Regular screen freezes, "not responding"

working40 · December 7, 2012

I use Evernote a lot and really like it.

However, in mid- to late 2012, I have begun having problems with Evernote becoming very laggy. I will click to enter text into a note, or I'll be typing along in a note, and the top bar will say "not responding". If I click, the Evernote pane goes white and there is a 5-10 second delay. Then the text I enter appears and I have access to the note.

If this only happened periodically, it might be bearable. But, with Evernote 4.6.0.7670 it happens every couple of minutes and makes writing a total pain.

Has anyone else had this problem, and what solved it? How did you solve it?

Thanks!

R

working40 · December 18, 2012

This is still happening. All the time. Does anyone have any ideas?

My system:

Win 7 Pro SP1

Core i7-2630QM

8 GB RAM

Happens with wireless or wired Cat6 Internet

jefito · December 18, 2012

You might try checking your activity log (Help / Activity Log) around the times you are experiencing the delays; that might shed some light. Best bet is probably to file a support request. See the link in my signature.

dave9846 · April 19, 2013

I have this problem too. Also a big user of EN but finding it harder to use since last autumn or so due to frequent "not responding" notices. I switched off the 'folder monitoring' feature and this has helped somewhat, though the problem remains. I'm happy to send over a log file from when it occurs.

I've attempted to submit a support ticket several times on this matter over the last few days, but when I click on 'submit ticket', the screen says 'submitting ticket' and nothing more happens.

jefito · April 19, 2013

I have this problem too. Also a big user of EN but finding it harder to use since last autumn or so due to frequent "not responding" notices. I switched off the 'folder monitoring' feature and this has helped somewhat, though the problem remains. I'm happy to send over a log file from when it occurs.

I've attempted to submit a support ticket several times on this matter over the last few days, but when I click on 'submit ticket', the screen says 'submitting ticket' and nothing more happens.

This is a recent problem with their ticket submission service, I think, related to a 500 character limit that is not being enforced. See http://discussion.evernote.com/topic/37102-evernote-website-hangs-on-submitting-a-ticket/?p=201003. I've seen reports that if you stick to under 500 characters, the ticket submission will go through.

dave9846 · April 19, 2013

A shorter message and I've successfully submitted a ticket. That was the issue.

jefito · April 19, 2013

Sorry for the inconvenience -- hopefully they'll get that fixed in short order.

carolinebeavon · June 4, 2013

Has there been any solution to this problem as I'm experiencing it quite a lot now - (at least once every 10 minutes but no real pattern)

I am running Pro edition on Win 7 and I have 5750 notes - some of them large PDF's,images and sound recordings could this be causing hangs?

Thanks

Caroline

BurgersNFries · June 4, 2013

I've had this issue a lot in the past couple of years. I've submitted several support tickets. I've upgraded my OS (I first started getting this on Win XP Pro SP3 & am now using Win 7 Pro). I've re-downloaded my database entirely from the EN servers twice. (A daunting task, since I have over 55,000 notes & my local database exceeds 35 gb.) I've moved my database out from a Truecrypted container. I've moved my database to a brand new hard drive. I'm also willing to concede part of this is my computer, since I tend to have a lot of apps running at any given time, leave my computer on 24/7 & switch back & forth between apps quite often as I work & although I hate to use the buzzword, I'd have to say I'm pretty much of a power user of my computers & the many apps I have installed on it/them and b/c I occasionally get slow response on other apps. (breath) But EN is the one affected most often (like a bunch of times each & every day) & the one that's the longest lag. But since I don't know of a tool that would better serve me than Evernote does, I tolerate the lags & accept it as SOP, especially given the (relatively) large size of my database & the fact that I regularly add tens of notes pretty much each & every day. But every now & then, the lags do get to the point where my productivity is greatly hindered & that's when I submit another support ticket. I guess I should also add that I augment my PC Evernote usage with my iPad & iPhone via FastEver, FastEversnap & Clever. I've been known to look something up on my iPad with Clever while sitting at my PC, looking at a spinning wheel in the EN app. (shrug)

BurgersNFries · June 4, 2013

I would also add that I use Clipmate. So when I need to carry on, if I have a screen grab/text/URL I want to put into an EN note, I'll copy it & then be able to pull it out of Clipmate later, to put into my Evernote note, once the spinning wheel has subsided. The problem I tend to run into is when I forget to go back & do this. ;-)

TwoCampuses · July 15, 2013

I'm getting the same problem. I just upgraded from Vista to Win 7, AND I just dropped the Evernote premium service, so I thought one of those two things was the cause, but I do believe this "Not Responding" problem existed before. It seems to be happening a lot more now, though, like every few minutes. And it's a productivity drain.

Help.

dave9846 · July 28, 2013

I had this problem for a long time and after trying lots of other things I fixed it by upgrading from 2gb of RAM to 8gb.

RickBryan · October 7, 2013

I have to agree it's such a great product but too often it freezes up. Very frustrating.

woleile · February 9, 2014

Has anyone ever had a useful (or any) response from Evernote about this?

I've also been dealing with it for about a year and a half now. I added RAM on someone's suggestion, and it seemed to help for a little while, but maybe it was just wishful thinking. In any case, now I have waits of a minute or more, sometimes more than one while typing the same sentence! It's even worse when I use the backspace.

I'm guessing there's been no response from Evernote, but making one last try here before I look for an alternative program.

BubbaNC · February 20, 2014

This aggrevates me as well. I figured it had to do with using it on a company network, behind a firewall and using proxies. Maybe it's the ads and announcement checks? (Seems to be the only interesting thing in the activity log, anyway) Is there a way to tune down the frequency of online checks?

dlu · February 21, 2014

Often times this happens while a process such as a large sync or note indexing is running. We're hoping with the latest beta that many of these problems happen less frequently. Of course there are multiple factors and we'll keep working on making the app responsive and feeling snappy.

redmondm0 · March 8, 2014

For me, this problem has been a longstanding problem with EN. I have a Win 7 computer with 6 gigs of RAM that whizzes through most tasks, but many times throughout the day when I try to search my EN notes, EN displays the message, Not Responding. I found that if I wait long enough, sometimes a minute or so, EN will eventually respond. This happens so often though that I use EN less and less.

stern_matt · March 20, 2014

This is also a problem for me. Evernote has become almost unusable. I tried deleting my local database and resyncing but it did not help. Any solutions?

dan7000 · March 24, 2014

I am also having this problem, may times during the day. It is particularly annoying when I get a phone call and really need to take notes of what I'm being told on the call and cannot access EN. Today I actually fired up MS Word (!) of all things to take notes that I could later paste into EN when EN decided to respond again. Amazingly Word was faster to use than EN. That's like saying Amtrak was faster than your airplane. Yikes.

One theory I have is that this seems to always occur while the Outlook icon in the taskbar shows Outlook is syncing messages. Given EN's painful dependency on IE I would not be surprised if it also has some unnecessary reliance on an Outlook/MAPI API that cannot return until Outlook is responsive.

Also, the last time it happened I looked at the activity log and it shows:

15:51:08 [23748] 100% * sent: 1.5KB, received: 366B15:51:08 [23748] 100% Connecting to www.evernote.com/edam/note/s115:51:08 [23748] 100% Session terminated normally, elapsed time: 0s15:51:08 [13984] Client synchronization finished, status: complete15:51:08 [13984] * 1 item sent 15:51:08 [13984] * elapsed time: 3m 48s

So - a sync that lasted 3:48 minutes! To sync 1 note that's 1.5KB! That shows 2 things:

1. The UI is still freezing during syncs. WHY? Get a book on multi-threading, guys!

2. Something can cause a 1k sync to last 3 minutes! Why? Again, I suspect an errant MAPI/Outlook call that is not multithreaded.

