "Optimize Database" but I'm worried about doing the other two options you suggested as I don't want my notes to be damaged... :(

You are welcome.  Don't run those options now, go ahead and see if EN performance is improved.

13 hours ago, Juggy said:

Okay Evernote is now responding and it seems that it's finished "Optimizing Database."

Evernote didn't display that it successfully completed "Optimizing Database"... is it supposed to notify me that it was successful...???

i believe it just finishes.  I did an optimize recently and it took over an hour for 33k notes.  Is your EN running better on the PC?

 

 

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2 hours ago, Juggy said:

Thank you!

My Evernote app on my PC is now running a bit better, but it still becomes unresponsive every now and again.

What else can I try to do?

1. Upgrade your hard disk to SSD

2. Downgrade your Evernote to 4.x

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8 minutes ago, actant said:

1. Upgrade your hard disk to SSD

2. Downgrade your Evernote to 4.x

Thanks, but I doubt the slowness I'm experiencing is because of my hard drive or even because of the Evernote version I'm running. 

Is there another way I can make Evernote more responsive?

Thank you!

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An SSD is not always guaranteed to prevent slowness in Evernote anyway...

As a minor tweak you could try changing the search as you type delay (Tools > Options > Search) to '0' which effectively switches it off.  Type your search term and hit 'enter' to search.

Likewise in Synchronization - leave sync changes on exit but delete all other ticks except sync automatically,  and change that to hourly.

If those have no effect,  and provided you have no local notebooks,  you could consider exiting Evernote,  renaming the databases folder and restarting - that rebuilds not only the search index,  but also the entire database from the server.  Depending on the number of notes you have,  this can take a while.

(If you do have local notebooks it's necessary to export them from the account into ENEX files - one per notebook - and then re-import into the rebuilt database on completion.)

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks, but Evernote is still running very slowly... it stops responding for a few seconds at a time and it makes it almost impossible to use... :(

I'm going to try and uninstall and install the latest Evernote.

Is there anything else I can try if it's still slow after the re-install?

My PC has 6GB of RAM, an Intel quad core CPU and I can run games and every other app I want with no speed issues so it's not my PC.

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12 hours ago, Juggy said:

Thanks, but Evernote is still running very slowly... it stops responding for a few seconds at a time and it makes it almost impossible to use... :(

I'm going to try and uninstall and install the latest Evernote.

Is there anything else I can try if it's still slow after the re-install?

My PC has 6GB of RAM, an Intel quad core CPU and I can run games and every other app I want with no speed issues so it's not my PC.

Some background would help as to when the slow downs occur, eg, type of editing, the same notes, big notes, any notes, size of DB, number of notes, etc.

In the mean time, some thoughts re settings to look at (Tools - Options with Show advanced options checked):

  1. If you have Enable instant sync checked, try unchecking it.  It works fine for me but others say it impacted their machine performance.
  2. Set your Synchronize automatically window to 15 minutes or more.
  3. As long as you don't have disk space issues, if you have Enable on demand sync checked, uncheck it and uncheck Purge rarely viewed note content if it is checked.
  4. Change Automatically save edited note every to something like 300 seconds or more.100 seconds.
  5. If Show context is checked, uncheck it.
  6. Change Search as you type delay to 50 milliseconds or more.
  7. You could uncheck Check spelling as you type, I doubt that has anything to do with it, but who knows maybe you have a fringe case.

From a cleanup perspective, use the Ctrl - Help menu:

  1. Fix all notes
  2. Optimize data base

Lastly, if you don't have any local notebooks, sign out of Evernote, move your data base to the desktop, and then sign back into Evernote.  Your data base will then be rebuilt from the server.

Lastly lastly, consider an SSD drive.  I'm not one typically in favor of hardware solutions to software issues, but an SSD does seem to eliminate most response issues with EN.  It has for me, no speed issues with 34k notes, 16GB data base on a 4 year old laptop with 8GB of memory.  Let us know how it goes.

EDIT:  Just found out the limit is 100 seconds.  Don't know if this is new or not, I thought I had been setting mine to 300, but not so.

