EN 6.9.7.6770 Win10 forgetful Focus

[greggc 13]

New computer, Windows 10 Pro Version    10.0.16299 Build 16299

EN Version 6.9.7.6770 (306770) Public (CE Build ce-1.39.4387)

Synopsis: The cursor will be present in the Note, and then vanishes when you start typing. If you use up/down arrow keys to move the cursor, the whole note scrolls up/down.

It's most frustrating because in using Evernote, I'm constantly copying text / referencing other documents from other places and pasting / typing into EN.

<Alt-Tab elsewhere> Select / Copy 

<Alt-Tab to EN> see the cursor blinking at me where I left it, <Ctrl-Shift-V Paste>, cursor goes away, no paste. (Note, I wish Paste-Match-Style [aka paste as plain text] could be configured as default)

-or-

<Alt-Tab to EN> see the cursor, start typing, cursor goes away, no typing happens.

 

-or-

<Alt-Tab to EN> see cursor, click mouse to re-position cursor, see cursor in new place, start typing/pasting, cursor goes away, no typing/pasting happens.

In all cases, the Note itself still has focus because Up/Down arrows scroll the Note. It's just decided to stop being in edit mode.

I typically work with Notes in the main EN window, not floating by themselves, but it also happens when they are by themselves (undocked).

Does not happen 100% of time, but is 100% annoying when it does, about 80+% of the time.

This happened in the previous version as well and was such an annoying issue I thought it would be fixed pronto, so I didn't comment on it.

 

 

 

 

 

[TK0047 422]

On 2/19/2018 at 3:02 PM, greggc said:

Does not happen 100% of time, but is 100% annoying when it does, about 80+% of the time.

I agree that when stuff like that happens during your workflow, it does hinder your progress and it gets annoying really quick. That's why for the first time, I am really behind on update version. 6.7 is working for me and these annoyances become real problems in my daily work.

It is unfortunate that the 6.9 did not fix the cursor location and related problems from 6.8.

[Eldorado 26]

On 19.2.2018 at 9:02 PM, greggc said:

Does not happen 100% of time,

... but very, very often :-(
In my personal feeling, it comes up with high propability if a note contains PDFs. If I try to place a PDF within be text (by Ctrl-V or by Drag&Drop from Explorer oder Outlook), PDF appears in nearly all cases not at the desired position.

In versions before having the new PDF display, focus and cursor placement problems were not that dramatically often and annoying.

[SubSolar 4]

Can't believe this isn't more popular, been happening to me for weeks. Thought it was something wrong with my computer setup, like antivirus or text expander or something.

[Lekshmy 3]

It is really annoying!

Pasting in text from browsers is probably the most common note taking method. It naturally involves Alt+tabbing between windows. How can the cursor "disappear" when I Alt+tab back to EN?!!!

It gets even more annoying when I am pasting in places other than the end of the note!

I keep pasting in and nothing gets pasted. I keep having to relocate my cursor click and paste!

[greggc 13]

99% of my notes are "plain text" with no attachments, I typically don't even use bold/italics or other formatting. I can't actually submit bugs because I'm not a subscriber, and I'm not a subscriber because of glaring issues with fundamental basic features such as text editing.

On 2/22/2018 at 7:35 AM, Eldorado said:

... but very, very often :-(

This is true. I said about 80% of the time in my original post, but had only been using the new version a couple days- often enough to prompt a forum post. It's now been a couple weeks of steady usage and I would definitely say the problem occurs closer to 96-98% of the time.

Does anyone know if downgrading to 6.7 will cause problems with local notbooks? No file format change that might be incompatible?

 

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

This happens to me a lot, too, especially when I use my touch screen to put the cursor inside the note for the first time. The cursor APPEARS as if it's in the note, but it's not. I can't type letters or any other characters because, really, the cursor is ACTUALLY in the LIST of notes or the left panel, so when I press space or enter or an arrow key, it changes to another note or something really unexpected and jarring happens.

I also get this a lot when I use a mouse to place the cursor inside a note for the first time. Sometimes just waiting a few seconds after that, the cursor will stay there, then randomly leap to some other place in the program when I'm not looking and then I have to undo all the garbage that happened, then find the note that I was actually working on, then find where I was working in that note, ... ugh.

Evernote's going to be 10 years old soon. Perhaps it's time they eliminate all the random cursor leaps that cause hard-to-track damage, while totally interrupting your train of thought? Perhaps they can prioritize FIXING and NOT CREATING those kinds of bugs and deprioritize the fully superficial changes, such as satirically useless "New Note" buttons. I wonder if there will be a third "New Note" button in my next Evernote screenshot, maybe between the "Shortcuts" and "Notebooks" in the left panel...

 

[Nelvin123 3]

Thanks for this thread (well these kinds of threads) - this is really getting on my nerves recently and I initially feared it's just me/my PC but it seems as I'm not alone.

 

I really wonder how such bugs can survive for a longer time. As a developer using my own tool (which I simply expect as a given) this would drive me crazy within a few days at most and I'd do whatever is required to fix this as soon as possible.

 

Also I'm on Win 8.1, so it's also not related/limited to Win 10.

[ruudhein 29]

I rolled back to 6.5.4.4720. Normal PDF viewer. Reasonable editor, especially compared to the forgetful focus issue.

Besides the introduction of issues, for me, like forgetful focus in notes, now forgetful focus in repeated searches, the lesser quality PDF viewer, lag when switching between notes, and the addition of a New Note button I never ever have felt a need for, I don't really see what the new releases are doing. There is no roadmap to compare to either so God knows what the intended direction of these releases is.

[Giddy Up Horsey 1]

I'm also getting this issue with dodgy focus and notes containing PDFs viewed inline. I'm running Windows 10 and Evernote 6.10.3.6921.

[3sh 2]

Same problem here. Windows 10.

