Getting 'Note failed to update' every minute or so of use

[jessicaevernote 0]

When I'm typing along in my notes I get this message every minute or so and it may or may not lose the last couple keystrokes

I thought maybe EverNote was just having a bad day but it's been almost a week now. 

I'm using Chrome. No console errors/warnings.

 

[gazumped 11,652]

Hi.  Also reported in several other threads - are you using the new Web version?  Try reverting back to the older version in Settings.  Alternatively use a local word processor if you can and just attach the document file to a note.  Leaving a web page open while you type ongoing notes is a hazardous process...  there's even a browser add-in to help - 

Quote

Writing for the web can give you a surprise at any turn. Hours of effort can be lost in an instant. However, with data recovery software, you can make your computer temporarily recall everything that you have typed in web forms. Although 99% of the time you won't need it, this software can make tomorrow's pre-dinner writing time completely stress-free.

https://turbofuture.com/internet/Text-Data-Recovery-Software-for-Blog-Writing

EDIT:  After a bit of research I couldn't find an up to date version of the Lazarus app that's featured here,  but there's a recently updated version of something called Typio Form Recovery which looks as useful... https://typiorecovery.github.io/

[Scott T. 662]

@jessicaevernote Are you using any Google Chrome plugins that might be interfering with the Evernote web application? This might be an ad blocker or some other plugin that interacts with and/or modifies the content on the page.

[JustAnotherEvernoteUser 1]

Copy all the changes (to another file or clipboard),  logout (top left corner where it shows the email address you use to login), and log back. That should do the trick. It worked for me.

[denis.aumiller9@gmail.com 0]

I've been getting the "note failed to update" message for several days now, the web app. It's maddening. I've been using Evernote for years and it's always been stable. No crashes. I've lost dozens of notes in the last week.

I'm on an iMac, System 10.12, through Google Chrome. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[PinkElephant 8,073]

Have you tried another browser yet ?

As I understand, you use the web client on your Mac. Do you use the Mac client (the one that installs on the Mac) as well ?

[Shanezam203 3]

I am seeing the message in web version of Evernote daily and notes are not updating. 

Any thoughts how to resolve?

Quote

Note failed to update.
There's been an error syncing your note. Please reload to resume editing. 

 

[gazumped 11,652]

11 hours ago, Shanezam203 said:

Any thoughts how to resolve?

...See the comments above in this thread?  That's pretty much all we got...

[Ohtrin 1]

For anyone having trouble in the web editor on Edge ("App" window): Delete cache and cookies then login again. Solved it for me.
(Probably something is failing to be overwrite in the browser side)

[RichardG63 15]

I also am experiencing problems with using web client as of the last few days. Normally I've found any body of text is saved at a satisfactory interval (which negates the need for  @gazumped suggestion of installing third party software), and the idea of using a third party word processor to keep notes is farcical.

I'll try disabling any Chrome extensions I have, and will completely clear my cache & cookies (although this is really not a good solution...).

 

 

[RichardG63 15]

Having completely cleared Chrome's cache/cookies etc, I found performance was better but it reverted to the same situation after a few edits. Creating a new notebook resulted in a long wait and wasn't effective ultimately.

Then I disabled all Chrome extensions and cleared the cache/cookies again. Same resutl.

I've since installed Vivaldi browser on my Ubuntu machine and that is working very well: no issues with saved changes or creation of new notebooks.

So I suspect this is a bug between Evernote's web app and Chrome.

BTW I'm using 84.0.4147.135 (Official Build) (64-bit)

[Notatious D 3]

This is crazy.  I'm getting this error repeatedly, trying to update a note, and this seems to not be a new error.  The changes are completely lost as soon as I press that Reload button. 

I can't figure out why an error would ever cause it to dump text or other edits.  At worst, there's a sync conflict (which I think is supposed to result in duplicating the note as a separate note, although it's done other bizarre things, see below), but it instead it ERASES ALL THE CHANGES ONE JUST MADE.  (And no, there are not parallel changes to this note being made on another device, I'm just one person.)

At this point, I'd be insane to keep using Evernote for anything important.  If it can't save some basic changes, and it's a repeated error, how could Evernote ever be trusted to save anything reliably?  One would never know when it would fail.