I'm on Win 7, EN Win 5.2.1.3108, Outlook 10, very fast internet connection (during the middle of the 3+ minute freeze my resource monitor showed NO network activity).

pwarbeck · April 18, 2014

I have been having this problem and it is getting worse and worse. I get spinning wheels and "not responding" at least once every 15 seconds. I often look up from the keyboard and see that I have been typing ahead of Evernote by a full sentence. There's nothing indicative of a problem in the activity log. Running on Windows 7 64-bit pro with 8 GB of RAM. Perfmon shows the CPU, memory, and disk utilization are no where near maxed out. Sometimes the only program I'm running is Evernote and it still happens.

Performance began to deteriorate with the major release of Evernote that happened late last year (October? the release that introduced the new "flat" looking user interface). Scrolling became jerky. But the freezing problem is more recent. It is happening so often that Evernote is becoming unusable.

It's too bad. My life is in Evernote. I used to recommend it to everyone. Now I don't.

dlu · April 18, 2014

I have been having this problem and it is getting worse and worse. I get spinning wheels and "not responding" at least once every 15 seconds. I often look up from the keyboard and see that I have been typing ahead of Evernote by a full sentence. There's nothing indicative of a problem in the activity log. Running on Windows 7 64-bit pro with 8 GB of RAM. Perfmon shows the CPU, memory, and disk utilization are no where near maxed out. Sometimes the only program I'm running is Evernote and it still happens.

Performance began to deteriorate with the major release of Evernote that happened late last year (October? the release that introduced the new "flat" looking user interface). Scrolling became jerky. But the freezing problem is more recent. It is happening so often that Evernote is becoming unusable.

It's too bad. My life is in Evernote. I used to recommend it to everyone. Now I don't.

I would try opening a Support ticket. If you know how to get to the Debug Menu, I would suggest trying Optimize Database

Etonreve · April 22, 2014

Evernote Windows keeps freezing on me as well. Earlier in the year, I couldn't use it for a month because of a bug that EN took quite a while to fix. I have requested a month to be added to by subscription but haven't heard anything.

It's impossible to be spontaneous when I can't open this program in a few seconds and use it.

Etonreve · April 22, 2014

This aggrevates me as well. I figured it had to do with using it on a company network, behind a firewall and using proxies. Maybe it's the ads and announcement checks? (Seems to be the only interesting thing in the activity log, anyway) Is there a way to tune down the frequency of online checks?

I'm using it on a personal computer without those constraints (I do have a firewall). Evernote freezes all the time. It often crashes and there will be a note asking me what I was doing. "Searching." It freezes every day and it crashes at least once a week.

MLeitch1 · May 18, 2014

This thread has been open since December 2012 and there has been no follow through from anyone at Evernote on how to fix this. It's an issue for everyone on this thread and when I Google "Evernote Not Responding" I get more than 92,000 results. When I see comments that say "My life is in Evernote. I used to recommend it but now I don't", "It has become almost unusable". It tells me that the Evernote people have lost their way.

Either this is an issue that can and has been fixed and Evernote doesn't care to distribute that information to people on their own Forums, or it is not yet fixed and 17 month after this thread was started they don't see this as something that is impacting customer satisfaction. Either way the undertone is a bad one for a company that was once a shining star of innovation. Indifference is bad for customer satisfaction.

Carpe Diem · May 19, 2014

I agree with MLeitch1, how many people should complain before you start responding? Such a shame! I'm very hesitant about recommending Evernote to any Windows user at the moment.. I very rarely have the ability to use it on the local client and when I really have to access something or write an important piece of information in it, I open the web interface most of the time.. I really miss the old version that showed much better performance and responsiveness.. I had a lot of excitement initially with the new look of the upgraded interface, but losing speed and access for the sake of looks definitely wasn't worth it.

MatC · May 20, 2014

Add me to the growing list of affected users.

I've been happily using the Windows client for years on multiple computers without any issues, but yesterday I started having regular pauses and "Not Responding" in the title bar.

The pauses happen when I'm typing and can be from a few seconds up to 10 or 15 seconds and happen at random intervals. Sometimes it will happen every couple of sentences, often it happens multiple times within one word or sentence. It catches up with my typing when it unfreezes, but this is extremely annoying!

I've actually reverted to using the web client, because as of yesterday the Evernote Windows client is unusable.

MatC · May 20, 2014

BTW, I have raised a support ticket.

Also, I've installed the Google Chrome Evernote Web App, and it's surprisingly good! In fact (unfortunately) I'd say it's better than the full Windows client.

jefito · May 20, 2014

BTW, I have raised a support ticket.

Also, I've installed the Google Chrome Evernote Web App, and it's surprisingly good! In fact (unfortunately) I'd say it's better than the full Windows client.

The web client is good and getting better, but a number of things aren't as good as the Windows client. For one, a biggie for me: shared notebooks cannot be mingled with local notebooks; you need to go to a separate browser window. Makes it difficult / impossible to move note between accounts, though you can do it with the desktop client. The Windows client has shortcut keys that make operating is a whole lot easier. The way that is narrows down your tag list as you add tags to a filter is nicer, too. I'll use the web client in a pinch, or when it's convenient, but I prefer the desktop client.

izmahoby · May 20, 2014

Evernote went from being my favorite app across several platforms to the most frustrating on Windows after the last update. It is unusable and "not responding" more than not. The Windows 8.1 version of Evernote runs on an a workstation that has plenty of power so it's definitely not a computer issue. The only thing I can think of is I just upgraded from free to premium using a trial offer with a new phone. Perhaps if I go back to the free version it'll start working again. So far no response to my support ticket after three days.

dan7000 · May 20, 2014

So far no response to my support ticket after three days.

Good luck getting a useful response from support. EN support is trained to do a 3-step process for every possible issue: 1) demand your logs; 2) tell you to re-install; 3) say it must be a problem with your system. Basically they just look things up in the same Knowledgebase that you and I can access on the web. So if your problem is not solved in the knowledgebase, it won't be solved by EN support.

dan7000 · May 20, 2014

Once again, today, I had an important meeting starting and no way to use EN because of "not responding." So once again I used Windows Notepad. I would think EN staff would actually care about this given that the whole point of the product was to provide a better way to store notes like this -- better than notepad at least. But as of now, notepad is the only possible choice. So sad.

Also, I wish the web was a possibility but I use EN a lot where there is no internet - while traveling, on planes, in random coffee shops where I don't want to pay for internet, etc. So having a Windows app is pretty much the whole point for me. I wonder if there is an ios emulator for Windows that we could use to run the ios app on windows?

Etonreve · May 20, 2014

BTW, I have raised a support ticket.

Also, I've installed the Google Chrome Evernote Web App, and it's surprisingly good! In fact (unfortunately) I'd say it's better than the full Windows client.

I sometimes use the Evernote Chrome App. But it always indicates that the note would be better viewed using the Desktop Windows version.

My problems continue. It is extremely frustrating. This is not the only forum in which people have complained about Evernote. EN's frequent self-laudatory emails and blog posts about how much it's expanding are strangely dissonant with the experience of longtime users like us.

Etonreve · May 20, 2014

So far no response to my support ticket after three days.

Good luck getting a useful response from support. EN support is trained to do a 3-step process for every possible issue: 1) demand your logs; 2) tell you to re-install; 3) say it must be a problem with your system. Basically they just look things up in the same Knowledgebase that you and I can access on the web. So if your problem is not solved in the knowledgebase, it won't be solved by EN support.