1. Cursor is in the note.

2. Pressing Ctrl+V, nothing goes to clipboard, cursor isn't in the note anymore.

3. Putting cursor into the note one more time, pressing Ctrl+V, works until I go into another note, then the story repeats.

Annoying as hell

 

Losing focus when in search field might be related to auto sync, after I increased auto sync delay to 1 hour, looks like it's happening much less.

[zeeref 2]

This is happening to me and is driving me crazy.

The problem for me is every time I alt+tab back in the cursor is there but then when i type it disappears and I have to use the mouse to click back to where I was. This is not just an issue relating to PDFs as I have none in my notes.

Any ETA on someone looking at this issue?

[LeeSoft 1]

How downgrade to version without this annoying bug?

Starting from v6.10.3.6921 EN also lost focus in search control

[TK0047 422]

2 hours ago, LeeSoft said:

How downgrade to version without this annoying bug?

Starting from v6.10.3.6921 EN also lost focus in search control

You can go to filehippo.com to locate a version you want to install.

[ruudhein 29]

On 3/22/2018 at 2:41 PM, 3sh said:

Losing focus when in search field might be related to auto sync, after I increased auto sync delay to 1 hour, looks like it's happening much less.

It's not just losing focus: it's creating one or more new notes with characters from the (new) search.

[ohhaiguise 3]

Just adding my voice to this

I click within an existing note, the cursor flashes indicating it has focus.  I hit Ctrl+V and nothing happens and the note has lost focus. 

It's a very small thing, but it's really irritating - can we get it fixed....please????  Do the developers not use Evernote windows desktop app themselves?  If they did, then they would notice this

 

[CalS 5,280]

On 3/29/2018 at 9:33 AM, ohhaiguise said:

Just adding my voice to this

I click within an existing note, the cursor flashes indicating it has focus.  I hit Ctrl+V and nothing happens and the note has lost focus. 

It's a very small thing, but it's really irritating - can we get it fixed....please????  Do the developers not use Evernote windows desktop app themselves?  If they did, then they would notice this

 

Fixed in the new beta, 6.11, for me in most instances IAC.

[brucewil 3]

I've been hitting this exact issue and after lots of frustration finally found steps to reproduce it:

1. enter something in the "Search notes" field
2. edit a note
3. wait for sync -> notices that the search word is highlighted
4. switch to another app then return to EN -> you'll now get the flashing cursor but you can't type or paste until you click again.

If the search field is empty, then it doesn't happen. I'll be clearing the search field until they fix this.

[Chaseme 15]

11 hours ago, brucewil said:

I've been hitting this exact issue and after lots of frustration finally found steps to reproduce it:

1. enter something in the "Search notes" field
2. edit a note
3. wait for sync -> notices that the search word is highlighted
4. switch to another app then return to EN -> you'll now get the flashing cursor but you can't type or paste until you click again.

If the search field is empty, then it doesn't happen. I'll be clearing the search field until they fix this.

My method of reproduction is simpler than that:

1. Search for something (keyboard shortcut F6)
2. Go to a note that pulls up from search result and place cursor in note (in the Note Panel view).
3. Start typing.

At that point, the text that I input will not appear on the note. It's as if I changed my focus to the Desktop or something other than Evernote. Waiting before typing doesn't resolve the issue either; so it's not a strange hangup due to the Syncing. Double-clicking in the body of the note also has no effect. Heck, even opening the note in a separate window doesn't change the outcome.

 

And this is with me having downgraded to Evernote 6.9.6.6729. I apparently have to downgrade even further back in the Windows 7 releases to thwart the issue.

 

[CalS 5,280]

Not sure all the focus issues are gone, but I don't have any anymore with the new 6.11 GA.

[enSprout 3]

I am seeing similar focus issue in 6.11.2.7027 (307027) Public (CE Build ce-43.0.4829)

[Chaseme 15]

3 hours ago, enSprout said:

I am seeing similar focus issue in 6.11.2.7027 (307027) Public (CE Build ce-43.0.4829)

I'm still having the same issue as well.

[CalS 5,280]

5 hours ago, enSprout said:

I am seeing similar focus issue in 6.11.2.7027 (307027) Public (CE Build ce-43.0.4829)

 

1 hour ago, Chaseme said:

I'm still having the same issue as well.

All the time or when doing something specific?

[Chaseme 15]

4 minutes ago, CalS said:

 

All the time or when doing something specific?

 

All the time. The method of reproduction I mentioned in a post on Tuesday is still happening with 6.11.2.7027

[CalS 5,280]

35 minutes ago, Chaseme said:

All the time. The method of reproduction I mentioned in a post on Tuesday is still happening with 6.11.2.7027

I can't reproduce that.  I am using two monitors EN always open on one, don't know if that makes a difference.  What are you doing when you are waiting for a sync?

[Chaseme 15]

9 minutes ago, CalS said:

I can't reproduce that.  I am using two monitors EN always open on one, don't know if that makes a difference.  What are you doing when you are waiting for a sync?

I have three monitors; Evernote is always open for me as well. I'm literally doing nothing while waiting for the sync (no keystrokes, opening other windows, etc.).

[Carl-L-ND 56]

I'm seeing this too, primarily on my business Win7Pro laptop.  Phantom cursor.  Ctrl-V to paste and nothing happens or sometimes I find the pasted text at the bottom of the note.

This seems to have become much worse in the latest revision updated last week.... 6.10.3.6921.

Also, and I will start or find a separate thread for this.... did we lose some search functionality in searching for a word in a notebook that has sub-notebooks?

[CalS 5,280]

41 minutes ago, Chaseme said:

I have three monitors; Evernote is always open for me as well. I'm literally doing nothing while waiting for the sync (no keystrokes, opening other windows, etc.).

Got me at this point, maybe I'm not following your instructions correctly.   

37 minutes ago, Carl-L-ND said:

I'm seeing this too, primarily on my business Win7Pro laptop.  Phantom cursor.  Ctrl-V to paste and nothing happens or sometimes I find the pasted text at the bottom of the note.