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Just saying - I have two laptops.  My 'main' system has the standard setup,  and just went over 40,000 notes.  I'm beginning to notice now that Evernote takes a moment or three to max out my disk activity for 30 seconds or so - usually when I am in the middle of trying to do something and it's least convenient to take a time-out.  My backup system runs the 'on demand sync' route and with the 'purge' option ticked (which I only just noticed..) has a database of less than 300MB.  And no timeouts.  At all. 

On demand sync means virtually every note gets downloaded from the server - only recent new or edited versions are stored locally - so it can take longer to open a note.  But I don't see any delays in finding them any more....

Just sayin'...

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3 hours ago, gazumped said:

Just saying - I have two laptops.  My 'main' system has the standard setup,  and just went over 40,000 notes.  I'm beginning to notice now that Evernote takes a moment or three to max out my disk activity for 30 seconds or so - usually when I am in the middle of trying to do something and it's least convenient to take a time-out.  My backup system runs the 'on demand sync' route and with the 'purge' option ticked (which I only just noticed..) has a database of less than 300MB.  And no timeouts.  At all. 

On demand sync means virtually every note gets downloaded from the server - only recent new or edited versions are stored locally - so it can take longer to open a note.  But I don't see any delays in finding them any more....

Just sayin'...

Yeah, but last gasp I think based upon whether you use off line access on a laptop for and how concerned you are about accidental note deletes (my assumption being that the ENEX does not include the note bodies for notes that aren't "current").  Good to know there isn't any search lag anymore with on demand, seemed there was some in the beginning.

So if one doesn't ever work off line much and isn't concerned about the accidental delete, then on demand can make a lot of sense.  I would be all over on demand if a recover deleted note feature was added to the mix (not just Trash).  I haven't needed to recover often, but when I have...   :mellow:

EDIT:  Just read another post that states maybe search still takes a bit longer when using on demand.  If that's the case I would add it to the reasons not switch to on demand, if you have the disk space and speed is otherwise a non issue.

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@Juggy

A post from another thread that modifies network settings to control how EN accesses the Internet in the background.  May be worth a look for you.  I have not tried.  If you do, let us know if this helps.

 

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On 8/16/2017 at 2:22 AM, csihilling said:

Some background would help as to when the slow downs occur, eg, type of editing, the same notes, big notes, any notes, size of DB, number of notes, etc.

In the mean time, some thoughts re settings to look at (Tools - Options with Show advanced options checked):

  1. If you have Enable instant sync checked, try unchecking it.  It works fine for me but others say it impacted their machine performance.
  2. Set your Synchronize automatically window to 15 minutes or more.
  3. As long as you don't have disk space issues, if you have Enable on demand sync checked, uncheck it and uncheck Purge rarely viewed note content if it is checked.
  4. Change Automatically save edited note every to something like 300 seconds or more.100 seconds.
  5. If Show context is checked, uncheck it.
  6. Change Search as you type delay to 50 milliseconds or more.
  7. You could uncheck Check spelling as you type, I doubt that has anything to do with it, but who knows maybe you have a fringe case.

From a cleanup perspective, use the Ctrl - Help menu:

  1. Fix all notes
  2. Optimize data base

Lastly, if you don't have any local notebooks, sign out of Evernote, move your data base to the desktop, and then sign back into Evernote.  Your data base will then be rebuilt from the server.

Lastly lastly, consider an SSD drive.  I'm not one typically in favor of hardware solutions to software issues, but an SSD does seem to eliminate most response issues with EN.  It has for me, no speed issues with 34k notes, 16GB data base on a 4 year old laptop with 8GB of memory.  Let us know how it goes.

EDIT:  Just found out the limit is 100 seconds.  Don't know if this is new or not, I thought I had been setting mine to 300, but not so.

Wow, your reply is much appreciated!

I did everything as you suggested.

However, when I clicked "Fix all notes" nothing happened?

Buying an SSD isn't an option for me.

 

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I'm now very worried about this:

I just changed the options you suggested in "Synchronization" but now I see an exclamation point (looks like an error) on top of the "Sync" button...

