How can I get airplane mode “features” when I’m connected to internet?

[Ardeet 8]

If I want Evernote to be remotely useable on my iPad (Air 1) then I have to switch to Airplane mode. This allows my search to work properly, notes to load within 10 seconds and images to actually show without timing out.

Is there a way that I can still be connected to the internet and actually use Evernote productively on my iPad?

Finer details

I’m using an iPad Air original with latest iOS and latest Evernote. Yes, I have done a hard reset (multiple times). Yes, I have removed Evernote and reloaded it. I’m on a decent enough internet connection. As far as I can tell all my 8000+ notes are downloaded.

When I’m connected to the internet I can do a search and it will take literally 20 - 45+ seconds to return a result, if at all. (Yes, I do know what literally means and I have physically timed these searches multiple times). The same search, literally, in airplane mode will take less than 10 seconds.

When I’m connected to the internet I regularly get timed out note loading on notes with images. Literally the same note will load in a reasonable time when I am in Airplane mode (though not as fast as pre Ver 8 + iOS 11 days).

Ther are are other glitches such as not being able to create a note sometimes, being able to select a different notebook on a new note, tags not showing on a new note however the point is that there is something fundamentally wrong if I have to use Airplane mode as a workaround.

I genuinely hoped the last 5 updates would fix this ongoing problem. They haven’t. This is a massive confidence killer which gives the experience of a degrading rather than developing product.

[DTLow 5,736]

3 hours ago, Ardeet said:

Is there a way that I can still be connected to the internet and actually use Evernote productively on my iPad?

The only way to stop internet access is to turn WiFi off

This is not the standard experience; Since you're a paying customer, I'd open a support ticket at https://www.evernote.com/SupportLogin.action

[EdH 1,670]

There is something else going on, unless there is an iPad specific version bug on this. I have 23,000 notes consuming almost 9GB of space in my account and my iPhone is pretty responsive when working on a note, and searches take seconds - < 5-10 easily.

I pull up note images all of the time too.

Is this consistently happening regardless of the internet connection? I am wondering if a TRACERT for that router to Evernote's servers (which are hosted by Google's cloud service) would reveal a problem?

[frogdude 10]

I have had the same problem with an iPad Air1 (32GB 3G)  Since I upgraded to iOS11.  I have a 6GB database which i completely sync to the iPad.

My iPad Pro (9.7" model) was fine however, as was my iPhone 6s

I did a hard reboot of the iPad; that seemed to sort it for me. Back to normal now. 

Think is an iOS upgrade bug just on the Air1.  Apple problem then. 

 

[Ardeet 8]

3 hours ago, EdH said:

There is something else going on, unless there is an iPad specific version bug on this. I have 23,000 notes consuming almost 9GB of space in my account and my iPhone is pretty responsive when working on a note, and searches take seconds - < 5-10 easily.

I pull up note images all of the time too.

Is this consistently happening regardless of the internet connection? I am wondering if a TRACERT for that router to Evernote's servers (which are hosted by Google's cloud service) would reveal a problem?

Yes, it seems to be happening regardless of the connection, though I haven’t done a TRACERT (nor am I sure how to do this on an iPad). 

My iPhone is much better (same amount of notes obviously). I can’t say that I love its performance with iOS 11 and Ver 8 however it is much more responsive than the iPad, even when connected to the same wifi at home and even when it is serving as a hotspot for my iPad.

[EdH 1,670]

11 hours ago, Ardeet said:

Yes, it seems to be happening regardless of the connection, though I haven’t done a TRACERT (nor am I sure how to do this on an iPad). 

My iPhone is much better (same amount of notes obviously). I can’t say that I love its performance with iOS 11 and Ver 8 however it is much more responsive than the iPad, even when connected to the same wifi at home and even when it is serving as a hotspot for my iPad.

Then it doesn't seem to be an Evernote issue. Things to try:

• Uninstall/reinstall evernote - I see you did that to no avail
• Backup your ipad and wipe it. Install just evernote. does it work better?
  • if not, then just restore. It may be a hardware issue
  • if yes, then wipe and restore and see if that cleaned it out. Restoring removes a lot of clutter so it doesn't usually put the problem back on the device.
  • If yes, and the wipe restore messed it up again, then wipe again and start fresh. Something is in your network settings that is boogering it up.