This seems to have become much worse in the latest revision updated last week.... 6.10.3.6921.

Also, and I will start or find a separate thread for this.... did we lose some search functionality in searching for a word in a notebook that has sub-notebooks?

New version 6.11 is out if you want to give it a try.  Stack search is still working for me, either through the notebook drop down in search or using stack:stackname in search.

[Carl-L-ND 56]

Update to 6.11, started a new note.... *BAM*
 

Blinking cursor at top of note inside main body where text should go.

Start typing.... nothing

This happens on my Win7Pro laptop but not my Win10 Home desktop.

 

EDIT: 2018-05-09   I have also been able to replicate this on my Win10 desktop consistently. Something like this....

Work on existing note...

Alt Tab to other window, highlight and copy text using Ctrl-C, Alt-Tab back to Evernote to add text into note, click at spot in note where you want to paste in the text,  Ctrl-V to paste.... and... we... have... FAIL!!!

I imagine this must be a bit like Alzheimer's - I'm here... what have I done with my stuff.

Is there a hashtag for this issue in Twitter or other social media platforms?

 

 

[bw134 2]

7 hours ago, Carl-L-ND said:

Update to 6.11, started a new note.... *BAM*
 

Blinking cursor at top of note inside main body where text should go.

Start typing.... nothing

This happens on my Win7Pro laptop but not my Win10 Home desktop.

I have this exact problem. running windows 7 Pro, EN 6.10.3.6921 (306921) Public (CE Build ce-1.39.4387)

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

On 4/5/2018 at 10:56 AM, Carl-L-ND said:

Update to 6.11, started a new note.... *BAM*
 

Blinking cursor at top of note inside main body where text should go.

Start typing.... nothing

This happens on my Win7Pro laptop but not my Win10 Home desktop.

 

I just installed 6.11 and am still experiencing the exact same issues plus a new one: weird random fake cursors! If you look carefully, you'll see the obvious cursor inside the note and a separate cursor in the title. Can you tell which is real and which is fake?

Perhaps it's time for Evernote to start managing the focus and cursors properly?

 

[FactMan 196]

@WeCanLearnAnything, I get the same problem when using my Surface Book 2 - however, if I open the note in its own Window, I can enter text, etc. I have yet to figure out how to select a block of text in touch mode to do a cut or a copy and paste. Overall, I find the touch mode to be not user friendly - no ability to add an Insert tags button to the toolbar, for example.

 

[chronistin 187]

This is seriously annoying! 

For eyample: A note with several short audio clips. Open first clip to play, put cursor below first clip in the note (and see it blinking there!), audio clip starts to play, I start typing the transcript, but nothing appears in the note. I have to reposition the cursor, restart the audio clip, and do it all over. 

[Carl-L-ND 56]

oh man.... even the emails to notify of a post on this topic are getting lost.  I just had one show up 3 days later.

[Nikolay Trifonov 2]

On 4/3/2018 at 6:48 AM, brucewil said:

I've been hitting this exact issue and after lots of frustration finally found steps to reproduce it:

1. enter something in the "Search notes" field
2. edit a note
3. wait for sync -> notices that the search word is highlighted
4. switch to another app then return to EN -> you'll now get the flashing cursor but you can't type or paste until you click again.

If the search field is empty, then it doesn't happen. I'll be clearing the search field until they fix this.

1

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

This problem is still persisting in 6.11.2 and I hate it so much when it starts to happen and your steps just saved me! Now I just clear the search box everytime before I start the copy/paste process.

[JL14352345 0]

I've been having this problem too.  The steps to reproduce work for me.

On 4/2/2018 at 10:48 PM, brucewil said:

I've been hitting this exact issue and after lots of frustration finally found steps to reproduce it:

1. enter something in the "Search notes" field
2. edit a note
3. wait for sync -> notices that the search word is highlighted
4. switch to another app then return to EN -> you'll now get the flashing cursor but you can't type or paste until you click again.

If the search field is empty, then it doesn't happen. I'll be clearing the search field until they fix this.

 

[sc456a 2]

8 hours ago, JL14352345 said:

I've been having this problem too.  The steps to reproduce work for me.

 

 

I can reproduce the issues with those steps as well running v6.11.2.7027 on Win10. How can this issue have persisted for months without be patched??

One other note; even if I don't actually edit the note because the focus goes away, Evernote thinks it was edited and tries to sync the note.

[LazulineMidna 6]

My issue occurs no matter what I try to do, not just with pasting, and it's 100% of the time.

I'm using Windows 10 Desktop version. It doesn't happen on the mobile version.

If I leave a note, then come back to it, I click where I want to start typing, the cursor shows up, I start typing and nothing happens. I have to click again.

It seemed like a small complaint, but it has grown incredibly inconvenient and interrupts my workflow. I have two windows open side-by-side; Evernote and a web browser. I'm taking notes in Evernote, then scrolling further down an article, then clicking on Evernote to resume typing. I keep typing an idea and then realizing none of it got recorded because I have to click a second time to actually type. 

[MarkW725 13]

I have the same problem. It is really annoying. I've just been typing for ages and realized that Evernote stopped recording the characters ages ago.

This is a work around.

Step 1 Start typing.

Step 2. Press tab tab tab

Step 3 Click with the mouse inside the note.

Step 4 Start typing.

[sherpacurt 10]

I still have this problem 100% of the time I search for a note, open it, and try to add text.

Very Annoying, please fix this!