Earlier this year, I had to go through all that you described at least twice. The rep finally admitted that there was a bug that EN knew about but had not yet gotten around to fixing. I appreciated that he acknowledged it was an EN problem, but when I asked if EN could inform me when the defect had been fixed he said I'd just have to keep checking.

Way to respect your customer's time.

Etonreve · May 24, 2014

Evernote continues to freeze or to run incredibly slowly. It's frustrating to use.

Michael Gcb Batata Beck · May 28, 2014

The solution is to downgrade to the latest 4.x . I have done this and it works perfectly without losing any functionality.

Grtz Michael

Lesicaire · May 28, 2014

Performance issue has been a problem since EN exist to be honest. This "not responding" problem has never being addressed by EN dispute Mr Libin promises to dedicate this year to improve EN performances.

I agree downgraded to 4.x helps. I personally also changed my hard drive to HDD to SSD and this radically changed EN performance. You know to keep in mind that EN require a lot of Hard drive reading specially for those of us (like me) who has a large Evernote.exb file.

Downgraded to 4.x couple with SSD Hard drive (make sure to have your .exb on the SSD) will make you love again EN.

Etonreve · May 28, 2014

The solution is to downgrade to the latest 4.x . I have done this and it works perfectly without losing any functionality.

Grtz Michael

Thanks. How do I downgrade?

Etonreve · May 28, 2014

Performance issue has been a problem since EN exist to be honest. This "not responding" problem has never being addressed by EN dispute Mr Libin promises to dedicate this year to improve EN performances.

I agree downgraded to 4.x helps. I personally also changed my hard drive to HDD to SSD and this radically changed EN performance. You know to keep in mind that EN require a lot of Hard drive reading specially for those of us (like me) who has a large Evernote.exb file.

Downgraded to 4.x couple with SSD Hard drive (make sure to have your .exb on the SSD) will make you love again EN.

Thanks. I will look into downgrading. I have a laptop, so changing the hard drive is not an option. I have many notes and notebooks, if that's what you mean by a large .exb file. But that's the point of having Evernote, right? :-)

izmahoby · May 28, 2014

Performance issue has been a problem since EN exist to be honest. This "not responding" problem has never being addressed by EN dispute Mr Libin promises to dedicate this year to improve EN performances.

I agree downgraded to 4.x helps. I personally also changed my hard drive to HDD to SSD and this radically changed EN performance. You know to keep in mind that EN require a lot of Hard drive reading specially for those of us (like me) who has a large Evernote.exb file.

Downgraded to 4.x couple with SSD Hard drive (make sure to have your .exb on the SSD) will make you love again EN.

I think this current problem has nothing to do with hardware. I've been using EN since 2010 (on an older laptop) and have slowly accumulated over 1000 sometimes large notes including ALL my notes while working on a graduate degree, but never had this Not Responding problem before. It only started when with the latest upgrade, which (perhaps not coincidentally) corresponded with my upgrade to Pro. I'm using a Dell M4700 workstation with 32GB or RAM, and an SSD, so if it takes even more power to run EN smoothly, then this is a very flawed program.

Can anyone post a link to an older, working version of EN? I don't know what functionality was supposed to have been improved in the latest upgrade, but I'm sure I can do without it.

Evernote developers, owners, or anyone who cares about your reputation: are you watching this? Can we cut through the upgrade > reinstall run-around and fix this? Microsoft OneNote is starting to look really appealing.

Etonreve · May 28, 2014

Performance issue has been a problem since EN exist to be honest. This "not responding" problem has never being addressed by EN dispute Mr Libin promises to dedicate this year to improve EN performances.

I agree downgraded to 4.x helps. I personally also changed my hard drive to HDD to SSD and this radically changed EN performance. You know to keep in mind that EN require a lot of Hard drive reading specially for those of us (like me) who has a large Evernote.exb file.

Downgraded to 4.x couple with SSD Hard drive (make sure to have your .exb on the SSD) will make you love again EN.
I think this current problem has nothing to do with hardware. I've been using EN since 2010 (on an older laptop) and have slowly accumulated over 1000 sometimes large notes including ALL my notes while working on a graduate degree, but never had this Not Responding problem before. It only started when with the latest upgrade, which (perhaps not coincidentally) corresponded with my upgrade to Pro. I'm using a Dell M4700 workstation with 32GB or RAM, and an SSD, so if it takes even more power to run EN smoothly, then this is a very flawed program.

Can anyone post a link to an older, working version of EN? I don't know what functionality was supposed to have been improved in the latest upgrade, but I'm sure I can do without it.

Evernote developers, owners, or anyone who cares about your reputation: are you watching this? Can we cut through the upgrade > reinstall run-around and fix this? Microsoft OneNote is starting to look really appealing.

Thanks for the response. I've been an Evernote User since the beginning and have an Evernote Premium I have many thousands of notes. Most aren't long, but many are web clips with photos. As I've said before EN has become incredibly frustrating to use over the last year. I can't save or retrieve notes to it if time matters.

Etonreve · May 28, 2014

Evernote's constant promotions of very expensive, often non-essential products and self-laudatory announcements are grating.

Lesicaire · May 28, 2014

I think this current problem has nothing to do with hardware. I've been using EN since 2010 (on an older laptop) and have slowly accumulated over 1000 sometimes large notes including ALL my notes while working on a graduate degree, but never had this Not Responding problem before. It only started when with the latest upgrade, which (perhaps not coincidentally) corresponded with my upgrade to Pro. I'm using a Dell M4700 workstation with 32GB or RAM, and an SSD, so if it takes even more power to run EN smoothly, then this is a very flawed program.

Can anyone post a link to an older, working version of EN? I don't know what functionality was supposed to have been improved in the latest upgrade, but I'm sure I can do without it.

Evernote developers, owners, or anyone who cares about your reputation: are you watching this? Can we cut through the upgrade > reinstall run-around and fix this? Microsoft OneNote is starting to look really appealing.

I agree with you on this problem has nothing to do with hardware. But the point I was trying to make is the way EN access the .exb file on any given system: by I/O disk reading. More you have a large .exb file more that reading access could take time. That said even with the most fast SSD drive out there you will still have the "not responding" message. The difference I have when I test it on 2 of my different machine (one with SSD and the other one with HDD) is that the SSD one lag time is considerably less longer. I have a laptop with a "Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB" SSD drive on it and I still have the "not respond" message from time to time but it can only last a couple of sec and not more.

The whole problem is just the way EN index the data. Just look the way Outlook can index emails and how fast you can retrieve them (I am not a big fan of Outlook but I have to say that having more than 5000 emails and be able to find one in particular in a matter of few sec impressed me). Why EN can't just do the same Indexing system? I don't get it.

izmahoby · May 28, 2014

I think this current problem has nothing to do with hardware. I've been using EN since 2010 (on an older laptop) and have slowly accumulated over 1000 sometimes large notes including ALL my notes while working on a graduate degree, but never had this Not Responding problem before. It only started when with the latest upgrade, which (perhaps not coincidentally) corresponded with my upgrade to Pro. I'm using a Dell M4700 workstation with 32GB or RAM, and an SSD, so if it takes even more power to run EN smoothly, then this is a very flawed program.

Can anyone post a link to an older, working version of EN? I don't know what functionality was supposed to have been improved in the latest upgrade, but I'm sure I can do without it.

Evernote developers, owners, or anyone who cares about your reputation: are you watching this? Can we cut through the upgrade > reinstall run-around and fix this? Microsoft OneNote is starting to look really appealing.