[Ardeet 8]

On 27/10/2017 at 2:34 AM, EdH said:

Then it doesn't seem to be an Evernote issue. Things to try:

• Uninstall/reinstall evernote - I see you did that to no avail
• Backup your ipad and wipe it. Install just evernote. does it work better?
  • if not, then just restore. It may be a hardware issue
  • if yes, then wipe and restore and see if that cleaned it out. Restoring removes a lot of clutter so it doesn't usually put the problem back on the device.
  • If yes, and the wipe restore messed it up again, then wipe again and start fresh. Something is in your network settings that is boogering it up.

To clarify, when I say my iPhone is better that means that it will also do the same thing though far less often.

As both of them behave the same (above qualification in mind) and do so on my home network, 4G and the hotel wifi then I think it’s safe to assume it’s not hardware?

I use my equipment for more than just Evernote and the while appreciate the logic of your approach it’s a drastic and time consuming series of steps for me, especially as this issue only came along with iOS 11 and Ver 8.

I suspect my next step will be the support ticket route.

[Ardeet 8]

An update to this issue:

I lodged a support ticket on 30 October and Evernote got back to me on 11 Nov requesting more details. I have replied to them today, 13 Nov with activity logs and a screen capture recording (didn’t know this was now a feature on iOS :-) ) so they can investigate further.

I will update further once I have more info (and hopefully a fix).

[Ardeet 8]

A further update on the issue:

As for the slow search issue, we've actually since had a few more reports of this. I'm still unable to reproduce on my end, but I've filed a case with our development team and our QA is working on some more extensive testing so they can hopefully identify a root cause. I don't yet have an ETA for when we'll be able to get it fixed, but our development team is working on it.

Things are progressing and support have been communicating with me in trying to get to the bottom of the problem. While this is taking a long time, and in fairness it does seem like a tricky issue, I want to note that there have been a couple of instances where I took a few days to get back to support.

[Ardeet 8]

Another update.

Support had hoped that the 8.7 release would help with the problem. While it has improved the situation it has not fixed the problem and I have just sent them a follow up. I will keep you posted.

[Ardeet 8]

A few days ago support asked me to try the new 8.8 version. No luck. I will continue to keep you posted.

I replied:

I upgraded and have tried it for a couple of days now. Unfortunately I don’t see any change. If anything the two point versions of 8.7 just before this 8.8 version gave better results. For my problem this seems like a bit of a backward step.

 

Let me know if you want logs or screen recordings.

[DTLow 5,736]

I'd like to see some screen recordings.
I'm just interested in seeing how bad the situation is.

We're just users here so can't provided deep technical help
I can only tell you I'm not seeing these issues on my iPad Pro 
I have a full copy of my database, but I'm rarely offline

[Ardeet 8]

On 29/01/2018 at 11:25 AM, DTLow said:

I'd like to see some screen recordings.
I'm just interested in seeing how bad the situation is.

We're just users here so can't provided deep technical help
I can only tell you I'm not seeing these issues on my iPad Pro 
I have a full copy of my database, but I'm rarely offline

Here’s a video for you. Hopefully that gives some context.

In this video you’ll see that the search result didn’t give any results when I was online. I expected if I waited longer then I would have had results returned but there is a limit to how long you can just watch the clock tick over, however it would have got there eventually. You’ll see that the offline search is basically instant both times it is done before and after the online search.

One thing I’ve noticed and tested this week is that if I leave Evernote open with the notebook selection list showing and wait a few hours or so for everything to fully sync then the searches when online seem much better. In fact I would say they are comparable to the speed results when offline.

This is a guess however, I wonder if Evernote is so busy trying to sync when connected online that it doesn’t give enough priority to the search request? When it’s offline it knows it can’t sync so it’s not allocating resources.

Anyway, I hope this video puts the problem in perspective.

CCFE9CAC-B692-443A-A992-E4D79F755826.MP4

[Ardeet 8]

Just an update. Support are continuing to work on this problem.

 

Their most recent reply:

Hi again, thanks for confirming that information - I've passed it along to our development/QA team to assist them in their continued investigation.

While location can sometimes be a factor in similar issues, we've had other reports of this behavior here in the States and in Europe, so I'm not sure that's the case here - but definitely something to keep in mind.

As for previous notes that were captured from the web, they don't process in the background continuously - for the most part all notes remain static until accessed.

What's strange though is that our QA team has been trying to reproduce this in the same scenario (while several offline notebooks are still downloading/processing), but so far they haven't been able to - all searches complete within a couple seconds at most.

However they are not giving up and continue to run some more tests to try to get this nailed down.

