Duplicating notes

[Sneili 4]

It's already a 2nd major issue I'm getting with Evernote within last month. So, for some reason, the note I've been working on duplicated >20 times, and basically contains the history of the changes I've made to it. Some other notes, have the same issue as well. I don't remember doing anything differently this time. Did anyone had such behavious, and how can it be fixed?

 

[DTLow 5,736]

3 minutes ago, Sneili said:

So, for some reason, the note I've been working on duplicated >20 times, and basically contains the history of the changes I've made to it. Some other notes, have the same issue as well. I don't remember doing anything differently this time. Did anyone had such behavious, and how can it be fixed?

There was another report as well

I'm not seeing this as a server error, more to do with the device software
Also, is your internet access solid

You didn't identify your device/platform.
My troubleshooting would be

1. Reboot your device; it solves many problems
2. Reinstall the software

 

[Sneili 4]

I'm using web version actually (via Firefox 54.0.1 on Windows 7). Now checked on iPhone 6s, duplicating entries are there as well

The internet access is solid

[gazumped 11,652]

Hmmn.  I'd suggest you reach out to Support directly if you're a paying customer on https://help.evernote.com/hc/requests/new or tweet them if not via https://twitter.com/evernotehelps

If you start a short note on the iPhone and sync it on completion,  do you get duplicates?  Always?  Frequently?  Occasionally?

 

[WallofIllusion 0]

I have been having this problem as well. I'm a paying member this month, so I'm submitting the following help ticket:

Recently, when I type in Evernote for Web for an extended period of time, it looks like it's working fine; eventually, however, it feeds me a message that there was an error saving. Then numerous incomplete duplicates of the notes appear in my notebook. Their timestamps reveal that they come into existence multiple times a minute. I then rename the most complete version of the affected note and move the rest to the Trash.

The same issue is described here: https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/107764-duplicating-notes/

This has happened on two different computers; both are Windows 10. I'm using the most recent version of Firefox, I believe. My registered devices are a Windows 10 computer (not one of the ones I'm having this issue with) and an iPhone SE, but the devices don't seem to be causing a problem--just the browser version.

[gazumped 11,652]

On 25/07/2017 at 2:56 PM, WallofIllusion said:

I have been having this problem as well. I'm a paying member this month, so I'm submitting the following help ticket:

Hi.  Please let us know what response you get from Support.

[Sneili 4]

I got again the same problem today with one of my entries (screenshot attached). It becomes to be really annoying and I can't find the trigger point for this

On 25.07.2017 at 4:56 PM, WallofIllusion said:

I have been having this problem as well. I'm a paying member this month, so I'm submitting the following help ticket:

Please let us know what will be the response

[LoveHateEvernote 1]

Here is another thread from 2014 about the duplicate note issue: 

You can see it is still an active problem, and seems to be related to network connectivity.
May I request that in your communication with EverNote, please suggest to that EverNote provide a "diff" functionality so users can easily resolve duplicate notes, and the related problem of conflicts. (Conflicts is the problem of getting the note content copied inside the same not, rather than separate notes.) There are several javascript diff libraries on github, so it seems a reasonable addition to EverNote web pages.

 

[gazumped 11,652]

13 hours ago, LoveHateEvernote said:

You can see it is still an active problem, and seems to be related to network connectivity.

No argument that this is an issue for many users.  Agree that it's almost certainly due to poor connectivity.  Logical options seem to be: get a better connection / take precautions / wait for Evernote to find a solution to what seems like an insoluble problem.  How does the server know when to stop listening? How can it communicate via the browser or client 'front end' if the connection drops?

Absolutely agree that it would be great to have a content comparson utility to highlight differences between notes - suggested it myself several years ago.  Don't think there's a current votable link,  so I set one up - please visit and vote if you think this is a good idea...

 

[LoveHateEvernote 1]

@gazumped, that's awesome!

[Sneili 4]

On 02.08.2017 at 5:21 PM, gazumped said:

so I set one up - please visit and vote if you think this is a good idea...

Great, upvoted

[WallofIllusion 0]

On 7/26/2017 at 7:19 PM, gazumped said:

Hi.  Please let us know what response you get from Support.