I agree with you on this problem has nothing to do with hardware. But the point I was trying to make is the way EN access the .exb file on any given system: by I/O disk reading. More you have a large .exb file more that reading access could take time. That said even with the most fast SSD drive out there you will still have the "not responding" message. The difference I have when I test it on 2 of my different machine (one with SSD and the other one with HDD) is that the SSD one lag time is considerably less longer. I have a laptop with a "Corsair Neutron GTX 240GB" SSD drive on it and I still have the "not respond" message from time to time but it can only last a couple of sec and not more.

The whole problem is just the way EN index the data. Just look the way Outlook can index emails and how fast you can retrieve them (I am not a big fan of Outlook but I have to say that having more than 5000 emails and be able to find one in particular in a matter of few sec impressed me). Why EN can't just do the same Indexing system? I don't get it.

I think we're discussing different issues. When doing a search, especially with several keywords, a lag can be expected. What I'm complaining about is random, constant delays of 20 seconds or more. These don't especially occur when searching or anything like this, just typing plain text into a new note. For example I'll be pounding away taking notes during a lecture and look down to see I'm sentences behind.

Lesicaire · May 28, 2014

Thanks for the response. I've been an Evernote User since the beginning and have an Evernote Premium I have many thousands of notes. Most aren't long, but many are web clips with photos. As I've said before EN has become incredibly frustrating to use over the last year. I can't save or retrieve notes to it if time matters.

EN has mastered the input of the information. Webclipping, sending content by email to EN, etc..

The point they are not good at all is the exploitation of the information once is in Evernote the user: search, indexing, data modificationm etc. It is often there that the frustration start with EN. People hear about all the fuss about EN, sign up then feed the beast with contents and info. Then when it comes to recall or modify your info -> "not responding" ; "EN has stopped working would you like to send the error to EN support".

The day EN will make more robust their client on any platforms (the output part of EN and not the Input) they will jump from 100 millions to 500 millions users in a matter of a year.

Lesicaire · May 28, 2014

For example I'll be pounding away taking notes during a lecture and look down to see I'm sentences behind.

I know exactly what you mean in this. I have been myself in the same situation during a meeting recently. EN was open and sync was disable. Just hovering EN to select a note and "not responding" started for a minute or so.

Etonreve · May 28, 2014

For example I'll be pounding away taking notes during a lecture and look down to see I'm sentences behind.

I know exactly what you mean in this. I have been myself in the same situation during a meeting recently. EN was open and sync was disable. Just hovering EN to select a note and "not responding" started for a minute or so.

That's happened to me a lot as well. It's why I'm afraid to use Evernote in the thick of something. It's better to type the note in another application and then copy it to EN. There are times when I have only a second or two to photograph something with my smartphone. I would never dare do it from within EN, even though that would spare me the work of having to transfer photos. But I can't trust EN.

mimesis18 · May 29, 2014

Also having this problem of typing into a note (new or existing) and having EN display "not responding" on Windows in the title bar. This isn't related to Pro, I've been a pro user for 2+ years. It seems to be happening since the latest upgrade for me too.

Unfortunately, I don't know what to tell support other than ^^^^.

izmahoby · June 1, 2014

I don't know if this will answer some of the more persistent problems some of you are experiencing, but I found that this older version 5.1.0.2217 from December 2013 has fixed the constant Not Responding problem I was experiencing. Perhaps it's missing some of the latest bells and whistles but for clipping and note taking it works fine.

https://app.box.com/s/3tnraio8k7yd51a7ecet

BTW Microsoft Onenote is getting much better especially for business users looking for Outlook integration.

Etonreve · June 1, 2014

I don't know if this will answer some of the more persistent problems some of you are experiencing, but I found that this older version 5.1.0.2217 from December 2013 has fixed the constant Not Responding problem I was experiencing. Perhaps it's missing some of the latest bells and whistles but for clipping and note taking it works fine.

https://app.box.com/s/3tnraio8k7yd51a7ecet

BTW Microsoft Onenote is getting much better especially for business users looking for Outlook integration.

Thank you. I will look into it.

Mark M. · June 3, 2014

Performance issue has been a problem since EN exist to be honest. This "not responding" problem has never being addressed by EN dispute Mr Libin promises to dedicate this year to improve EN performances.

I agree downgraded to 4.x helps. I personally also changed my hard drive to HDD to SSD and this radically changed EN performance. You know to keep in mind that EN require a lot of Hard drive reading specially for those of us (like me) who has a large Evernote.exb file.

Downgraded to 4.x couple with SSD Hard drive (make sure to have your .exb on the SSD) will make you love again EN.

I have a very large account and have been suffering right along with all of you with these same problems for a couple of years now.

A couple of days ago, I saw Lesicaire's suggestion to move to an SSD. My C: drive is an SSD, but I have had Evernote's database on a 2nd internal drive because it is so large (25GB).

Before I moved my database files to the SSD, I used REVO Uninstaller to completely uninstall Evernote. I downloaded the latest version of Evernote and re-downloaded my database to my SSD C: drive.

The download happened overnight. I had a sync error, but eventually it seemed to finish syncing and it appeared to be done. Evernote, was worse than ever. It was unusable. It would only unfreeze long enough to freeze again.

Next (further leveraging my years of experience with Evernote support), I opened Evernote in de-bug mode* and selected "Optimize Database" from the debug menu (next to help). This took a few hours and seemed to fail the first time, but I ran it again and it seemed to work.

Here is the punchline: Evernote has been working perfectly. It hasn't frozen once! I can do other things while it is syncing and sync doesn't sometimes take 5 minutes for no reason. Every morning it takes Evernote minutes to open after I boot up my PC, but this morning it opened immediately without freezing.

I hope it lasts, but I am optimistic because I've done all kinds of troubleshooting before and it never worked this well even for a short period of time.

Thanks Lesicaire!

*to run Evernote in debug mode, type: evernote.exe/debugmenu in the Run Dialog in Windows

Etonreve · June 3, 2014

Performance issue has been a problem since EN exist to be honest. This "not responding" problem has never being addressed by EN dispute Mr Libin promises to dedicate this year to improve EN performances.

I agree downgraded to 4.x helps. I personally also changed my hard drive to HDD to SSD and this radically changed EN performance. You know to keep in mind that EN require a lot of Hard drive reading specially for those of us (like me) who has a large Evernote.exb file.

Downgraded to 4.x couple with SSD Hard drive (make sure to have your .exb on the SSD) will make you love again EN.

I have a very large account and have been suffering right along with all of you with these same problems for a couple of years now.

A couple of days ago, I saw Lesicaire's suggestion to move to an SSD. My C: drive is an SSD, but I have had Evernote's database on a 2nd internal drive because it is so large (25GB).

Before I moved my database files to the SSD, I used REVO Uninstaller to completely uninstall Evernote. I downloaded the latest version of Evernote and re-downloaded my database to my SSD C: drive.

The download happened overnight. I had a sync error, but eventually it seemed to finish syncing and it appeared to be done. Evernote, was worse than ever. It was unusable. It would only unfreeze long enough to freeze again.

Next (further leveraging my years of experience with Evernote support), I opened Evernote in de-bug mode* and selected "Optimize Database" from the debug menu (next to help). This took a few hours and seemed to fail the first time, but I ran it again and it seemed to work.

Here is the punchline: Evernote has been working perfectly. It hasn't frozen once! I can do other things while it is syncing and sync doesn't sometimes take 5 minutes for no reason. Every morning it takes Evernote minutes to open after I boot up my PC, but this morning it opened immediately without freezing.