This is the Mac client Editor: v126.0.16239, Service: v1.37.3

This goes to show how, over the years the sync errors I had were harbingers of even more unacceptable things to come.  I never have problems like this with Apple Notes or other other apps.  While I'm sure sync errors are not unique to Evernote, Evernote has always had the most uniquely frustrating and destructive sync issues in my experience or what I've read.  (Sometime ti still quietly resolves a sync conflict by appending the entire version of one to the first note, which is not appropriate, but worse it doesn't alert me and that can happen over and over so you end up with a giant note of not-quite-repeated text one must try to merge, it's very time consuming even with unix diff tools.  The worst thing of all, was that there was always plenty of time to sync any changes after they were made in a device, so there should never have been any conflicts to begin with.)

Combined with the very limited 2-layer hierarchy of Evernote, I've only continued to use it out of wanting to avoid a migration project, but I've put less and less important things in it, fortunately.

Good luck!  I do hope they fix this bug, it's nuts.  Because it's not a typical bug when accidental behavior occurs (it got confused and accidentally lost changes), it's behavior that should NEVER EVER under any circumstances occur (it got confused and intentionally overwrote all changes the user just made, and had the chutzpah to tell you and make you press the button).

[PinkElephant 8,073]

You post in the web client subforum - but you tell a long story about the EN Mac client.

Are you on the latest release 10.16 ? The editor number doesn’t tell me a thing . What version is your MacOS ?

AppStore version or direct download ?

Have you tried to set the switch „Keep all data …“ in settings to OFF, then log out and back in ?

[Notatious D 3]

I posted here, because that's where I found mention of my problem.  I hope it doesn't happen to many people, but it's so over-the-top that Evernote has become untenable for even basic usage.  I thought I'd at least try to get that experience out there where it might help somebody, possibly Evernote.

I'm on Big Sur 11.4.  I see 10.16.7-mac-ddl-public (2732).  I never saw a version with the word "public" in it before, so I mentally skipped over it, assuming the Editor was what I was looking for.  (Why not label it?) I have not found any "Settings" or "Preferences" in this version of Evernote, other than this menu item.  I will play with that Save setting if desperate.  Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

[PinkElephant 8,073]

Just to confirm: It is the latest OS and EN client for the Mac. I am running the same on my MacBook Pro, no issues.

Since everything else in this thread has nothing to do with the Mac client, nothing applies.

In your 2 posts you tell a lot, but stay short of a simple problem description. It is hard to see what may be going on.

Could be anything, security software interfering, bad internet connection (look out for ping time, jitter and package loss when testing) etc. We had another thread where restarting the router did the job.

Maybe support could see something, attach the activity log.

[dbvirago 498]

5 hours ago, PinkElephant said:

Just to confirm: It is the latest OS and EN client for the Mac. I am running the same on my MacBook Pro, no issues.

Since everything else in this thread has nothing to do with the Mac client, nothing applies.

In your 2 posts you tell a lot, but stay short of a simple problem description. It is hard to see what may be going on.

Could be anything, security software interfering, bad internet connection (look out for ping time, jitter and package loss when testing) etc. We had another thread where restarting the router did the job.

Maybe support could see something, attach the activity log.

I am getting the same on my Win client and will post in the appropriate thread

[Notatious D 3]

I added other anecdotes about Evernote as a cautionary tale for those who should search this way, as evidence that Evernote has a problematic, and slightly bizarre, history with syncing. 

Again, I would point out that my edits are being intentionally deleted and replaced with an old version which should never happen under any circumstances ever.  In this case, there is zero complexity, there's no syncing from another device, etc. But even if there were, this shouldn't happen. At least not in any scenario that I can imagine. 

I don't know what is wrong with my problem description. I go in and edit a note.  After a few minutes, it pops up that warning and deletes my edits. I tried it again. It deleted it again. Regardless of any connectivity issue anywhere in the network, including security software, THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN. Evernote should be robust with respect to intermittent connectivity, and not get confused. At worst, it should duplicate data, not delete it.