Here's what I got--it's a description of why it happens, but not what to do to prevent it from happening, unfortunately:

Quote

 

The Web Version of Evernote will duplicate a note if it determines there is a conflict with the note. This could be caused by if there was an interruption in the internet connection or a synchronization conflict with Evernote on one of your other devices. The content is duplicated as a mechanism to preserve the information available at the time of the conflict and prevent the possibility of lost data.

In this case, I would recommend reviewing the duplicated content, and discarding any of the unneeded information.

 

What confuses me is that I've been on a reliable, wired connection when this happens. I can browse the rest of the internet just fine; but I come back to my note and suddenly there are twenty of them...

(It also failed to prevent loss of content today--twenty notes all created at 12:20 with the exact same text in each of them. Sigh...)

[gazumped 11,652]

7 hours ago, WallofIllusion said:

What confuses me is that I've been on a reliable, wired connection when this happens. I can browse the rest of the internet just fine; but I come back to my note and suddenly there are twenty of them...

All due respect to Support that seems a pretty lame response to your issue.  For the moment you might want to work in another word-processor app when you're editing or drafting.  Copy paste from a note to the app if you're editing,  or set up a new document if you're creating a new note,  and copy/ paste from the app back to Evernote so you only have one version of a note open at any time.

A variation on the above is to attach the word processor document to your note and do all your editing in that app - just use Evernote to backup your work and make it available online.

[JustRockItNow 4]

@Guru: Also upvoted. This issue happened also to me. I like the fact, that the information is preserved, but the WebInterface seems buggy at least with Firefox. I once created a note with like 20 minutes of writing and it seems to sync (i was on a wired connection with my laptop) nicely. In fact he just synced the first sentence, rest was lost.

So I now copy my text into notepad, complete it there and paste it completely to evernote, whenever using the webclient.

I hope they'll fix these things...

[DrWhat 0]

A quick Google search shows this issue has been happening at least since December 2014. It happened to me the first time I tried the Web interface and, for me, this is a deal breaker. I ended up with 25+ copies of the same note, each one different to the next. It's a major effort for me to determine which one (if any) is 'correct'. As I say this says to me that Evernote is not the tool for me for at least two reasons. Firstly it is meant to be a productivity tool so it is essential that it is convenient and trustworthy to use. (In that context the posted workarounds are laughable.). Secondly if the Evernote team can be so unresponsive as to have a major, fundamental bug like this left in the product for this long then it is clearly not the product for me. I hope these comments are not moderated away - that would only confirm my view.

PS. There was nothing wrong my connection. Even if it was a bit flaky I'd still expect the tool to work. I've never seen anything like this in any other application.

[gazumped 11,652]

Well,  if the workarounds aren't acceptable and the app isn't working for you,  then it is only logical to look for alternatives.  We're all users here and Evernote rarely comment on issues - the only way to get some direct feedback is to use Support via https://www.evernote.com/SupportLogin.action if you're a subscriber,  or https://twitter.com/evernotehelps if you have any problems with that link,  or you're not.

[Uma Shankar 0]

Hi,

I am facing an issue of duplication of notes as and when I edit a notes. It is becoming a huge overhead to identify the updated ones from the duplicated copies to delete the un-updated notes and retain whats needed. Can someone help resolve this issue?  I'm using web client.

 

Thanks

[james_mcnally 1]

I'm just one more person who is experiencing this incredibly annoying issue. 

I am searching for an evernote alternative. I love evernote but this makes it basically impossible to use. 

How could such a seemingly major bug be allowed to persist? 

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, james_mcnally said:

How could such a seemingly major bug be allowed to persist? 

It's not a bug.  It's a feature of using web-based apps.  Easily avoided by various work-arounds listed above...  There's a related 'lost data' issue which can be solved with a browser add-in - https://typiorecovery.github.io/ - not sure whether it might help here...

[james_mcnally 1]

Quote

It's not a bug.  It's a feature of using web-based apps.

Dude I appreciate you trying to ...help?...but come on. Something that screws up the UX in an unintended and extremely annoying way, I'd put that in the bug category. 

The "workarounds" I saw listed were "it's related to internet connectivity" (I have steady connection) or due to syncing with other devices (I'm not using Evernote on other devices) or "wait for Evernote to resolve this" which was posted literally 5 years ago.