I hope it lasts, but I am optimistic because I've done all kinds of troubleshooting before and it never worked this well even for a short period of time.

Thanks Lesicaire!

*to run Evernote in debug mode, type: evernote.exe/debugmenu in the Run Dialog in Windows

Thanks for the info. Would that I had an SSD.

Lesicaire · June 4, 2014

....

Here is the punchline: Evernote has been working perfectly. It hasn't frozen once! I can do other things while it is syncing and sync doesn't sometimes take 5 minutes for no reason. Every morning it takes Evernote minutes to open after I boot up my PC, but this morning it opened immediately without freezing.

I hope it lasts, but I am optimistic because I've done all kinds of troubleshooting before and it never worked this well even for a short period of time.

Thanks Lesicaire!

*to run Evernote in debug mode, type: evernote.exe/debugmenu in the Run Dialog in Windows

Happy to help Marc

Evernote should advertise SSD Drive hardware to fully enjoy Evernote features and such but most important to just being able to use it rather spending time waiting for it to work

Anyone having Evernote large .exb file (the place where EN store you data) SHOULD move that file onto an SSD Drive. Evernote doesn't need large RAM or fast CPU to run perfectly. It only needs a fast read/write Input/Output hard drive. For those of you who still have a doubt about this just look what hardware process Evernote uses the most when it is open (On Windows go to the Task Manager > Select Tab "Performance" > On the bottom click on "Resource Monitor" > On the "Overview" tab under "CPU" Highlight "Evernote" and tick the box to isolate all the Evernote resources hardware only to show it on the Graph > then look the yellow graph (Evernote) on the right hand side for CPU, Disk, Network and Memory and you will see the one which always reaching the max is the Disk one).

Lesicaire · June 4, 2014

PS: If you can't afford an SSD Hard drive just go buy one of the SanDisk Micro Flash Memory Card (see link below) or something similar to this. On most laptop you can use these Memory stick card and if you have a desktop you can find cheap adapter that can fit on your desktop PC. The Memory size of these card go from 16Gb to 64Gb and you can find some at 128Gb (Depending on the size of you .exb file). The important point here is to select one that speed up at least 45MB/s read/write or more with no Frustration. Then follow the same process I mentioned on my previous post by moving your .exb on the Memory Flash Card. I have tested it on my 2 laptops and Evernote works like a charm

It is a cheaper solution than an SSD Hard Drive but it will do the job as well

SanDisk Link:

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-Frustration-Free-Packaging--SDSDX-032G-AFFP/dp/B007M54E1M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401912037&sr=8-1&keywords=sandisk

Etonreve · June 4, 2014

PS: If you can't afford an SSD Hard drive just go buy one of the SanDisk Micro Flash Memory Card (see link below) or something similar to this. On most laptop you can use these Memory stick card and if you have a desktop you can find cheap adapter that can fit on your desktop PC. The Memory size of these card go from 16Gb to 64Gb and you can find some at 128Gb (Depending on the size of you .exb file). The important point here is to select one that speed up at least 45MB/s read/write or more with no Frustration. Then follow the same process I mentioned on my previous post by moving your .exb on the Memory Flash Card. I have tested it on my 2 laptops and Evernote works like a charm

It is a cheaper solution than an SSD Hard Drive but it will do the job as well

SanDisk Link:

http://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Extreme-Frustration-Free-Packaging--SDSDX-032G-AFFP/dp/B007M54E1M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1401912037&sr=8-1&keywords=sandisk

I really appreciate the suggestion. Does every laptop have a slot for that card? I'm looking on mine and don't see one.

Would an adapter like this one work? http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-MicroMate-Memory-Reader-SDDR-113/dp/B000YBH4YU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1401916980&sr=1-1&keywords=sandisk+adapter+usb

Do you think using a USB hub would be a problem for the adapter? I'm running out of USB slots.

Many thanks for your suggestions.

Lesicaire · June 5, 2014

I really appreciate the suggestion. Does every laptop have a slot for that card? I'm looking on mine and don't see one.

Would an adapter like this one work? http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-MicroMate-Memory-Reader-SDDR-113/dp/B000YBH4YU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1401916980&sr=1-1&keywords=sandisk+adapter+usb

Do you think using a USB hub would be a problem for the adapter? I'm running out of USB slots.

Many thanks for your suggestions.

Yes the adapter you mentioned Etonreve will work just fine.

Bear in mind that you will not get the same read/write speed that you could get with an SSD Hard Drive but it will be much more faster than your HDD 7200rpm Hard drive.

"Do you think using a USB hub would be a problem for the adapter?"

-> Nope. As long as the USB hub is powered it shouldn't make any difference.

What laptop model you have? I'm surprised that you don't have an MMC/SSD slot on the side of it. If you give me the model/specs of your laptop I can tell you if you do have this kind of slot or not.

Etonreve · June 5, 2014

I really appreciate the suggestion. Does every laptop have a slot for that card? I'm looking on mine and don't see one.

Would an adapter like this one work? http://www.amazon.com/Sandisk-MicroMate-Memory-Reader-SDDR-113/dp/B000YBH4YU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1401916980&sr=1-1&keywords=sandisk+adapter+usb

Do you think using a USB hub would be a problem for the adapter? I'm running out of USB slots.

Many thanks for your suggestions.

Yes the adapter you mentioned Etonreve will work just fine.

Bear in mind that you will not get the same read/write speed that you could get with an SSD Hard Drive but it will be much more faster than your HDD 7200rpm Hard drive.

"Do you think using a USB hub would be a problem for the adapter?"

-> Nope. As long as the USB hub is powered it shouldn't make any difference.

What laptop model you have? I'm surprised that you don't have an MMC/SSD slot on the side of it. If you give me the model/specs of your laptop I can tell you if you do have this kind of slot or not.

I have a Dell Inspiron 15. Thanks a lot.

dan7000 · June 13, 2014

Just had to reply to this again because at least I can type in this forum - perhaps I should use this for notetaking rather than the evernote windows app. At least the forum allows me to type!!

I just was in an important meeting and needed to take a note as to what someone was saying and EN Win was "not responding" for at least 3-4 minutes during which time I missed substantial portions of what needed to be recorded.

It is totally unbelievable and ridiculous that a windows app is *less responsive* than a web page! An internet site is faster than a client application - by multiple minutes! I still use EN because of all its other benefits but this just indicates some amazingly sloppy programming and shows that EN is not testing their windows app thoroughly (or not fixing bugs). They could simply provide a client interface to EN/Web and provide a much, much more responsive program than they currently have.

Etonreve · June 15, 2014

Just had to reply to this again because at least I can type in this forum - perhaps I should use this for notetaking rather than the evernote windows app. At least the forum allows me to type!!
I just was in an important meeting and needed to take a note as to what someone was saying and EN Win was "not responding" for at least 3-4 minutes during which time I missed substantial portions of what needed to be recorded.

It is totally unbelievable and ridiculous that a windows app is *less responsive* than a web page! An internet site is faster than a client application - by multiple minutes! I still use EN because of all its other benefits but this just indicates some amazingly sloppy programming and shows that EN is not testing their windows app thoroughly (or not fixing bugs). They could simply provide a client interface to EN/Web and provide a much, much more responsive program than they currently have.

I agree and commiserate with you.

butterdad · August 12, 2014

Mark M had the answer - thank you, and Yay!

I've been using EN since 2010, and have accumulated about 10,000 notes and an 8GB enex database file, and I have noticed the lagging getting worse and worse and worse, to the point that I was on the forums this morning looking for a fix before probably abandoning EN - it's simply not a solution if it's not available to type when I have something that needs to be typed..