Repro steps:

1. Win-Shift-F (search)
2. Type search term + Enter
3. double click on note
4. click the note where I want to edit, start typing

=> focus is immediately lost and none of the new text is accepted.

latest version: 6.11.2.7027 (307027) Public (CE Build ce-43.0.4829)

windows 8

[meingraham 4]

Add me to the list. This is really annoying! It seems this is a new problems introduced in the latest release. I'm using 6.11.2.7027 (307027) Public (CE Build ce-43.0.4829). I'm jumping between notes, adding snippets as I perform research on different topics. Many times I'm looking at a different monitor as I'm typing information into Evernote while I transcribe/capture what I'm looking at. All of the sudden, I look at my note and see I haven't updated it a bit because the focus is who knows where. But not a bit of the typing I did gets recorded. Over the past three or four weeks, I can't count the times this has happened, i.e., the times I have lost my thoughts and effort because my typing is ignored! If I remember this issue, and that I'm getting to type in Evernote and not is some other application, then I think to click, move, and click again to ensure that the note gets focus before I start typing. I'm getting a little better at taking this extra annoying effort to ensure I record everything I intend to record. But I'd really rather it work properly!

[Christian Jacobsen 9]

I have the same problem and it is very annoying

Please fix it.

 

Windows 10

6.11.2.7027 (307027) Public (CE Build ce-43.0.4829)

[Chaseme 15]

I had to downgrade Evernote a few times, finally settling on 6.7.5.5825 [Released: September 22, 2017].  I even had 6.8.7.6387 for awhile but text input was still sluggish.

[kkrathi 25]

The whole cursor disappearing thing happening to me too.  Is EN support saying anything about this?  What version would it be fixed in?  On top of it, does anyone else has a problem with the global key for bringing up new note?  The new note is created but it remains in the background.

P.S. I know I have posted in two different threads.  So before the gurus and the EN wellwishers scold me, understand this.  I have been living with the frustration of this double whammy for months now.  I  contacted EN support but they weren't able to solve by email after patiently waiting for their response for a while.  I am going to do a remote session appointment with them soon.   I have been a paying customer.  Maybe I don't pay much.  But I really don't want any EN wellwishers here to snap at me for posting the same problem in two different threads.  I know you have done so in the past.  So please reduce your zealousness and instead help us paying users by escalating issues to EN.

[Chaseme 15]

11 hours ago, kkrathi said:

The whole cursor disappearing thing happening to me too.  Is EN support saying anything about this? 

 

I'm sure they are aware of the situation, but their inaction suggests they have not yet come to a resolution for the issue.

[1Jerry 3]

The lack of response from Evernote is disconcerting for such a useful program that I pay for.  I do not want any new features until they fix the program they broke.  Do they not test new versions anymore before releasing them?  Here are the other issues that were introduced in the last version or so. 

Evernote version 6.11.2.7027 issues

 

1. global "new note" does not have focus
2. create new note with ^n.  Cannot start typing.
   1. must either click on note or TAB twice!
3. notes opened as separate windows will sometime appear to be blank the next day or so.
4. clicking on an open note window to edit will sometime require a second click, the first one didn't change the focus
5. arrowing through notes takes much longer, because it takes much longer to display the actual note in the preview pane and it waits for it.
6. Print Preview function is broken (ctrl-shft P -or- File > Print Preview).  It is doing a "save as" instead.
7. cannot print selection.  Print dialog has the selection option dimmed, even though I have selected text.  (I thought this worked before)

 

 

[sherpacurt 10]

I submitted a bug ticket and got a reply saying they are aware of the problem and are working on it.

No anticipated release date yet.

Ticket# 2487562 - Note loses focus when editing

[WeCanLearnAnything 100]

On 4/27/2018 at 3:47 PM, sherpacurt said:

I submitted a bug ticket and got a reply saying they are aware of the problem and are working on it.

No anticipated release date yet.

Ticket# 2487562 - Note loses focus when editing

Thank you for doing this. There is some hope for a fix before 2030, but given that Evernote has known about these kinds of cursor bugs for, I believe, as long the company has existed, it's fair to say that fixing bugs - including cursor bugs like this - is not a company priority and it's possible (likely?) they will never consider these bugs important enough to fix.

[goodguy3000hd 4]

Same problem here. Annoying.

[bdrewery 12]

Same here on latest version. Seems to have only started recently.

[lowcountry 2]

Adding my voice to this as well.  Very annoying, I do almost everything with text notes (lists, todo, conversation documentation, etc) - almost makes the product unusable.  I work in the tech industry and no mods commenting on this is very frustrating.  Just can't see how this is a hard to fix item and it seems to affect just about everyone.

 

[Alexandr Nefedov 1]

On 22.03.2018 at 21:41, 3sh said:

Same problem here. Windows 10.

1. Cursor is in the note.

2. Pressing Ctrl+V, nothing goes to clipboard, cursor isn't in the note anymore.

3. Putting cursor into the note one more time, pressing Ctrl+V, works until I go into another note, then the story repeats.

Annoying as hell

 

Losing focus when in search field might be related to auto sync, after I increased auto sync delay to 1 hour, looks like it's happening much less.

I have the same problem. 6.12.2.7134 (307134) Prerelease (CE Build ce-44.0

Where bug will be fixed?

[Memetican 3]

Adding my voice here, this is absolutely killing my ability to use Evernote, and I use it all day long to organise my writing and notes, with a ton of copy-paste actions. 

For me, the problem is primarily around the forgetful focus on the note itself.  I haven't noticed any problems with the search box, but...

1. Click the note
2. See it focus and the cursor appear
3. Start typing, or do a paste operation
4. Nothing happens and the cursor disappears
5. Click AGAIN
6. Redo the typing, or pasting, and it works the second time. 

This appears to happen 100% of the time, and I'm running Windows 7. 

Currently using Evernote 6.11.2.7027 (307027) Public (CE Build ce-43.0.4829)

On 3/19/2018 at 6:06 AM, ruudhein said:

I rolled back to 6.5.4.4720. Normal PDF viewer. Reasonable editor, especially compared to the forgetful focus issue.

Besides the introduction of issues, for me, like forgetful focus in notes, now forgetful focus in repeated searches, the lesser quality PDF viewer, lag when switching between notes, and the addition of a New Note button I never ever have felt a need for, I don't really see what the new releases are doing. There is no roadmap to compare to either so God knows what the intended direction of these releases is.