So I am not trying to fix this for me, I am trying to migrate to a safer app, while warning others. I don't even know which category this goes in.  If it happens on Mac, Windows and web, which one is that? Connecting the dots here seems perfectly appropriate; it appears to be the same problem.

Another thing about Evernote I've noticed is this forum. Someone will post about very frustrating and unreasonable shortcomings with Evernote, and then get criticized for it like they are the problem, or they have the shortcomings.  If you have a question, ask politely and try to understand their perspective.  No need to dismiss or criticize.  This forum is about criticizing and fixing Evernote, not its users. People come to this forum, make a post, adapt, got back and forth, because Evernote caused them an issue in the first place that should never have occurred. Consideration of this is appreciated.

[gazumped 11,652]

1 hour ago, Notatious D said:

This forum is about criticizing and fixing Evernote

Interesting view,  but surely (he said very politely) Evernote encourages feedback here so that they can identify and fix problems,  and help users who may be new to the software to find a way to complete their intended tasks working with,  or around the features available.  If you simply want to register that things aren't working for you and you're leaving,  that's fine.  Please say so clearly and exit the premises in an orderly manner. 

If you'd like to get some help to fix - or to work around - an issue,  please give us your device / OS / Evernote version and a full description of the situation.  In your description forinstance you don't say whether you're using the installed client or the web,  but it may be that if you're using the web,  it's the internet connection,  a VPN or a firewall that contributes to your woes.  And is it the "note failed to update" message that you're seeing?  because the previous post here did get the suggestion in his own thread that 'un-updatable' notes are probably editable in Legacy if not v10. 

As a subscriber of course you can reach out to Support - they actually are Evernote employees,  unlike most responses here,  which are from other users who've been around for a while and can - usually - make useful suggestions.  Evernote staffers will read your comments here when they get around to catching up.

We're normally not judgemental or (excessively) rude,  though maybe some humour doesn't exactly translate - you could be getting answers here from the US, Japan, UK and Germany amongst (probably) others.

[Notatious D 3]

It's the same error the OP saw. My client version is identified in the thread, it's "mac", so yes, Mac client.

I'm not trying to troubleshoot it so I'm not detailing my network or security, but I still contend that this should not be necessary to fix the bug, or even troubleshoot it, because if intermittent connectivity can cause data loss, I believe that the right answer is to avoid the possibility, not get it temporarily working.

So on that note, yes, I did stumble across the ability to go back versions in Evernote, thank you. I will have to try that. Not just for this bug, but also because I can't export all my notes for a backup using this version. It will only select 50 notes at a time. (Another very unfortunate design decision.)

I don't believe I posted anything inappropriate for the forum. I am familiar with forum protocol and I believe that everything in my post was germane to helping Evernote and its users identify and fix problems, as well as avoid them.

I did comment about a different bug in the same system. Readers are free to ignore it, but it might be relevant to sync stability for a user or engineer. And on that note, I should also mention that I successfully worked around that problem (sync conflicts which resulted in an un-notified (pun?) combination of both versions within the same note). I did so by not editing long notes with many lines of text. It seemed to happen when updating notes like that, maybe 100+ lines. My personal advice is do not maintain notes with many text lines in which you add or edit a few lines at a time. If you are going to have to edit them, split them into notes of a few pages max.

[PinkElephant 8,073]

Thanks for posting. You tell a lot, for me it is difficult to identify the core issues. Just a few remarks:

Posts in the forum will most likely not cause an action by EN. To feed anything into the EN engineering, a support ticket is the way to go.

A certain sensitivity of the v10 clients to long notes (explicitly with many lines of text) is known. It is one factor for syncing conflicts. How long is too long is not known, users report different situations. 

To avoid it, notes can be broken up into shorter ones, stiched together by links. For example instead of a yearly journal one per month. Not good, but at least there is a workaround.

You can export any notebook in one action - the 50 notes limit only applies when notes are selected individually. To have better export options, use the legacy client.

Anyhow exporting should be done by notebook, and the ENEX file should be named to remember which notebook it came from. The information about the notebook is lost on export - you end up with all notes on one heap when not exporting per notebook.

Just for the protocol: All this is about a unknown v10 Mac client in an undefined setup, because you spare the details, posted in the web client subforum.