Anyway, I don't have an SSD drive, but my system has plenty of power, and I've never heard of nor seen an option for optimizing the database, so I figured I would try it. (One tip, the run command has a "space" in between the .exe and the / : "Evernote.exe /DebugMenu")

Also, be prepared to wait awhile. The optimization process took about 5 hours to complete. But it's worth every minute - Evernote's running like new again - so much so that I felt compelled to post a note here.

Thank you, forum users. You've helped me many times over the years, and today was no exception.

Bubbabob · August 28, 2014

butterdad and others,

I am new here but my en does not stay open long enough to do anything. Any suggestions? Thanks

rlyoung04 · August 28, 2014

I'm having the same problem with Evernote "Not Responding" in Windows 7. I annotate my business calls in Evernote but I've learned to keep a pen and pad handy for these frustrating situations.

I've started Evernote with the [Debug] menu however it doesn't show an option for "Optimize Database." The options I show are:

Test Feature

Walk Message Boxes

Recreate Note Images

Recreate Note Snippets

Fix Business Tags

I'm using version 5.6.4.4632, the latest version as of today. Am I missing something? Is there another way to optimize the database?

dan7000 · September 2, 2014

I have optimized my database and I am on the latest update. But I still have this "Evernote (not responding)" problem. Most often at the least convenient time, i.e. when someone on the phone is talking fast and expecting me to take everything down.

I'm adding to this thread again today because it just happened to me again. In the middle of an important call. Luckily I had pen and paper nearby.

Like others, I should probably switch to Notepad for actual note taking. Evernote is more of a filing cabinet, not a note taking solution -- because it is completely and utterly unreliable for that purpose.

northxnortheast · September 22, 2014

rlyoung04 Did you figure out how to optimize the database?

Once in debug mode (Run / evernote.exe /debugmenu ), hold the ctrl key + click on the 'Help' menu.

You should find 'optimize the database' on the help menu

rlyoung04 · September 23, 2014

rlyoung04 Did you figure out how to optimize the database?
Once in debug mode (Run / evernote.exe /debugmenu ), hold the ctrl key + click on the 'Help' menu.
You should find 'optimize the database' on the help menu

Thanks, northxnortheast, with your help I was able to optimize the database. Not sure if this actually improved anything, the test being how well Evernote keeps up with my workflow. Time will tell...

lenarr · January 27, 2015

rlyoung04 Did you figure out how to optimize the database?
Once in debug mode (Run / evernote.exe /debugmenu ), hold the ctrl key + click on the 'Help' menu.
You should find 'optimize the database' on the help menu

Thanks, northxnortheast -- did this a month ago not hoping for much but it really fixed the problem. What a shame that this command is hidden in the depths of this forum and in the depths of evernote.exe.

jefito · January 27, 2015

rlyoung04 Did you figure out how to optimize the database?
Once in debug mode (Run / evernote.exe /debugmenu ), hold the ctrl key + click on the 'Help' menu.
You should find 'optimize the database' on the help menu

Thanks, northxnortheast -- did this a month ago not hoping for much but it really fixed the problem. What a shame that this command is hidden in the depths of this forum and in the depths of evernote.exe.

The reason that they're hidden is that they are really intended to be used in a customer support situation; they're not for casual use. BTW, you don't need the /debugmenu thingie any more. Just hold down the Ctrl key when you click on the Help menu item, and the extra support operations should appear in the menu. Saves you from needing to restart Evernote before accessing the menu.

EdH · January 28, 2015

2015 and this is still a VERY VERY frequent occurrence. I've not seen any improvement in this issue in three years. They have added background sync, releated notes, context, workchat, and more, but basic usability is unimproved.

My iPad is way WAY more responsive than the Windows client. That is so sad.

rlyoung04 · January 29, 2015

I'd like to offer an update on my situation here. In the past month i upgraded my pc from a 2.3ghz core2duo with mechanical hd to a 3.2ghz Core i5 with solid state hd. RAM stayed the same. After the initial sync which took a long time (13,000 notes, mostly pdf and jpg), I've found i no longer suffer from screen freezes and "not responding" issues. Not once.

I rely on Evernote heavily and on a daily basis. In the past i had to turn off auto sync because it would freeze in the middle of a work call when I'd be taking notes or searching for information. Since upgrading my hardware i haven't had an issue. I can auto sync every 30 minutes without fear.

I can't say for sure which upgrade solved the issue for me, the processor or the ssd, most likely a combination of the two. I can say that a ssd is a much cheaper and easier upgrade than a cpu.

I realize this isn't an option for everybody but if you're wondering if a hardware upgrade will improve usability, in my experience it does.

EdH · January 29, 2015

rlyoung4, I am glad your upgrade works for you.

I have a quad-core I7 2.9GHz 64 bit machine with a 500GB hybrid drive (i've had a pure SSD too) and I still have the issues. 25,000 notes in roughly 21GB of space. Freezes are very very common for me.

curious67 · February 15, 2015

I just installed evernote desktop on my windows 8.1 machine.

I logged in as the wrong user. Now I am logging out, with only 1 accidental note in it.

So certainly not a corrupted data base

Once I log out, it freezes. It does not log out. When I click on the file menu, the dreaded "not responding"

I also have evernote touch for windows. There, windows logged me in automatically, with my hotmail account.

Search showed me that to change accounts, I have to uninstall it. Wish me luck! But I believe it does not have all the features of the desktop.

Maybe we all should switch to a competitor's product? Do we have a choice?

EdH · February 16, 2015

I would ditch Evernote for Windows 8. That program is useless, which is Window's fault, not Evernote. I've never see anything worthwhile for The Windows 8 Happy Post-It-Note screen beyond the weather and movie showings.

You want the full Windows client. All your data is safe in the cloud, so once you install and log in, you should be fine.

scottyheflin · July 9, 2015

I use EN across different devices and on Windows 7, 8 and Android. I only have this issue on Win 7 - and it only started for me when EN5 came out.

Dispite the freezes (only about 2-3x / wk) I have never lost a single note, tag, etc. So while I agree it's inconvenient to shut it down and relaunch, I continue to have high productivity and work in at all day long for the most part.

However, I do agree that EN is losing focus - this issue should have been address soon after EN5 came out and that is frustrating.

P.S. I've done the database maintenance items in these threads and do them about 2x/year as it's just good DB maitenance but it does not resolve the freezing.

swallace111 · July 23, 2015

come on Evernote!!! love your stuff but the "not responding" is driving me crazy. Please focus on fixing this problem without me havving to resort to the extraordinary 'stuff' that is described above and I will be a premium user for a long time. You are pushing me steadily to OneNote!!!!!

Tammo Peters · July 24, 2015

I performed 'optimize the database'. It didn't work. Evernote still freezes a few times per day. I am a premium user too and I am using Evernote for Windows. Evernote management seems to be very distracted. They should be focusing on customer service and the core of their software.

EdH · August 5, 2015

I performed 'optimize the database'. It didn't work. Evernote still freezes a few times per day. I am a premium user too and I am using Evernote for Windows. Evernote management seems to be very distracted. They should be focusing on customer service and the core of their software.

Yup. I get it, even after leaving Evernote Business, reducing my database to 15,000 notes at just under 8GB in size. It is absurd. I don't see this at all on my iPHone, iPad, or Mac. The Mac absolutely smokes WIndows, and my Mac is a new Macbook with a comparatively pathetic 1.2GHz processor. The Mac puts every note in a separate file - multiple files in fact if there are attachments. Windows puts everything in one big database, and it really sucks performance-wise.