 

EDIT: 

I also did a complete uninstall of Evernote and then downloaded and installed the newest Evernote installer file from evernote.com, but it didn't fix the problem... :(

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In all notes context hold the Ctrl key and press sync.  This should show if you have any notes that aren’t syncing (mostly the issue when you get the changed sync icon).  Modify the notes and then try to sync again.  

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What would happen to the notes I've created in Evernote since the last time I was able to sync successfully? 

I first had this exclamation point appear on top of the "Sync" button early this morning...

I'm just worried that if I reboot my PC I'll lose all of the notes I've created today... :(:(:(   

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Hi.  All your notes are saved on your local hard drive,  so provided you don't do any editing on another device,  they'll be synced to the server next time Evernote has the chance to connect.  The one thing to beware of is that a more recent version of an edited note,  saved from another device,  will overwrite what's on your hard drive when all the syncs are put together.  A view or edit from 1 hour ago,  trumps any previous views or edits as being the most up to date version of that note.

I've gone without syncing for a few days (internet issues) with no problems (that I found yet...)

If Evernote seems to be working normally,  it's finished fixing any issues.  Just try File > Exiting normally and let it do a final sync / save.  Exit without syncing if you have to - the database will still be up to date.

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Your reply is much appreciated!

 

I'm still having the same problem where my "Sync" button has an exclamation point on top of it.

I haven't exited Evernote just in case it doesn't save the changes I've made... :(

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You shouldn't have anything to worry about if you're using the installed desktop version - the notes will be saved to your hard drive and marked as 'unsynced' until your connection comes back,  whether or not Evernote is running.

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If you're using the installed desktop version they're already saved into your database.  As an extra level of security you could export them to one or more ENEX files,  one per notebook.  Start with a List View of your notes and look for the Sync column.  Click on the title at the top to sort your notes with synced notes at the top (or bottom).  You're looking for UNsynced notes with dots in that column like the ones I circled below.  If you don't see dots, they may be at the bottom of the list.  Click the title again to sort the other way.

If you don't see the Sync column at all,  right click in the titles line to get a list of columns you can add to this view.

For a quick save,  just highlight all the notes with dots and use File Export (to Enex) - check the options carefully so you export tags too.  Notebook detail isn't saved with the notes,  so if you have a lot of notes in different notebooks it's better to save a separate file for each notebook.

(And the reason I have a note created in 2999 is so it sorts first in the Created list and it's called TOP for obvious reasons...:))

ScreenClip.png.eba7538b6d95d4d5f3198a4412aa913f.png

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That's becoming a circular discussion -

  1. provided your notes have saved back to the local database,  they're safely recorded on your hard drive and will not disappear.
  2. check your notes in List view and sort by created / updated dates to see the most recent - look for the 'dot' in the Sync column to confirm which ones haven't yet been saved back to the server.  If you see these notes in List view,  that's further confirmation that they're safe.
  3. for absolute certainty you won't lose the content however,  export the notes to one or more ENEX files - ideally one for each notebook that these notes are in.  If you do lose the content later,  you'll be able to recover it from here.
  4. check online if you like,  by signing in to Evernote.com in your browser,  whether any of the notes has somehow been saved to the server,  despite the "!" warning (that might apply to only one note)
  5. go through the fixes page to see whether you can reset the sync function - but the easiest way to jumpstart the process is usually just to restart everything.  Sign out of Evernote and power cycle the PC.  As long as you have seen these notes in your database,  and have exported the content to ENEX,  it's impossible to lose them.

If you still have any reservations,  I can only suggest that you contact support directly on https://www.evernote.com/SupportLogin.action if you're a paying customer,  tweet https://twitter.com/evernotehelps if not. 

 

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Thank you so much!

Is it possible for me to see which Evernote notes haven't been synced?

If I can, then I'll take an extra step in securing my files by copying and pasting the contents of the Evernote notes to a separate .TXT file in Microsoft Notepad.

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Big problem:

I just tried using the "Fix notes" option in Evernote and I lost all of the notes I made today...

