Evernote Support is going down hill

[jbenson2 2,147]

Just a rant - I know what the final solution will be. The infamous uninstall and reinstall of my 30,000 notes. 

Me: A couple of weeks ago, I upgraded my Evernote Windows to version 6.18.4.849 (308489) Public.

Me: The program would randomly shut down with no warning and no error message a few times during the week. Evernote would not start up again unless I rebooted.

Me: So I submitted a support ticket and requested that Evernote tech review my activity log first, before I resorted to the standard Evernote response (a complete uninstall / reinstall / resync).

ES: Support responded with 4 bullet points, but no comment about my activity log

* Sign out your Evernote account
* Clear cache
* Perform to reboot
* Log back in

ES: If you're unsuccessful, please attach the screen recording detailing the issue.

ES: You can provide a screen recording using Jing, a free third-party application.

Me: Alarm bells going off in my head. Did he read and understand my support request? I did tell him this was a random occurrence. And I noticed there is a warning on Jing's home page.
"NOTE: Jing’s current video format (.swf) will no longer be supported by web browsers soon. You can still capture images with Jing, but if you need an all-in-one solution for image and video capture, we recommend trying Snagit."

Me: Sounded fishy to me. I wondered if English was his native language. So I asked him what he meant by "Perform to reboot". (Was he using Google Translator to create his replies?)

Me: He did not explain, but went in a different direction.

ES: Glad you replied back, and sorry for the confusion it has caused you.

ES: Can you confirm if you recently created a note with attachment?

Me: He asked me to copy the content of each note into a new note, delete the original note, empty the trash and sync Evernote.

Me: During the month of May, I created 218 notes. 159 of those notes have attachments. I asked him if he wants me to make copies of the 159 notes, and delete the 159 originals.

Me: There has been no Evernote Support response yet. 
 

 

[DTLow 5,736]

22 minutes ago, jbenson2 said:

I know what the final solution will be.

Downgrading to a version that works better for you?

[gazumped 11,666]

I get that too - when the support guy you're talking to realises that you actually know more about the topic than he does,  and the script he's working from doesn't have any more options...

I know it's absolutely no help whatsoever,  but I'm running the same version of Evernote and haven't had any crashes recently..  <grabs side of natural wood desk hurriedly>.

Any chance you're getting a conflict with some other app running at the same time?

[jbenson2 2,147]

11 minutes ago, DTLow said:

Downgrading to a version that works better for you?

I used to try to stay with a version that was 2 to 3 months old, but it got difficult remembering when to upgrade to a new level and still avoid the current version. So a few months ago, I bit the bullet and started upgrading when a new public version was released.

So I'll probably do the full delete and reinstall this weekend. 

[jbenson2 2,147]

 

 

 

11 minutes ago, gazumped said:

Any chance you're getting a conflict with some other app running at the same time?

That was my initial thought. I keep Evernote running all day long and something else might be the culprit. That is the reason I wanted the Tech people to scan through my Activity Log.  I'll give it a try myself.

[dconnet 529]

47 minutes ago, jbenson2 said:

The program would randomly shut down with no warning and no error message a few times during the week. Evernote would not start up again unless I rebooted.

These are the hated bugs - random. Very hard to repro and fix. Sigh.

An alternate to rebooting: Open Task Manager and kill the running Evernote processes. You can leave EvernoteClipper.exe - that's not what prevents EN from starting again. It's the Evernote.exe, EvernoteSubprocess.exe, and EvernoteTray.exe processes. When the main Evernote.exe crashed, it died in such a way that the other processes didn't catch that and proceed to act very badly.

[jefito 5,589]

41 minutes ago, dconnet said:

An alternate to rebooting: Open Task Manager and kill the running Evernote processes. You can leave EvernoteClipper.exe - that's not what prevents EN from starting again. It's the Evernote.exe, EvernoteSubprocess.exe, and EvernoteTray.exe processes. When the main Evernote.exe crashed, it died in such a way that the other processes didn't catch that and proceed to act very badly.

Yeah. I've had the Evernote application die&disappear with no warning a couple times over the last few months, and killing the leftover processes definitely allowed  me to start it up again without rebooting. Helps that I keep Process Explorer running all the time, for various reasons, or maybe just old habit.