 

 

[Nick L. 681]

What you're experiencing is by design and it's triggered when we detect network problems through your browser. Because Evernote Web can't rely on a local database like Evernote for Mac or Windows, we create the duplicates with the history of the changes during the network problem. Frankly it's not the most graceful solution, but it avoids losing data. 

If you find that this happens too frequently, we recommend that you try using Evernote for Mac or Evernote for Windows. 

[james_mcnally 1]

OK thanks Nick. I do understand. I'm not a paying user so I guess I can't really complain. 

[PinkElephant 8,076]

@Nick L. : If I am using a web-based interface, I completely agree that creating duplicates is far better than losing information. Luckily I am usually running on Win10, MacOS or iOS, so up to now I was not flooded by security duplicates.

It would be good if this feature could be assisted by a tool that can be used to get rid of the unwanted twin notes in an economical way. Sort of another entry into the „extended help menu“ ? Pick the notes, present the youngest one of them all and let the user confirm that it contains all the information; then delete all the earlier copies ?

[Nick L. 681]

50 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

@Nick L. : If I am using a web-based interface, I completely agree that creating duplicates is far better than losing information. Luckily I am usually running on Win10, MacOS or iOS, so up to now I was not flooded by security duplicates.

It would be good if this feature could be assisted by a tool that can be used to get rid of the unwanted twin notes in an economical way. Sort of another entry into the „extended help menu“ ? Pick the notes, present the youngest one of them all and let the user confirm that it contains all the information; then delete all the earlier copies ?

Thanks for the feedback. I'm sure there's lots of room for improvement around our logic here. I'll forward this feedback to our product managers to see what can be done. If I have any updates soon, I'll post here. Thanks!

[james_mcnally 1]

Quote

It would be good if this feature could be assisted by a tool that can be used to get rid of the unwanted twin notes in an economical way.

Yes please.

I imagine in the product development you guys were thinking "OK if user's note gets duplicated, it's not ideal but user will just delete the dupe." Issue though is there are multiple dupes, and it's hard to tell which one has all the info. I have notes that I've been maintaining for multiple years. When one of these gets duplicated 3,4,5 times, I want to delete the dupes, but I don't want to get rid of the wrong one (they don't sync perfectly I've noticed). 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

I'm reluctant to revive a year-old thread, but this is the most comprehensive of the many forum threads on this topic. Suddenly, for the very first time, I have encountered this issue. I use Opera as my browser, and it has v. 6.11.0 of the Web beta. I edited a particular note twice today in the Web beta. The first time it produced 11 unnecessary duplicates, and the second time a few hours later it produced 18! No notice was given at all. Up this thread a bit, @Nick L. gave this explanation:

Does anyone know if this is still the design? If so, I would assume that I have only gotten the problem this one time because I have only had whatever serious network issue today.

[CalS 5,280]

Sounds like maybe the detection of the network problems may be a bit flaky....

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

And now I would, reluctantly, have to dispute @Nick L.'s explanation above. It happened to me again today, and it happened with the same note as the one I reported on May 16, 2020, above. So to me it seems to be related, not to a particular browser or problematic network connection, but to a particular note.

And it gets worse: the Web beta created 10 copies of the note. I went to the Windows program, synced to get all 10 copies there, and then deleted all but one of them (i.e., moved them to Trash), and synced again. Back in the Web beta, annoyingly 3 copies were still showing in the All Notes list, not in Trash, though they seemed to function as a block and were labeled Trash. Stupidly assuming there was still one valid copy of the note in its notebook--but stupidly not checking--I stupidly emptied the Trash in the Web beta. Evernote dutifully synced this to all devices, and the note was gone forever. It was a note I used to keep track of something I want to keep track of, so months of data are lost. 😱😣😢

PS. The @#$# blank 3-note block is still present in All Notes and in the notebook, showing no data, unremovable, only there to mock me.

[CalS 5,280]

2 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

PS. The @#$# blank 3-note block is still present in All Notes and in the notebook, showing no data, unremovable, only there to mock me.

OUCH on the grief.  Glad I rarely use the web i suppose.

Relative to this, try creating a new note, then merge with the "phantom" block, and then delete the resultant merged note.  I've done this a few times with notes that have no notebook that aren't modifiable.  Might or might not work in this case. 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

On 5/27/2020 at 6:50 PM, CalS said:

OUCH on the grief.  Glad I rarely use the web i suppose.