@ruudhein Thanks for the tip - I need to roll back as well.  Did you need to do anything regarding your data? 

On 3/24/2018 at 6:10 AM, TK0047 said:

You can go to filehippo.com to locate a version you want to install.

@TK0047 Also thank you for the reference- here's the direct link to Evernote versions

https://filehippo.com/download_evernote/history/

 

[Izwbusr 1]

Version 6.11 and same problem persists.  Very frustrating!!

[n_konig 13]

As well as the 6.13.1.7192 (307192) Prerelease version...

[At My Fingertips 3]

Yup - add my voice to the massive outcry.  Especially painful since I'm not a touch typist - I have to look at  the keys.  Somehow I always manage to generate 4-5 new notes with partial text of what I'm typing.  Also, I've managed to over-write the title of existing notes.  What a mess!

 

Evernote - You HAVE to get this fixed - Your users are going bonkers!

[HDkarlsen 1]

Adding my voice to the frustration. The "note loses focus after alt-tabbing" problem has persisted for too long. Additionally, I feel like the program was more stable a year ago. Formatting keeps being screwed up randomly.

[msthilaire 1]

Same problem, steps above to reproduce :
 

Quote

 

Search for something (keyboard shortcut F6)

Go to a note that pulls up from search result and place cursor in note (in the Note Panel view).

Start typing.

 

 

Been happening for weeks now, this is using the latest version of the Windows desktop client 6.11.2.7027 (307027)

[jshanker 30]

This has been happening for me as well for months. Currently on 6.11.2.7027 Windows.

I'm invested enough it Evernote that it will take awhile for annoyances and ignored bugs like this to get me to switch, but I'm an IT consultant who in past years has helped hundreds of clients learn about Evernote and half of those purchase premium accounts. Now, I no longer even tell people about it. It's too embarrassing to have to explain why I use, much less recommend, software that pays so little attention to it's bugs.

[sspachtholz 1]

Me too.  Its been driving me nuts.  I can't believe this has been going on since Feb.  Adding my vote to the thread to fix it.   This is a constant annoyance when I create new notes, or move back and forth between a note and another program.  Windows 10 here as well.

[jshanker 30]

I've always felt like I'd invested so much time in Evernote and had so many notes in it that I was going to be using it forever. That is, as much as people tell me how much they love Google Keep I've never even looked at it because I felt like it couldn't be enough of an improvement to merit the headache of converting over from Evernote.

Today I downloaded Google Keep for the first time.

I'm not sure how many people are affected but there are multiple threads on it (for example)

and a whole lot of "Me Too"s. I need to start working on an exit strategy since it doesn't appear Evernote has any plans of acknowledging or fixing this.

For those who are experiencing it, is it equally prevalent on all your Windows devices or does it tend to affect only some or one? 

[DTLow 5,736]

36 minutes ago, jshanker said:

I need to start working on an exit strategy

I've had my exit strategy in place from when I first started using Evernote.
This is a 30 minute export of my notes in html format.  In fact it runs weekly as part of my backups.

Which ever service you decide to use, make sure there is an export option.

[jshanker 30]

I totally agree and my post was unclear. I never would have used Evernote in the first place if the data were not exportable. That means what I've put into my EN database is always accessible to me in a universal format but it doesn't solve the problem of getting them into another tool (I'd prefer whatever I use next to not only have my notes from today going forward but for the last 10 years as well).

Also, the fact that the database can and does work offline means that my regular backup routine, which includes the Evernote folder, and my saving of various installers going back years means that I can always generate an HTML and/or ENEX file anytime even if EN takes away that functionality in the future (no reason to think they would).

Do you also export to ENEX and have you tried importing that to OneNote? Curious how well things like formatting comes through. As far as I'm aware there's not currently an import option into Google Keep, right?

[kkrathi 25]

1 hour ago, jshanker said:

and a whole lot of "Me Too"s. I need to start working on an exit strategy since it doesn't appear Evernote has any plans of acknowledging or fixing this.

For those who are experiencing it, is it equally prevalent on all your Windows devices or does it tend to affect only some or one? 

 

I am finally looking at OneNote after giving up on Evernote support.  I checked out Google Keep.  FYI - They are removing support for the app version.  Which means there would be no offline access unless they provide some other alternative.  So OneNote it is for now.

I want to share a thought on Evernote support.  Not only are they not acknowledging this issue, I even have separate tickets opened with Evernote on this and another topic.  They have taken a long time to get back to me with no resolution.  When they start ignoring their most dedicated and loyal customer base, it is clear that they are not interested in them.  It is clear that their growth strategy is pivoted to something else.  No hard feelings, but we should move on too.

 

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

4 hours ago, kkrathi said:

It is clear that their growth strategy is pivoted to something else.

That may well be; I presume it would be the Evernote Business platform. But does that platform have some magic key for avoiding this widely-reported craziness about focus and cursor? This quote from another thread would suggest not: "I am considering dropping my business subscription as I am losing content I am trying to capture because I have to ensure that I click twice when switching applications." And if not, then I'm not sure that a pivoting strategy is the explanation.

Not that I know what the explanation could be. Not that any of us really can, since Evernote isn't telling us. Once again, the lack of communication leads to speculation among annoyed longtime users as they continue to trickle away. Well, not complete lack. @Austin G has reported, WRT a possibly unrelated issue, that they simply can't reproduce it, even though dozens of users have it:

That's helpful to hear, though not very encouraging. I just think they need to do more to let users know that they're aware of problems, even if a fix is some way off.

[TK0047 422]

On 5/22/2018 at 1:28 PM, kkrathi said:

So OneNote it is for now.

I wouldn't want to steer anybody away from Evernote but if you are already leaving, check out "Notion". I saw a video about it yesterday and it looked intriguing.