I can certainly keep you posted as we make more progress, if you'd like. In addition if you have any other relevant details, feel free to reach back out any time.

 

My recent reply:

 

Can you give me an update on this problem please. I would also like to get some regular updates when they are available, as you offered.

 

It makes my experience on the iPad terrible and the novelty of not knowing if Evernote is going to work properly when I open it each time is wearing thin.

 

As you’ve seen from the screen captures this problem does exist and I’m guessing the logs may tell you something as well. While I understand that a user’s “experience” is not a measure it seems to me that differences in the severity of the problems with last few releases indicate something in the code.

 

Thanks,

[Ardeet 8]

Support are working on the issue. While they have seen it in a few users they are having difficulty reproducing it.

[Ardeet 8]

Ive sent the following to support this morning. I’ll update on the outcome.

 

I’m not happy. I have been patient with this problem that I first raised in October 2017.

 

After several updates and support being able to replicate the problem I *still* have to put my iPad into flight mode if I want to use Evernote for searches or note updating on my iPad. If it wasn’t for the fact that Evernote operates acceptably on my iPhone I would have a basically useless product.

 

After nearly six months of this problem I have to wonder about the value of my premium subscription and whether this problem affects so few users that you’re hoping we just go away.

 

I want to be able to start recommending Evernote again, as I have done for years as a faithful customer, but I just can’t  risk losing reputation if someone else runs into the same problem.

 

Please let me know *when* this issue is going to be fixed. “Real soon now” is not cutting it any more.

[Ardeet 8]

The reply back indicates the problem is being worked on, which is good news. I’ll keep updating the post when appropriate.

 

Thanks for following up - I was actually planning on reaching back out to you this week. I'm again in full agreement that this issue has been around for way too long, and while your patience is much appreciated, I more than understand that it's wearing thin.

I want to reiterate that we are most certainly not hoping you (or anyone) goes away, and truly if I could fix this for you immediately, I would do that. This issue is actively being worked on (and has been for the past few months), and it remains one of the top priority issues affecting the iOS app - both because of the severity of it, as well as the fact that we have received numerous reports.

I also want to express that the lack of visible progress is not at all due to a lack of prioritization or an attempt to ignore the problem, though I absolutely understand why it must seem that way. The issue has proved incredibly difficult to solve - this isn't meant to be an excuse; it's a terrible experience for everyone running into it, and no reason is acceptable enough to justify it still being around.

All that being said, we've been making some good progress recently. We've identified a potential root cause, and implemented that fix in our 8.11 update. After some persistent testing, we were able to reproduce the issue on our end (to clarify - we can reproduce the endlessly slow note loading, not as much with searching - but we still believe that the root cause is the same), and when testing an internal build of the 8.11 release, I see significant improvement. Given the complex nature of this issue, it's possible that there is more than one root cause to this, and therefore this may not be a 100% fix - however given what I'm seeing on my end, I'm optimistic.

The 8.11 GA should be out in the next couple weeks. However we will likely have a beta version in the next week or so - if you're interested in giving that a try to confirm that we're on the right track with this fix, let me know and I'll get you set up.

Thanks again and let me know if you have any other questions.

[Ardeet 8]

Further update, message back to support (no real progress unfortunately)

I’ve been running version 8.11.1 for a few days now and it’s still hopeless on the iPad. IPhone is fine.

After a reset I can get the first couple of searches to run and a note or two to load without timing out but then it bogs down again and goes back to the same old problems.

As noted previously the syncing of notebooks for offline access appears to be taking an inordinately long time.

I have to say I’m not feeling much hope about this problem actually getting fixed. I’m not feeling the love for Evernote anymore.

[Ardeet 8]

 

This looks like the start of good news. 

I’ve been using version 8.12 for about ten days and have seen a substantial improvement in response, note time outs and searching.

The upgrade didn’t load cleanly on my iPad. It only showed one note after the update so I deleted, restarted and reinstalled and left the iPad open for about 1.5 days to finish syncing.

After this I have had a significant improvement in experience. I consider it about 85% fixed. 

I still get occasional note time outs, though closing and restarting the app usually fixes this. 

The searching is still not as fast as when in airport mode however the fact that it now works is a huge step forward.

It still feels crisper in airport mode however I can now actually use Evernote again on my iPad.

I did notice that on my iPhone the experience of creating and accessing notes has gotten a little less reliable since the update (approximately 5% degradation). 

This all bodes well and looks like a very good start.

Hopefully this improvement continues over the upcoming upgrades.