Broken images all over my notes

[charisnotchairs 0]

I have been having a massive house clear out and have scanned many documents into Evernote, which I checked were synced at the time.

There are loads of broken images now and I'm really worried at how much information seems to have gone missing. I can't find a solution anywhere - please help!

[Cobonweb 0]

I have exactly the same problem. Issue started after I updated to Evernote windows 6.17.6.8292 (308292) Public (CE Build ce-62.1.7539) this morning.

It seems to only affect notes which I have created today and images which I have annotated. In particular I chose "copy share url" then check the link in my browser ( I always do this to preview the work I am about to send to people who don't have Evernote). After checking the content in my web browser I see the images are not there... going back into my Evernote windows application I see that the images have gone missing and have replaced by broken link icons:

I have had this issue with four different notes today. The images are gone and I have yet to recover them... I'll wait with creating new notes as I don't want to risk losing more images.

 

 

 

[jefito 5,589]

On 1/27/2019 at 10:37 AM, charisnotchairs said:

I have been having a massive house clear out and have scanned many documents into Evernote, which I checked were synced at the time.

Windows? Mac? Android? iOS? Web?

 

[Jeshi 7]

Many images become broken each day I save them in Evernote. I use these platforms: web client on PC, Mac client, and web client on Mac.

[sergio.stanislauskas@gmail 0]

this is happening with me for at least 2-3 months.  An example:   I  capture a post in a web site with Evernote Clip on Chrome. This post contains formatted text and images. When consulting the notes either on Evernote client or in the Web version the text is OK but the images are broken.  I use Evernote on Mac OSX Mojave and Web version on Chrome.  Versions of all software involved are updated as of today... Is there a workaround or fix? 

[Nick L. 681]

@sergio.stanislauskas@gmail Just to confirm, when you capture from the website, are you sure the images are saved into Evernote? We normally see these issues when the images are hosted somewhere else, yet they display in Evernote as an embedded object. If the location of the moves or is taken offline, Evernote won't be able to locate it and will display a broken image link. 

[yt8019 0]

On 3/28/2019 at 2:53 AM, Nick L. said:

@sergio.stanislauskas@gmail Just to confirm, when you capture from the website, are you sure the images are saved into Evernote? We normally see these issues when the images are hosted somewhere else, yet they display in Evernote as an embedded object. If the location of the moves or is taken offline, Evernote won't be able to locate it and will display a broken image link. 

This happens to me even if the image is a screenshot, taken with PC's Chrome web clipper, AND also with iPhone's screenshot. I am very certain the images are not embedded images linked to an external source.

 

[sergio.stanislauskas@gmail 0]

I got back today to  the notes in which the images were not included as described above.  Searched for their title in Google ,  used the up to date web clipper, captured again as "simplified article" (as I had done before) and this time the images were included and saved as expected.  I noticed that all described problems occurred when clipping from the same web site .  Could not figure out what happened but now it is ok .  I'm using Safari in a Mac.  

[ksbraz 0]

Any updates or answers from Evernote? This has been going on for me for a while. I can see the images on my iPad but not in the web or desktop versions. Any help here?

[DTLow 5,736]

14 minutes ago, ksbraz said:

Any help here?

Contact Evernote support at https://www.evernote.com/SupportLogin.action

[sergio.stanislauskas@gmail 0]

Everything came back to normal behaviour at the time of my last post in Nov, 2019.  I suppose that an update fixed the problem but I do not use an iPad .  Just to be sure, I went back to the same sites that had problems and clipped the same articles. Today I did it  using the latest Chrome and Safari stable versions in Mac OSX 10.15.3 and Windows 10 1909, Evernote Clipper version 7.2.3.60 - 1.0.5(30) and desktop version 7.14 (458265 App Store). The result was a well formed note.  So my best possible suggestion is to update the Evernote to the last version... 

[benkrall 6]

EVERNOTE DO NOT CARE ABOUT THIS ISSUE OF DISAPPEARING IMAGES.

I have been trying to explain this to Evernote for at least 6 years.

THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO POINT IN SAVING MEDIA TO EVERNOTE FOR ANY REASON WHATSOEVER IF EVERNOTE CANNOT RECALL THE IMAGE IN THE NOTE, OR WILL JUST REPLACE IT WITH A BROKEN IMAGE LINK. THIS IS GARBAGE QC AND MAKES THE ENTIRE PRODUCT ABSOLUTELY USELESS IF WE CANNOT TRUST THAT THE DATA. IS. ACTUALLY. BEING. SAVED. IN. THE. NOTE. PERMANENTLY.

This is something that should fundamentally never, ever, EVER happen with a product that is supposed to be saving data for reference. The fact that this kind of bug has been rampant for the entire 12-year time I have been an EN user shows exactly what drives the company.

IT IS HARD TO IMAGINE A PRODUCT FAILING MORE AT ITS PRIMARY PURPOSE, THAN EVERNOTE FAILING TO SAVE AND PRESERVE PERMANENTLY THE MEDIA THAT IS CLIPPED INTO THE EVERNOTE APP.

Here is a list of my previous support tickets that deal with Evernote deleting or otherwise darn it just can't seem to figure out how to save an image.

857599
821527
771763
754394
753118
624503
624456
573723
321207
288595 

973194

958985

1711817

1718770

1673628

1784075

1644774

1673628

1718770

1995674

1854690

1852494

2593069

2595489

3038620

 

LITERALLY ALL EVERNOTE HAS TO DO IS SAVE THE IMAGE FILE ON DISK SOMEWHERE, AND MAKE A LITTLE XML FILE THAT DISPLAYS IN THE APP, WHICH IS BASICALLY JUST A CRAPPY WEB BROWSER.

 

QUALITY CONTROL AT EVERNOTE IS OBVIOUSLY NON-FUNCTIONAL.

[benkrall 6]

On 3/27/2019 at 12:53 PM, Nick L. said:

@sergio.stanislauskas@gmail Just to confirm, when you capture from the website, are you sure the images are saved into Evernote? We normally see these issues when the images are hosted somewhere else, yet they display in Evernote as an embedded object. If the location of the moves or is taken offline, Evernote won't be able to locate it and will display a broken image link. 

This is a total garbage design. The note should be preserved AS CLIPPED permanently. There is no excuse for this strategy of "soft saving" which in reality only leads to data loss.

If I am clipping media into the EN software it should stay clipped period - there is no excuse for this garbage.

[PinkElephant 8,068]

Personally I admire your ability to suffer through 6 years of talking to support instead of walking away from such a deficient product.

However, one should know the difference between storing a link and storing a picture file.

I can only read between the lines of your quite long posting that actually you did not loose pictures stored in EN, you just find out that at the far end of links you have stored there is no longer a picture the link was pointing to. This may happen, because the existence of a link does not control the object the Link is pointing to. If the picture is taken away, the Link points to nothing.

Up to now I have not lost a single picture I have ever (sic) stored in my EN Data base. Maybe you should start to save the pictures instead of links.

@benkrall My Post that crossed over with yours is as valid to your post as the one above.

If you want to store a picture, do it. When you rely on a link instead, it is at your own peril that the object linked to is gone one day without further notice. If you use a hammer instead of a wrench, don’t blame the tool for bad results.

[benkrall 6]

1 minute ago, PinkElephant said:

Personally I admire your ability to suffer through 6 years of talking to support instead of walking away from such a deficient product.

However, one should know the difference between storing a link and storing a picture file.

I can only read between the lines of your quite long posting that actually you did not loose pictures stored in EN, you just find out that at the far end of links you have stored there is no longer a picture the link was pointing to. This may happen, because the existence of a link does not control the object the Link is pointing to. If the picture is taken away, the Link points to nothing.

Up to now I have not lost a single picture I have ever (sic) stored in my EN Data base. Maybe you should start to save the pictures instead of links.