Relative to this, try creating a new note, then merge with the "phantom" block, and then delete the resultant merged note.  I've done this a few times with notes that have no notebook that aren't modifiable.  Might or might not work in this case. 

Thanks, Cal. Note merging isn't a feature on the Web client yet; and the phantom (still there in the Web client) doesn't appear in the Windows program. If it gets to be a real aggravation, I may raise a support ticket.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

The block of 3 non-notes seem to have disappeared now that the Web beta has updated to v. 6.12.0 in Opera.

[CalS 5,280]

5 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

The block of 3 non-notes seem to have disappeared now that the Web beta has updated to v. 6.12.0 in Opera.

Good to know, thanks.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

I think I'm just going to keep reporting this when it happens, sort of performance art, irrationally duplicating reports of this irrational duplication. Just happened again now, with 23 duplicates being made of a particular note, over the course of about 2 minutes of editing. I went to the Windows program and synced, then deleted the unwanted 23. I'm leaving them in trash for awhile, rather than risk losing this note too.

In the Web beta, syncing this resulted in 27 copies in the trash, plus a block of 4-acting-as-1 in the notebook. I cannot think of any purpose that could be served by doing this, particularly the multiple-note block that seems to act as one note. I am going to raise a support ticket this time. There was no sign of a network issue on my end. If somehow this seems necessary for security, then put the endless duplicates in a special notebook, as happens with Conflicting Changes. @Nick L., can you confirm (a year later) that this is still the intended behavior when there are network problems?

EDIT: The incomprehensible block of notes left in the notebook is now up to 6-acting-as-1. It seems to be producing a new version of the note every few minutes even when it is not being actively edited, but (perhaps) when it is still in focus.

3 days later: I've filed a report, and it has been assigned support ticket #3095091. I'll report here what they say.

[Nick L. 681]

Hey everyone, 

I just wanted to chime in. Thanks @Dave-in-Decatur for the ping. 

The older version of Evernote Web (white and green UI) did have a safety mechanism that would duplicate your notes with the additional content typed if it detected poor internet connection or interruption in service. This isn't an ideal solution, but we had to make a decision on implementing this over letting users lose their data. So although an unorthodox behavior, it did prevent users from losing their data in case their connection went south.

The new version of Evernote Web doesn't do this because it has a momentarily ability to survive offline for some time, but it has a bug with duplicating notes that we're fixing right now. This is about 90% fixed at this time and mostly manifested itself in version 6.11. We still expect to see some reports of this issue on versions 6.12 and 6.13, but not as frequent. If you have a reproducible case in versions 6.12 or 6.13, please let me know. 

Sorry for the inconvenience here folks. Just wanted to let you know that we're doing progress in getting this fixed as soon as possible. 

[donnybahama 2]

On 6/17/2020 at 9:43 AM, Nick L. said:

Hey everyone, 

I just wanted to chime in. Thanks @Dave-in-Decatur for the ping. 

The older version of Evernote Web (white and green UI) did have a safety mechanism that would duplicate your notes with the additional content typed if it detected poor internet connection or interruption in service. This isn't an ideal solution, but we had to make a decision on implementing this over letting users lose their data. So although an unorthodox behavior, it did prevent users from losing their data in case their connection went south.

The new version of Evernote Web doesn't do this because it has a momentarily ability to survive offline for some time, but it has a bug with duplicating notes that we're fixing right now. This is about 90% fixed at this time and mostly manifested itself in version 6.11. We still expect to see some reports of this issue on versions 6.12 and 6.13, but not as frequent. If you have a reproducible case in versions 6.12 or 6.13, please let me know. 

Sorry for the inconvenience here folks. Just wanted to let you know that we're doing progress in getting this fixed as soon as possible. 

Not sure if this was never fixed or if the bad code was checked back in, but I’m having this problem on 6.17

[alex chu 2]

This is still happening on the web client (Chrome). do you have plans to fix this ?  Or I should use OneNote or some other software?  Having to delete duplicate note every 2-3 minute isn't a feasible work-around.  P.S.  I'm on LAN, not wifi. 

[Leobard 0]

I get duplicating notes in evernote desktop 10.4.4. Windows. It seems to be related to removing tags. I use evernote in the browser, on Android 6 and Desktop.