[chronistin 187]

On 5/23/2018 at 9:28 PM, TK0047 said:

I wouldn't want to steer anybody away from Evernote but if you are already leaving, check out "Notion". I saw a video about it yesterday and it looked intriguing.

I agree, Notion looks really promising.

[George Mmm 5]

On 2/19/2018 at 9:02 PM, greggc said:

New computer, Windows 10 Pro Version    10.0.16299 Build 16299

EN Version 6.9.7.6770 (306770) Public (CE Build ce-1.39.4387)

Synopsis: The cursor will be present in the Note, and then vanishes when you start typing. If you use up/down arrow keys to move the cursor, the whole note scrolls up/down.

It's most frustrating because in using Evernote, I'm constantly copying text / referencing other documents from other places and pasting / typing into EN.

<Alt-Tab elsewhere> Select / Copy 

<Alt-Tab to EN> see the cursor blinking at me where I left it, <Ctrl-Shift-V Paste>, cursor goes away, no paste. (Note, I wish Paste-Match-Style [aka paste as plain text] could be configured as default)

-or-

<Alt-Tab to EN> see the cursor, start typing, cursor goes away, no typing happens.

 

-or-

<Alt-Tab to EN> see cursor, click mouse to re-position cursor, see cursor in new place, start typing/pasting, cursor goes away, no typing/pasting happens.

In all cases, the Note itself still has focus because Up/Down arrows scroll the Note. It's just decided to stop being in edit mode.

I typically work with Notes in the main EN window, not floating by themselves, but it also happens when they are by themselves (undocked).

Does not happen 100% of time, but is 100% annoying when it does, about 80+% of the time.

This happened in the previous version as well and was such an annoying issue I thought it would be fixed pronto, so I didn't comment on it.

 

 

 

 

 

It is seriously annoying.

It also happens in the title. You start typing a title and the cursor goes into the body and you're typing there. You click back to put the cursor at the end of the title and while you're typing it jumps to the head of the title. And it just keeps on happening 2-3 times

[jshanker 30]

Hoping some others can try this out and confirm the very limited data I have thus far.

For those who have this forgetful focus problem pretty frequently and are on Windows, run SERVICES MANAGER (press Windows and R, then type services.msc and then ENTER) and scroll down to Windows Error Reporting Service. Right click and select PROPERTIES then under Startup Type change it from Manual (I believe that's the default) to DISABLED then APPLY.

Obviously if you're not comfortable and familiar with what I'm describing hold off a bit. If it works for a few other people I'll go into some more detail on what is happening. I tried it a few minutes ago n my machine because of some testing and research that led me to believe that might be the cause, and so far the forgetful focus problem hasn't occurred in Evernote for me.

If it seems to be the cause for others as well then I'll go into some more detail that will enable those less comfortable with these kinds of changes to decide whether they want to do it.

Please respond here whether this works for you or not. Thanks!

--Jason

[Carl-L-ND 56]

jshankar - I've tried this without rebooting after "APPLY'ing" and it has no effect.

What I have done is used search to isolate two notes with the same word in it and then I switch from one note to the other using my mouse to click on the note to edit.

I click in the selected note at the spot I want to enter text, see the cursor blinking there, and try to type in a character and the cursor disappears.  A second click at the same spot will allow me to enter the character.

I'll try this after rebooting later.

.

[n_konig 13]

Same is occurring for me as described by Carl-L-ND, even after rebooting - so unfortunately not a fix for me.

[sherpacurt 10]

@jshanker: I tried disabling Windows Error Reporting Service per your instructions. Both before and after reboot I still have the "losing focus" problem 100% of the time I open a note. Thanks for trying anyway! Still hoping for an easy fix since Evernote is not fixing it.

[jshanker 30]

On further analysis I've determined that I was experiencing two issues with the same symptoms.

This Windows Error Reporting issue was happening on both machines (possibly due to some software or file that runs on both machines) and the Evernote Forgetful Focus bug was happening on one machine (my desktop).

Disabling Windows Error Reporting therefore solved the problem on my laptop and appeared to solve the problem on my desktop because what was happening every few seconds now only happens every couple of minutes, but indeed it does still happen.

I'm going to leave my earlier entry since someone may end up in this thread because they're experiencing the Windows Error Reporting issue, but I'd concur with others that it's not the cause of the Forgetful Focus bug.

[KymC 12]

Losing focus, formatting issues with indenting, etc etc ... absolute garbage product these days.

[MarkW725 13]

I tried the fix suggested by previous users and comments on this thread (@ ruudhein and @TK0047 ) and it now works correctly on my Windows 10 desktop and laptop. I can't see how to link to their posts but it involves the following:

Step 1. Uninstall Evernote

Step 2. Download Evernote version 6.5.4.4720 from filehippo.com (direct link https://filehippo.com/download_evernote/history/ )

Step 3. Install the above version and IMPORTANTLY switch off the auto update function.

 

 

[KymC 12]

25 minutes ago, MarkW725 said:

I tried the fix suggested by previous users and comments on this thread (@ ruudhein and @TK0047 ) and it now works correctly on my Windows 10 desktop and laptop. I can't see how to link to their posts but it involves the following:

Step 1. Uninstall Evernote

Step 2. Download Evernote version 6.5.4.4720 from filehippo.com (direct link https://filehippo.com/download_evernote/history/ )

Step 3. Install the above version and IMPORTANTLY switch off the auto update function.

 

 

This may be a successful workaround Mark that many users will be grateful for, but it must be pointed out that since 6.5.4.4720 there have been the following updates (ref FileHippo) and no addressing of the issue:

Evernote 6.6.4.5512 03 Aug 2017

Evernote 6.7.4.5741 12 Sep 2017

Evernote 6.7.5.5825 22 Sep 2017

Evernote 6.8.7.6387 13 Dec 2017

Evernote 6.9.6.6729 09 Feb 2018

Evernote 6.9.7.6770 16 Feb 2018

Evernote 6.10.3.6921 15 Mar 2018

Evernote 6.11.2.7027 03 April 2018

This is ineptitude or apathy of atomic proportions.

