Note Completely Vanished After Device Revoked

[banjostrums 1]

Hi Guys

I'm in full crisis mode after spending the last 6 hours trying to recover a lost note containing years worth of meticulous diary entries.

This is how the sad story goes...

Despite using Evernote frequently since the 2 device limit came into effect, today I was prompted to pick between 2 of 3 devices. I haven't updated my computer at all but Evernote seemed to think there were two devices named (username)/macbookpro. I revoked one of the two at random and that was that - the only note I care about, the one I update every single day, is gone.

There is no sign of the note when I log into my account on the web.

There is no sign of the note in any of the folders on my mac - I have scoured these message boards for similar issues and searched everywhere. 

The only tiny glimmer of hope is that when I try and open "ennnote" file that was last updated around the time I last updated the note in question, Evernote prompts me to switch accounts, with a message that reads:

"The note you selected belongs to another account. Would you like to switch to that account?"

I most definitely never created a second account, yet Evernote seems to think I have. If this account exists and my lost note is attached to, I have no idea how to access.

---

This is all extremely distressing. This note contains years worth of diary entries and hundreds of hours of writing. Any help here would be very very very much appreciated. If anyone can help me resolve this, I'll buy them a beer in Bitcoin.

J

[DTLow 5,736]

13 hours ago, banjostrums said:

There is no sign of the note when I log into my account on the web.

There is no sign of the note in any of the folders on my mac

If I revoke access on all my devices or all my devices are destroyed, I would not lose any notes > my notes have all been sync'd to the Evernote server
The only notes not sync'd are Local Notebooks

Can you confirm there is only a single note missing and it’s not a Local Notebook

>>The only tiny glimmer of hope is that when I try and open "ennnote" file that was last updated around the time I last updated the note in question

Can you provide more details on this file?  Where did you find it, and what's the extension

Notes are basically text files; you could try a search with Finder on your Mac

[banjostrums 1]

Hi. Thanks for getting back to me.

Actually, an older version of the same note exists but it was last updated in December last year. The previous 9 months of updates have gone. This is another sign to me that there is some issue with multiple accounts having been created.

As far as I know this is then only note missing and I am relatively certain that it wasn't a local note - I definitely didn't start out as one (the old version of the same note is not a local note) and I certainly never intentionally made it one.

The file I mention is an ".ennote" file. It turned up in a spotlight search and piqued my interest because of the relevant "last modified" date. It's location is:

~/lost+found/433179/Data/Library/CoreData/.com.evernote.Evernote/4513C61C-B95E-4665-A4C3-55E7BE1F324C/ENNote/_records/1/0/p141.ennote

None of my Evernote files seem to be in the right place which points to some local corruption on my machine that could be part of this.

 

[DTLow 5,736]

22 minutes ago, banjostrums said:

This is another sign to me that there is some issue with multiple accounts having been created.

ok - followup on multiple accounts

Each account requires a unique email id.  Do you have more than one email account?

Also, just to cover basic stuff.  Did you look in the Trash in case the note got accidently deleted

[banjostrums 1]

I do not have more than one email address. I definitely didn't make a second account but it seems that maybe some ghost account has been created. Otherwise why would it prompt me to switch accounts when opening a .ennote file of my own creation?

I have checked the trash with no luck

 

[DTLow 5,736]

 

1 hour ago, banjostrums said:

I am relatively certain that it wasn't a local note

Do you know the Note was sync’d?  Did you ever see it replicated on other devices or the web platform?

[banjostrums 1]

When I think about it i guess at some point it stopped synching to my phone. But I never checked the Web platform so have no way of knowing. At this point I'm guessing it wasn't synching. 

It's still bizarre to me that the note disappeared when I revoked a "device" that was an old version of my current computer.

Where did the note go?!

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,960]

I'd suggest that you upgrade to a Premium account for just one month. It's not hugely expensive, and you can cancel it once you've (hopefully) gotten your note back. Premium will get you two things: access to the note's history, which is preserved even if you're on a Basic account; and access to Evernote support. This is definitely something worth contacting them about. (You don't have to tell them you plan to cancel the Premium subscription after a month!) If there has been a mystery account created, note history might or might not find a recent version, but even in that case support should be able to help.

For future reference, I'd strongly suggest two things: Rather than using single long notes to store years' worth of information, use shorter notes and keep them in the same notebook or identify them with tags. It's the old adage about not putting all your eggs in one basket. Secondly, if you've got anything like this note that is truly vital, do some form of backup: copy it into a word processor document, store it on dropbox, even print it out. Evernote has an export feature that can be used for backup and recovery too.

[DTLow 5,736]

39 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Premium will get you two things: access to the note's history...

Note History is not available if the note is “vanished”.  You need the note to access the history

I agree with the suggestions for shorter notes and backups

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,960]

1 minute ago, DTLow said:

Note History is not available if the note is “vanished”

Good point (and not something I've personally investigated, so I can't disagree). It still seems worth a shot, though, since in this case there's no clear indication of what has happened.

[banjostrums 1]

14 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

I'd suggest that you upgrade to a Premium account for just one month. 

I upgraded three days ago and contacted support immediately. I'm yet to hear anything back. There was also nothing in the note history - I'm almost certain at this point that the note is associated with some other account that may no longer exist. 

14 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

For future reference, I'd strongly suggest two things: Rather than using single long notes to store years' worth of information, use shorter notes and keep them in the same notebook or identify them with tags. It's the old adage about not putting all your eggs in one basket. Secondly, if you've got anything like this note that is truly vital, do some form of backup: copy it into a word processor document, store it on dropbox, even print it out. Evernote has an export feature that can be used for backup and recovery too.

I am usually very careful about this kind of thing. I used to keep my diary in a word doc an back it up weekly by sending to myself via email and saving a second copy remotely.

The whole reason I switched to Evernote was because the service SUPPOSEDLY offers three levels of reduncancy. There should be a back up on my computer, my phone and on the server. "How could this posibbly fail", I thought.

If this note is unretreivable then Evernote seems to have failed to fulfil its most important function. And that's unforgivable considering what that service is.

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Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Evernote support is nowhere to be seen and I'm tearing my hair out here.

[banjostrums 1]

Is there any way of opening ".ennote" files outside of Evernote? It won't let me open them without switching accounts, but I have no second account to switch to.

[banjostrums 1]

So, I found the file buried deep in some concerningly muddled folder structures on my mac.

I believe my machine might be on its way out and this could have been part of the problem.

For anyone who encounters similar problems in future - check every corner of your computer. I thought I'd looked everywhere but I did a second round and it turned out I hadn't.

@Dave-in-Decatur and @DTLow, thank you very much for your help. I'll heed your advice about backups.

[DTLow 5,736]

47 minutes ago, banjostrums said:

Is there any way of opening ".ennote" files outside of Evernote? It won't let me open them without switching accounts, but I have no second account to switch to.

.ennote files are something used by Evernote in the sync process, and don't contain note data.  They can't be used to recover note data

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,960]

13 hours ago, banjostrums said:

So, I found the file buried deep in some concerningly muddled folder structures on my mac.

I believe my machine might be on its way out and this could have been part of the problem.

For anyone who encounters similar problems in future - check every corner of your computer. I thought I'd looked everywhere but I did a second round and it turned out I hadn't.

@Dave-in-Decatur and @DTLow, thank you very much for your help. I'll heed your advice about backups.

So glad to hear that! I know it's a big relief.