LKN2GO · October 4, 2015

20151004 NOTHING has changed. HANGS on Window and iPhone

taps · November 3, 2015

This is also a problem for me. And it is getting worse and worse. Evernote has become almost unusable.

EdH · November 3, 2015

This is also a problem for me. And it is getting worse and worse. Evernote has become almost unusable.

I dont' think they are interested in fixing it. Evernote for iOS and OS X do not have this issue, but Windows still does after all of these years. This goes back to Evernote 4.x. I only have EN for Windows installed to avoid using the web version, and to properly merge notes, which OS X is incapable of doing correctly, but other than that, I don't use the WIndows version. It is, as you say, unusable.

rlyoung04 · November 3, 2015

I'd just like to reiterate that upgrading to a solid state hard drive worked wonders for me regarding this issue. I know EdH shot down the idea because his hybrid drive showed no improvement but I now have 20,000 notes, all multi page pdf and multi photo jpg notes (19.9GB database) and Evernote Windows very rarely hangs on me. I went from freezing every single day for minutes at a time to getting maybe 2 freezes a month for only a few seconds each. Not sure why it would work for some and not others, maybe the difference in transfer rates between different drives. Not all SSDs are created equal.

EdH · November 3, 2015

I'd just like to reiterate that upgrading to a solid state hard drive worked wonders for me regarding this issue. I know EdH shot down the idea because his hybrid drive showed no improvement but I now have 20,000 notes, all multi page pdf and multi photo jpg notes (19.9GB database) and Evernote Windows very rarely hangs on me. I went from freezing every single day for minutes at a time to getting maybe 2 freezes a month for only a few seconds each. Not sure why it would work for some and not others, maybe the difference in transfer rates between different drives. Not all SSDs are created equal.

Nope.

I've had a 20GB Evernote database with 25,000+ notes on an SSD, a hybrid drive, and a HDD. Same thing. Same infernal lockups. Now I am no longer using a "business plan" and my database is 7GB or so with 15,000 notes, and it still does the same thing. It freezed on me daily, and this machine is a new install of EN just a few months ago.

So, glad it worked for you. I have equally compelling anecdotal evidence that it isn't the cure.

What would fix it, IMHO, is to destroy the current EN database in Windows and do what they do on the Mac - every note is a separate file. No more messing around internally in a 20GB file. Just messing with the note or notes you use of a few KB to a few MB. My 2015 Macbook (you know, the one that has a 1.1GHz to 1.3GHz processor?) absolutely ran circles around my WIndows laptop with a 2.7GHz four core i7 mobile processor with a hybrid drive. My new work machine is much lighter weight, 3.1GHz i5 Dell beige box.

Jim Frey · November 3, 2015

I'm using Win7ProSP1 with EN 5.9.3.9118. I have a total EN Directory size of 15GB and 10K notes. No one notebook has >3K notes in it.

Ever since I added memory to 16GB of RAM the "not responding" situation had gotten much better.

rlyoung04 · November 4, 2015

I'd just like to reiterate that upgrading to a solid state hard drive worked wonders for me regarding this issue. I know EdH shot down the idea because his hybrid drive showed no improvement but I now have 20,000 notes, all multi page pdf and multi photo jpg notes (19.9GB database) and Evernote Windows very rarely hangs on me. I went from freezing every single day for minutes at a time to getting maybe 2 freezes a month for only a few seconds each. Not sure why it would work for some and not others, maybe the difference in transfer rates between different drives. Not all SSDs are created equal.

Nope.

I've had a 20GB Evernote database with 25,000+ notes on an SSD, a hybrid drive, and a HDD. Same thing. Same infernal lockups. Now I am no longer using a "business plan" and my database is 7GB or so with 15,000 notes, and it still does the same thing. It freezed on me daily, and this machine is a new install of EN just a few months ago.

So, glad it worked for you. I have equally compelling anecdotal evidence that it isn't the cure.
What would fix it, IMHO, is to destroy the current EN database in Windows and do what they do on the Mac - every note is a separate file. No more messing around internally in a 20GB file. Just messing with the note or notes you use of a few KB to a few MB. My 2015 Macbook (you know, the one that has a 1.1GHz to 1.3GHz processor?) absolutely ran circles around my WIndows laptop with a 2.7GHz four core i7 mobile processor with a hybrid drive. My new work machine is much lighter weight, 3.1GHz i5 Dell beige box.

I never said it was the cure, just trying to offer ideas and help people out. Others on this thread recommended it, I tried it, it worked.

EdH · November 5, 2015

I never said it was the cure, just trying to offer ideas and help people out. Others on this thread recommended it, I tried it, it worked.

I've got a video I made yesterday of EN locking up. I'll be glad to post to a PM to an EN employee, but I won't post it here due to some personal information on the screen. Let me know if you are interested.

MauroC · November 30, 2015

Just my opinion:

Windows 7, 8GB RAM on HP Pavilion g6, 1100 notes with a 760 MB database:

Editing "big" notes (>= 1MB) is almost unfeasible. The UI keeps freezing sometimes for 10 secs.

I tried to change the AutoSaveInterval following instructions in this thread:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/22604-autosave-can-it-be-made-less-frequent-or-off/

but it does not seem to have affected much.

Is there any chance the problema can be fixed or mitigated? at least letting teh user know what is going on..

EdH · November 30, 2015

Just my opinion:

Windows 7, 8GB RAM on HP Pavilion g6, 1100 notes with a 760 MB database:

Editing "big" notes (>= 1MB) is almost unfeasible. The UI keeps freezing sometimes for 10 secs.

I tried to change the AutoSaveInterval following instructions in this thread:

https://discussion.evernote.com/topic/22604-autosave-can-it-be-made-less-frequent-or-off/

but it does not seem to have affected much.

Is there any chance the problema can be fixed or mitigated? at least letting teh user know what is going on..

It isn't your machine. Adding RAM and more CPU only masks the problem. My Macbook with a pathetic 1.2GHz processor never has this problem. It is the WIndows EN database file and the way EN is constanatly trying to update it. When this locks go to your database folder and you'll see a journal file that is created while EN does its housekeeping. 99% of the time, this housekeeping will lock up the UI until it is done. I've witnessed this with an HDD, SDD, and hybrid drive. EN is really useless to me for typing and editing large notes. I'd rather use my iPad or Macbook which let me work uninterrupted for as long as I want than WIndows.

I wish the team would take this seriously. I think what needs to be done is the EN database for Windows needs to be eliminated and do it like the OS X version, which is essentially one note per file vs one monolithic file for every note, or move to a different technology for the database for WIndows.

I've worked with the team for specific troubleshooting on this for 3 years and while it has gotten better, it has really moved from "sucks" to "sucks less" and is still insanely frustrating to use.

By the way, I am here on this board typing this right now while I am waiting for the UI in Evernote to come back to me so I can continue filing notes.

MauroC · December 2, 2015

It isn't your machine. Adding RAM and more CPU only masks the problem. My Macbook with a pathetic 1.2GHz processor never has this problem. It is the WIndows EN database file and the way EN is constanatly trying to update it. When this locks go to your database folder and you'll see a journal file that is created while EN does its housekeeping. 99% of the time, this housekeeping will lock up the UI until it is done. I've witnessed this with an HDD, SDD, and hybrid drive. EN is really useless to me for typing and editing large notes. I'd rather use my iPad or Macbook which let me work uninterrupted for as long as I want than WIndows.

I wish the team would take this seriously. I think what needs to be done is the EN database for Windows needs to be eliminated and do it like the OS X version, which is essentially one note per file vs one monolithic file for every note, or move to a different technology for the database for WIndows.