[Ralph77 44]

Just adding me to the ever- and rapidly-growing #MeToo's here! Before searching here and finding this thread I opened a Support request. Funny that the support rep didn't seem to know about this bug as it seems to have been an issue for so long! They asked me to take a screen video and to attach all my logs, neither of which I have the time or inclination to do. Fortunately having found this thread just now, I have finally been able to reproduce the issue at will (by entering a search term, pressing enter, placing the cursor in any resultant note, then trying to type - the cursor disappears immediately and nothing is typed).

I'm currently on v6.9.7, having progressively downgraded from v6.11.2, but it's still happening, so I'll use the FileHippo link given above (THANK YOU!) to downgrade to v6.5.4 which it sounds like is the last functional version - more than a year old!

 

 

[CalS 5,280]

Weirdness.  I just updated my PC to the new Windows release, 1803 or 17134 however it is viewed.  Since then I have not had any focus in note issues.  Does not make any sense to me so I will keep an eye on it.  

Also, back arrow never worked for me, I would always get a list of previous notes in a drop down like I had done a hard press as opposed to automatically switching to the previous note.  Now it works as well.  This also makes little or no sense to me based upon a Windows update.  

Maybe I had some OS gremlin which was removed through the update process????  Or maybe everything will return to as it was after a few days????  Again, weirdness.  ?

[Ralph77 44]

8 hours ago, CalS said:

I just updated my PC to the new Windows release, 1803 or 17134 however it is viewed.  Since then I have not had any focus in note issues.

Alas, I am also running the same version of Windows 10 v1803, but the focus issue still happens. I can also confirm that it was happening in previous Windows 10 v1709.

Following advice in this thread I have now downgraded to EN v6.5.4 and thankfully I am unable to trigger it using that version. Hopefully in daily use (ie. without attempting to trigger it via deliberate usage of the search box) it will remain reliable...

[CalS 5,280]

2 hours ago, Ralph77 said:

Alas, I am also running the same version of Windows 10 v1803, but the focus issue still happens. I can also confirm that it was happening in previous Windows 10 v1709.

Following advice in this thread I have now downgraded to EN v6.5.4 and thankfully I am unable to trigger it using that version. Hopefully in daily use (ie. without attempting to trigger it via deliberate usage of the search box) it will remain reliable...

Yeah, I expect mine to break at any time, but for whatever reason, no loss of focus at the moment.  Mystery to me.

[Ralph77 44]

3 minutes ago, CalS said:

Yeah, I expect mine to break at any time, but for whatever reason, no loss of focus at the moment.  Mystery to me.

What fixed it for you originally? I see further up that you had success with v6.11 beta, and that was prior to the Win10 update?

[CalS 5,280]

9 minutes ago, Ralph77 said:

What fixed it for you originally? I see further up that you had success with v6.11 beta, and that was prior to the Win10 update?

Yes and prior to the 6.12 and 6.13 betas.  The OS upgrade was this weekend.  Don't need to tell you, the editor has been the height of flaky for the better part of six months if not a year.  Still can't drag and drop between two open notes and the like. 

If you have some repeatable focus failure steps let me know and I will give a go to see if I am just not doing the same things as you (DM if you like).  But I can say the fails I was seeing are gone since the OS upgrade.

[Ralph77 44]

4 minutes ago, CalS said:

If you have some repeatable focus failure steps let me know and I will give a go

• Press F6 or use your mouse, or the method of your choice, to move the focus to the global search box
• Type any search word of your choice, then press Enter
• Use mouse to place cursor anywhere in the first note result that should now be open
• Observe the mouse cursor flashing
• Try to type - focus will be lost immediately and nothing will be typed
   

[George Mmm 5]

I strongly recommend not to downgrade.

A few months ago I had a thorny issue with notes getting lost because they would take the content of another note. I worked with support to recover my lost data which I  did using my trial upgrade to business version.

They eventually solved the issue over 2 upgrades.

this application is being more and more frustrating as it gets important

[Ralph77 44]

14 minutes ago, George Mmm said:

They eventually solved the issue over 2 upgrades

Thanks George - that is a real concern then! Am I assuming correctly that the issue you faced was eventually confirmed to be due to a bug in Evernote that could be present in v6.5.4? Or could it be that this disappearing note issue might have been introduced in a later version than that?

Obviously, trying to weigh up here whether v6.5.4 may have contained a bug that's much more serious than just losing focus ?

[CalS 5,280]

10 hours ago, Ralph77 said:

• Press F6 or use your mouse, or the method of your choice, to move the focus to the global search box
• Type any search word of your choice, then press Enter
• Use mouse to place cursor anywhere in the first note result that should now be open
• Observe the mouse cursor flashing
• Try to type - focus will be lost immediately and nothing will be typed
   

Yeah, this fails.  Not a condition typically in my use case which explains why I was not experiencing it.  Most of my searches start with a tag, either in the search bar or from the drop down.  The error does not occur in that mode.  It seems to only happen if a text search is entered, my limited testing anyway.

[jshanker 30]

16 hours ago, Ralph77 said:

• Press F6 or use your mouse, or the method of your choice, to move the focus to the global search box
• Type any search word of your choice, then press Enter
• Use mouse to place cursor anywhere in the first note result that should now be open
• Observe the mouse cursor flashing
• Try to type - focus will be lost immediately and nothing will be typed

Thanks for this explanation. It's helped me to confirm that this is a problem on all my Windows installations -- it was unclear to me before whether it was only happening on some devices and not others but now I've installed a clean Evernote on a clean Windows 7 machine and reproduced the bug using these steps.