[EdH 1,670]

I have stopped submitting support requests. I get the equivalent of "is your PC plugged in" canned responses that clearly indicate one of a few things:

1. AI is answering it based on keywords in my request
2. Someone is scanning it quickly for keywords and pasting a canned reply.
3. They have zero actual knowledge of Evernote and their reply makes absolutely no sense in the context of the support request.

That is a true shame for a paid customer too.

[RavBoy 189]

On 6/1/2019 at 1:59 AM, jbenson2 said:

The program would randomly shut down with no warning and no error message a few times during the week. Evernote would not start up again unless I rebooted.

Due to issues when upgrading previous versions of EN, I haven't updated since installing my version for Win10 ---  6.16.4.8094 (308094) Public (CE Build ce-58.1.6897). 

But even on this version, I too have noticed the exact same behaviour/issues you did re random shut down.  I think i noticed this occurred when trying to drag certain images from file explorer across to EN... perhaps this is the issue?  But the only way for me to get EN to work again has been to reboot my PC.  But now thanks must be given to @dconnet for his advice "quoted below" ...great to know, cheers

On 6/1/2019 at 2:50 AM, dconnet said:

These are the hated bugs - random. Very hard to repro and fix. Sigh.

An alternate to rebooting: Open Task Manager and kill the running Evernote processes. You can leave EvernoteClipper.exe - that's not what prevents EN from starting again. It's the Evernote.exe, EvernoteSubprocess.exe, and EvernoteTray.exe processes. When the main Evernote.exe crashed, it died in such a way that the other processes didn't catch that and proceed to act very badly.

 

[Tcellguy 71]

I'm not even sure humans are available in support at this point. I'm getting randomly copied portions of my emails copied into generic sentences like "I appears you're having problems with "insert text". 

 

I submitted a ticked about my Mac and included a screenshot and activity log.

 

Support asked me to restart my phone and clear my cache. When I informed them that a Mac is not a phone they asked me to "clear my cache".

 

When I asked them what they meant by clearing my cache a new agent replied and asked me if I had notes synced locally to my device and recommended to sort my notes by sync status to see if they were unsynced (which I don't see as an option in the macOS client). 

Is this for real? Is this some AI experiment?

[gazumped 11,666]

9 minutes ago, Tcellguy said:

Is this for real? Is this some AI experiment?

Not sure - Evernote is getting bigger,  and that's not always a good thing...

If you can post your ticket number here we can ask an Admin to look into it for you (they're real,  we're.. pretty.. sure).

If you want to share some more details of the tech issue,  my colleagues - who speak Mac - may be able to assist...

[Tcellguy 71]

Thanks Gazumped. Ticket is 2850717

 

I don't mean to cross/double post. I added to another user's post about high cpu use and lag with typing. 

 

I once had this issue back in v6 or early v7. But basically I get a 1-2 second pause in entering text every few seconds that corresponds to the blue note sync icon. I'm also getting Evernote.app CPU use > 60% and my Mac heating up with greater than average battery drain.

 

No other problems with this machine or any other apps. My iMac doesn't have the lag problem using the same Evernote database. 

 

I don't have access to high speed internet right now so I've held off on re-downloading the entire database from the server, but that likely will be my next step. 

[gazumped 11,666]

Cheers.  I flagged your ticket - please hold the line for more....

[Shane D. 1,818]

Hey All,

Thank you for all of your feedback. I wanted to let you know that I've relayed it to our teams and they're going to further investigate.

@Tcellguy I was able to locate your ticket, and have expedited it per your request. Feel free to reach out to me directly if you have any questions!

[EdH 1,670]

2 hours ago, Tcellguy said:

I'm not even sure humans are available in support at this point. I'm getting randomly copied portions of my emails copied into generic sentences like "I appears you're having problems with "insert text". 

 

I submitted a ticked about my Mac and included a screenshot and activity log.

 

Support asked me to restart my phone and clear my cache. When I informed them that a Mac is not a phone they asked me to "clear my cache".

 

When I asked them what they meant by clearing my cache a new agent replied and asked me if I had notes synced locally to my device and recommended to sort my notes by sync status to see if they were unsynced (which I don't see as an option in the macOS client). 

Is this for real? Is this some AI experiment?

It does make you wonder if this is how the Support team keyboards look.