No - there are huge issues with BOTH types of images in EN - referenced and hard saved. I am saying there is no reason EN should EVER be sourcing a referenced image file from the web - there is no excuse for this behavior since there is no reason why ANY USER EVER would want to save media from a web site, but ONLY BE ABLE TO RETRIEVE OR REFERENCE THIS MEDIA IF THE ORIGINAL SOURCE MEDIA ON THE WEB HAS NOT BEEN MOVED.

I personally never clip directly from a web site, because EN obviously does not understand this issue.

Even if I drag an image to my desktop, or use the EN screenshot tool, images will eventually disappear into the garbage bin of Evernote.

 

[benkrall 6]

7 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

 

@benkrall My Post that crossed over with yours is as valid to your post as the one above.

If you want to store a picture, do it. When you rely on a link instead, it is at your own peril that the object linked to is gone one day without further notice. If you use a hammer instead of a wrench, don’t blame the tool for bad results.

There should be no "link" functionality.

Why would you ever want to save something in Evernote that could disappear if the source web page changes at all? There would be no point.

What if I made a xerox of a newspaper article because I wanted to preserve it? If the physical newspaper got recycled, would my xerox just look blank?

No - it is obvious there should be no "linking" of media. Any user would assume that if they are "clipping" something into their notebook, it would be SAVED and not just referenced to a dumb link out on the web somewhere.

[PinkElephant 8,068]

Maybe the clipping works as it does  because there are use cases (obviously these are not your use cases) where a link is better that the object itself. Clipping something is not like doing a xerox in the old days. The modern equivalent to xeroxing is creating a pdf. This will not go blank when somebody trashes the original.

If you want to create a permanent copy of something in EN there are tools to do so:

1. Use the screenshot tool build into WebClipper
2. The „simplified“ clipping option stores the picture itself (at least it does in the notes I have checked in my EN database)
3. Use the „Create pdf“-option of your browser 
4. Use the „Print to pdf“ option of your OS
5. Use the „Copy picture“ In the context menu of your browser

All these will create permanent „still“ copies of what you want to preserve. Which is available depends on the OS and client you are working on. I concede I have a blind spot with Android that I avoid to use, but with Win10, MacOS and iOS there are sufficient possibilities to create a permanent copy - if I choose to do so.

[benkrall 6]

3 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Maybe the clipping works as it does  because there are use cases (obviously these are not your use cases) where a link is better that the object itself.

If you want to create a permanent copy of something in EN there are tools to do so:

1. Use the screenshot tool build into WebClipper
2. The „simplified“ clipping option stores the picture itself
3. Use the „Create pdf“-option of your browser 
4. Use the „Print to pdf“ option of your OS
5. Use the „Copy picture“ In the context menu of your browser

All these will create permanent „still“ copies of what you want to preserve. Which is available depends on the OS and client you are working on. I concede I have a blind spot with Android that I avoid to use, but with Win10, MacOS and iOS there are sufficient possibilities to create a permanent copy - if I choose to do so.

Like I'm saying, I have been using EN for 12 years... it has NEVER been reliable for images.

Yes, I understand the difference between clipping from a web page which would often result in a "referenced" image (which will eventually disappear) and clipping an image file directly.

The issue is that Evernote do not care about the fact that this distinction between REFERENCED and SAVED FILE is not obvious to most users, and results in tons of data loss.

This advice is beside the point because I have lost media in notes saved with each method 1-5 you list above. Evernote still have not solved how to use media in notes, whether it's a linked file on the web, or a file I drag in from my desktop, or a screenshot from the helper tool, etc.

Additionally, there is no way to know - if you're looking at an existing note - whether the media is being pulled down from the web every time the note is opened, or if the media data is actually saved hard in the note. So users have no indication of whether they will lose their media once the source web site puts an extra character in their directory names, or whatever.

 

[PinkElephant 8,068]

Probably if things are so bad, you should switch to another program. EN offers great export tools, and may other programs have tools to import EN content into their data bases.

Personally I do not look back at 12 years with EN, but up to now I have not lost a note, or it’s content.

Maybe I was just lucky until now (keeping my fingers crossed until it hurts).