Now I'm very sad... :(

EDIT:

I just exited Evernote, but I still have the exclamation point on top of the "Sync" button... :( 

I might try and re-install Evernote to see if that helps.

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Is there any way for me to get back the data that I lost today???

I only entered new data inside one Evernote note, but I entered a lot of data that's now not showing up inside the Evernote note... :( 

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Update:

I just uninstalled Evernote and then downloaded the newest installer from evernote.com and installed that, but I still have the same problem... :(

I just hope there's a way I can retrieve the notes that I lost... :( 

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Hi again.  If your full note content isn't showing as part of the original notes I'm afraid there's probably no way to recover it.  Check for a 'Conflicting changes' notebook in case a more up to date copy of the note exists there,  have a look via Evernote.com to see if the changes were synced to the web,  and have a look in the Trash Notebook in case the longer version was deleted.  If there's nothing in those three places then I'm afraid your content is gone.  Did you make any sort of backup of your system or of the note database as we suggested?  :(

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Your reply is much appreciated! 

I checked the "Trash" in Evernote and there's no mention of this particular Evernote note that I had been working on today. 

I tried using evernote.com and that doesn't have this Evernote note either... 

"Conflicting changes" also doesn't have it...

I was about to back it up but before I backed up this particular Evernote note I tried the "Fix note" function and this must have deleted it but it didn't tell me it was going to delete any of my notes... :(

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There must have been a problem with that note,  or part of the content - which may have been contributing to your sync issue.  I sympathise that the content is gone,  despite all your efforts - did you manage to get the PC to sync eventually?

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Juggy, if you get your client to sync again and you find that the client is still slow and freezing up often, you might want to try my workaround which has solved the slow Windows client problem for many of us.  

Instructions to implement the workaround that fixed the slow Windows client can be found here: http://www.evernote.com/l/ALrsBe2IrjdFfbGIOZYVpxRJAOUnjFZD2f4/

Discussion relating to this problem and the workaround can be found in this thread: 

Cheers.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
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Hi @Juggy

Let's go back to basics.  Forgive me if I repeat questions you've answered before,  but I don't want to have to go back through 3 pages of posts to try and get the story straght in my head.

What version of Windows are you running (I'm assuming this problem is with a desktop or a laptop)

Do you have Internet Explorer (Or MS Edge) installed?  Can you see the Evernote home page at Evernote.com in your (IE or Edge) browser window?

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I'm still unable to sync to sync... :(:(  

I'm running Windows 10 Pro and it's fully updated. 

I haven't even restarted my PC because then I'd have to exit Evernote...

I'm using Chrome as my web browser, but yes I have Microsoft Edge installed as well.

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I'm still unable to sync which is making Evernote unusable for me...

Any other ideas would be much appreciated! 

 

:( 

EDIT: 

I've just tried deleting the Evernote note that I believed was making Evernote unable to sync, but I'm still getting the same error..

EDIT 2:

I just exited the Evernote client on my Windows 10 Pro PC, but I'm still unable to sync...

Does this mean the notes I create from now on won't be saved??? :(:( 

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  • 2 weeks later...
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  1. If you have any local notebooks export the notes in them by notebook to ENEX files.  
  2. Log out of EN.  
  3. Move your  .EXB file to the desktop.  
  4. Log back into EN and your data base will get rebuilt.  
  5. Import any local notebooks that you exported after your data base is rebuilt.
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1 hour ago, Juggy said:

Your reply is appreciated, but how will Evernote know that it needs to "rebuild my data base"???

Thanks!

 

That’s how it works.  EN builds a database from the server if one does not exist when you log in.

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5 hours ago, Juggy said:

Thanks! 

I just logged out of Evernote completely and then logged in again, but I still can't sync... :(:(:(

I'm just thinking of not using Evernote anymore...? :( 

 

Well, if you have followed the steps above, EN should be syncing.  If not, its time to file a bug report.

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5 hours ago, Juggy said:

I just logged out of Evernote completely and then logged in again, but I still can't sync... :(:(:(

Is there any information in the activity log for the sync issue?

”still can’t sync” is not much info to work with

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