Is there anyone using a current version of Evernote on any Windows device who goes through the steps above and does NOT experience the bug? I am annoyed at how long this bug has been going on but I'm far more annoyed now to realize that it's 100% reproducible -- no excuse for not working on it when it can be so easily reproduced.

[Chaseme 15]

20 minutes ago, jshanker said:

Thanks for this explanation. It's helped me to confirm that this is a problem on all my Windows installations -- it was unclear to me before whether it was only happening on some devices and not others but now I've installed a clean Evernote on a clean Windows 7 machine and reproduced the bug using these steps.

Is there anyone using a current version of Evernote on any Windows device who goes through the steps above and does NOT experience the bug? I am annoyed at how long this bug has been going on but I'm far more annoyed now to realize that it's 100% reproducible -- no excuse for not working on it when it can be so easily reproduced.

Evernote 6.7.5.5825 [Released: September 22, 2017] was the first clean install for me. Any subsequent releases were causing this issue.

[1Jerry 3]

1 hour ago, Chaseme said:

Evernote 6.7.5.5825 [Released: September 22, 2017] was the first clean install for me. Any subsequent releases were causing this issue.

This is the version that is working for me too.

[Ralph77 44]

6 hours ago, Chaseme said:

Evernote 6.7.5.5825 [Released: September 22, 2017] was the first clean install for me. Any subsequent releases were causing this issue.

Thanks - this is good to know. I will upgrade from 6.5.4 to 6.7.5 then. But I would be very interested to hear back from @George Mmm as to whether the much more serious bug he reported above was present in 6.7.5? If so, then I would be rather more inclined to upgrade to the latest version and just put up with this #$%@ focus bug ?

[GeoffT 4]

+1
This jumping cursor and clipboard failure is a hassle for me too, in 6.11.2.7027 (307027) Public (CE Build ce-43.0.4829)

I've been suffering with this for nearly a year.

Very tempted to downgrade to Evernote 6.7.5.5825 [Released: September 22, 2017] 

[Smacs 3]

Probably not a panacea, but I found a workaround - at least for the use case I most commonly encounter with this bug.

Firstly, I'm on version "6.11.2.7027 (307027) Public (CE Build ce-43.0.4829)".

Secondly, the issue I encountered is loss of focus when ALT-TABing between an Evernote note and another window. As it turned out, I found this was happening only when I had a search term in the "Search notes" field. Removing the search term eliminated the focus problem. Adding a search term back in the Search field caused the problem to reappear.

Sounds like there are likely other use cases that have a similar issue, but for me, this is the most common and the above workaround should suffice until the underlying bug is addressed.

Hope this helps some others too, as it's a nitty one.

-sm-

[jshanker 30]

Once I saw Ralph77's very helpful step by step to repeat the problem it was much easier to recognize when it was happening. For me the use case that triggers the bug is:

F6 (global search) > type a search term > click on the note (or click IN it if it's already selected b/c it's the first result) >  try to type but lose focus > click on the note again > finally can edit

Once I was able to identify that, the workaround I came up with (similar to Smacs I think) is that I click once on the note in the results list (even if it's the only result) and then press F6 again to return to the global search. My desired note remains selected so it's still in the preview window and in fact my full list of 6000 notes will repopulate but will be scrolled to a spot where the selected note is visible. But now that the search box has been cleared by the second F6 I can edit without losing focus.

I tried a few different methods to come up with one that would work without too much headache and interestingly the above steps do NOT work for me if I double click the note in the results list and open it. If I do that, then F6 again to clear the search box, and then click into the opened note window to type, I lose the focus again.

It sucks to have become so reliant on a program that is constantly requiring workarounds as opposed to competent software development, but this is better than constantly triggering the bug.

[KymC 12]

I installed the latest Beta yesterday 6.13.12.7353 (was running latest Prod 6.11) and the focus problem is still there for me.  I wouldn't assume that this is going to get addressed anytime soon.

[Ralph77 44]

Thank you to @Smacs and @jshanker for those suggestions to workaround this issue. I think I'm now going to upgrade back to the latest v6.11.2 and try these, as hopefully it should soon become second nature to remember to press F6 a second time to clear the search box after every search. But geez Evernote, what a shame (and I use the word in both of its senses) that we should be forced to do this though!

I'm happy enough with v6.7.5 which is the last 'functional' version, but the comment from @George Mmm above, about a possible catastrophic bug, has got me spooked. And while I have no idea whether it affects v6.7.5 or not, I'd rather a bit of inconvenience than a loss of notes.

[George Mmm 5]

The bug that causes loss of notes appeared in 6.7.5 and lasted through 6.9.7 (support asked me to test it) and was solved in 6.10.2 to my knowledge.

Someone in this thread mentioned the focus bug starting with 6.10.3 so it appears that 6.10.2 may be a good one to roll back to.

[Ralph77 44]

Thanks very much for confirming, @George Mmm - I'm glad I didn't stick with 6.7.5 for too long then! But others here have confirmed that 6.7.5 was also the last version without the focus bug, not 6.10.2.

I can confirm for sure that the focus bug does exist in 6.11.2 (current stable version at this time), 6.10.3 and 6.9.7 as I've tried all of these.

I've now resumed use of 6.11.2 to be on the safe side, and have also re-opened my support issue from last month concerning this, since it seems the EN rep was unaware of this thread at the time.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

Just checking in from the peaceful land of v. 6.5.4, where all is functional. ? It does lack the improvements to tables that began (I think) in v. 6.7.5, however.

[Ralph77 44]

Good news, the support rep in my case replied to me that the dev team is aware of the issue and is working on a solution, but there is no ETA yet. 

[1Jerry 3]

Ha Ha!  Did he try to sell you something else too?

I'm been working fine with 6.7.5 for the last month or two while the "dev team" is figuring out what they broke between it and the next version. 

The only quirk is one they have also never addressed, which is when editing a note in a stand alone window, once you add tags <F3> there is absolutely nothing you can do with the keyboard to either edit or exit the window without using the mouse.