[benkrall 6]

1 minute ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

I'm sorry you're having this problem, and honestly if it's this big a deal for you, and you are so convinced that Evernote hasn't got this right and never will, I do wonder why you're still paying for a Premium subscription.

Me too.

I apologize to my fellow users who were really upset because they had to read... all caps letters...? I understand my approach here may not have been the most helpful, but no one is forcing you to read this.

The issue is that Evernote support and their presence on this forum is completely disconnected from the engineering quality control of the product. There really is no functioning channel for EN users to communicate how bad this QC issue is. For crying out loud you can't even submit a support ticket if you're not a paying subscriber.

Many of us are heavily invested due to existing workflows or business projects that are set up on the EN platform. 

The constant issue of data loss and overall quality control for software that is supposed to be a reference tool is a top line failure to prioritize the actual functions that are essential to the tool. It's a fundamental fail if the note saving app by design allows parts of notes to become unreadable - full stop.

Additionally, when users spend many hours per day interacting with the EN environment, each of these issues become gigantic obstacles when - for example - I have to spend hours repeating research because images disappear from notes that just happen to be a few years old, and the source media URL no longer exists.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

@benkrall, after I posted the message that you quote, I thought better of getting involved in this discussion and deleted it (which is why others who come here will not see it). All I'll repeat of it here is that, for me, there is not a "constant issue of data loss." I don't think I'm unique in that experience, but I haven't done a survey. I don't have the impression that you have either. We each have only our own experience to go on; mine is good, on the whole, and yours is lousy. I don't think it's fair to project from only one's own experience to what the service overall is like, or to what its staffers are doing overall.

No need to reply to this; I don't foresee a fruitful dialogue here. I do hope you are able to get out of the mess to something that works better for you.

[benkrall 6]

FWIW I absolutely apologize for being unpleasant about this - but I don't really know what to tell you. If it's unpleasant for you to read the thread, try to imagine what it is like for users who do have data loss constantly out of EN.

I am only in this thread today in the first place because I had to spend my entire morning redoing research from several years ago, which when clipped into EN was not saved reliably and was ruined and unusable to us today once the original source URLs were not available.

Similar issues happen probably 40% of the time I need to refer back to some past research. Normally I don't even contact EN anymore because I know they will not be able to help. Today was so frustrating I went to find out whether there was ANYTHING active going on with this issue.

[Dave-in-Decatur 3,938]

No more gurus here; just look around. (Oops, sorry for inserting a fact.) But hey: Gurus vs. Trolls ... that might make a great video game!

[PinkElephant 8,068]

Wow - somebody being proud of running outdated software versions, and paying bucks for not updating.

Now if anything’s qualifies for GURU-status, then this ! Because being GURU means sitting 30ft. above ground on a column, and garble about life, the youth of today and how everything was better, back then in the goo‘ ol‘ days ...

[ivaldezl@hotmail.com 0]

On 3/27/2019 at 2:53 PM, Nick L. said:

@sergio.stanislauskas@gmail Just to confirm, when you capture from the website, are you sure the images are saved into Evernote? We normally see these issues when the images are hosted somewhere else, yet they display in Evernote as an embedded object. If the location of the moves or is taken offline, Evernote won't be able to locate it and will display a broken image link. 

All said. I have a lot of work to do, because it seems like much of my images are hosted on the web pages I took them from.

And those pages could be taken offline by tomorrow. I don't know.

I just copied the images and pasted them into a note.

If I may, I suggest you to improve that. 

 

And thanks for the explanation

[Evernoter88 0]

I have to say that I am rather dissappointed that it does not store the images in the note itself but is actually just a link to the image.

The whole reason I'm saving it in evernote is because I want a safe, organised backup of content.

I assumed the hyperlink just stored the location that the image was saved from...not that it doesn't save the image in a note taking app! There's not even any option of saving the images locally. That's why I decided to search to see if there was any merit to my worrying.

Now I have to redo all my notes by clicking on each image, copying it and pasting it back into the note.

Am I right to assume that doing that would actually save the image?

It's dissappointing that there is no way to do this automatically. At the very least for local backups.