I've worked with the team for specific troubleshooting on this for 3 years and while it has gotten better, it has really moved from "sucks" to "sucks less" and is still insanely frustrating to use.

By the way, I am here on this board typing this right now while I am waiting for the UI in Evernote to come back to me so I can continue filing notes.

I see. If I can give my idea, I think maybe it would be better to:

- use a file storage strategy where a number of fixed-sized files contains the DB. Otherwise, if one note is 10 Gb, this one note will be unmanageable (just a guess). But this means notes would be split over different files. Maybe there's a better plan.

- perform the "housekeeping" on notes on which the user is not working/when the computer is inactive (If I'm not wrong I think Windows does this as a defragmentation strategy).

Just wild guesses.

I think many of us EN users are pretty skilled in programming /software architecture. It would be awesome if someone from EN would set up a poll to ask us what could work best.

M

EdH · December 2, 2015

It isn't your machine. Adding RAM and more CPU only masks the problem. My Macbook with a pathetic 1.2GHz processor never has this problem. It is the WIndows EN database file and the way EN is constanatly trying to update it. When this locks go to your database folder and you'll see a journal file that is created while EN does its housekeeping. 99% of the time, this housekeeping will lock up the UI until it is done. I've witnessed this with an HDD, SDD, and hybrid drive. EN is really useless to me for typing and editing large notes. I'd rather use my iPad or Macbook which let me work uninterrupted for as long as I want than WIndows.

I wish the team would take this seriously. I think what needs to be done is the EN database for Windows needs to be eliminated and do it like the OS X version, which is essentially one note per file vs one monolithic file for every note, or move to a different technology for the database for WIndows.

I've worked with the team for specific troubleshooting on this for 3 years and while it has gotten better, it has really moved from "sucks" to "sucks less" and is still insanely frustrating to use.

By the way, I am here on this board typing this right now while I am waiting for the UI in Evernote to come back to me so I can continue filing notes.

I see. If I can give my idea, I think maybe it would be better to:

- use a file storage strategy where a number of fixed-sized files contains the DB. Otherwise, if one note is 10 Gb, this one note will be unmanageable (just a guess). But this means notes would be split over different files. Maybe there's a better plan.

- perform the "housekeeping" on notes on which the user is not working/when the computer is inactive (If I'm not wrong I think Windows does this as a defragmentation strategy).

Just wild guesses.

I think many of us EN users are pretty skilled in programming /software architecture. It would be awesome if someone from EN would set up a poll to ask us what could work best.

M

Honestly I think the programmers at EN are eminently qualified. The problem is the Windows database goes back to version 3, and has roots in an app written in 2004, before Evernote acknowledges it existed. It would be a massive undertaking to rewrite, and a second massive undertaking to handle the migration on the user's end. For me, I'd just as soon blow away my database and let it redownload in a new structure, but that is a lot of bandwidth for some people (some well over 50GB!). Doing a straight copy will temporarily double your EN disk usage, and that might not be feasible for some people that are nearing their HD size, so the third option is to migrate some, then compact the current database, then migrate some, then compact, etc. That is MASSIVE disk churning and I could see it taking an hour per GB or two to migrate, so defintely an overnight or weekend process.

In any event, all I know for sure is the current database sucks on Windows. iOS and OS X have it right.

MauroC · December 14, 2015

It isn't your machine. Adding RAM and more CPU only masks the problem. My Macbook with a pathetic 1.2GHz processor never has this problem. It is the WIndows EN database file and the way EN is constanatly trying to update it. When this locks go to your database folder and you'll see a journal file that is created while EN does its housekeeping. 99% of the time, this housekeeping will lock up the UI until it is done. I've witnessed this with an HDD, SDD, and hybrid drive. EN is really useless to me for typing and editing large notes. I'd rather use my iPad or Macbook which let me work uninterrupted for as long as I want than WIndows.

I wish the team would take this seriously. I think what needs to be done is the EN database for Windows needs to be eliminated and do it like the OS X version, which is essentially one note per file vs one monolithic file for every note, or move to a different technology for the database for WIndows.

I've worked with the team for specific troubleshooting on this for 3 years and while it has gotten better, it has really moved from "sucks" to "sucks less" and is still insanely frustrating to use.

By the way, I am here on this board typing this right now while I am waiting for the UI in Evernote to come back to me so I can continue filing notes.

I see. If I can give my idea, I think maybe it would be better to:

- use a file storage strategy where a number of fixed-sized files contains the DB. Otherwise, if one note is 10 Gb, this one note will be unmanageable (just a guess). But this means notes would be split over different files. Maybe there's a better plan.

- perform the "housekeeping" on notes on which the user is not working/when the computer is inactive (If I'm not wrong I think Windows does this as a defragmentation strategy).

Just wild guesses.

I think many of us EN users are pretty skilled in programming /software architecture. It would be awesome if someone from EN would set up a poll to ask us what could work best.

M

Honestly I think the programmers at EN are eminently qualified. The problem is the Windows database goes back to version 3, and has roots in an app written in 2004, before Evernote acknowledges it existed. It would be a massive undertaking to rewrite, and a second massive undertaking to handle the migration on the user's end. For me, I'd just as soon blow away my database and let it redownload in a new structure, but that is a lot of bandwidth for some people (some well over 50GB!). Doing a straight copy will temporarily double your EN disk usage, and that might not be feasible for some people that are nearing their HD size, so the third option is to migrate some, then compact the current database, then migrate some, then compact, etc. That is MASSIVE disk churning and I could see it taking an hour per GB or two to migrate, so defintely an overnight or weekend process.

In any event, all I know for sure is the current database sucks on Windows. iOS and OS X have it right.

Hello,

I am currently using EverNote 5.9.6 and apparently the problem has been mitigated. I will continue to give feedbacks on the usage.

As a clarification: suggesting the poll I was misunderstood. I did not imply that EN programmers are not qualified, nor they need users advice to create a good piece of software.

I think EN is a great and useful program, and I'm pretty sure programmers working on it are doing great.

EdH · December 14, 2015

It isn't your machine. Adding RAM and more CPU only masks the problem. My Macbook with a pathetic 1.2GHz processor never has this problem. It is the WIndows EN database file and the way EN is constanatly trying to update it. When this locks go to your database folder and you'll see a journal file that is created while EN does its housekeeping. 99% of the time, this housekeeping will lock up the UI until it is done. I've witnessed this with an HDD, SDD, and hybrid drive. EN is really useless to me for typing and editing large notes. I'd rather use my iPad or Macbook which let me work uninterrupted for as long as I want than WIndows.

I wish the team would take this seriously. I think what needs to be done is the EN database for Windows needs to be eliminated and do it like the OS X version, which is essentially one note per file vs one monolithic file for every note, or move to a different technology for the database for WIndows.

I've worked with the team for specific troubleshooting on this for 3 years and while it has gotten better, it has really moved from "sucks" to "sucks less" and is still insanely frustrating to use.

By the way, I am here on this board typing this right now while I am waiting for the UI in Evernote to come back to me so I can continue filing notes.

I see. If I can give my idea, I think maybe it would be better to:

- use a file storage strategy where a number of fixed-sized files contains the DB. Otherwise, if one note is 10 Gb, this one note will be unmanageable (just a guess). But this means notes would be split over different files. Maybe there's a better plan.

- perform the "housekeeping" on notes on which the user is not working/when the computer is inactive (If I'm not wrong I think Windows does this as a defragmentation strategy).

Just wild guesses.

I think many of us EN users are pretty skilled in programming /software architecture. It would be awesome if someone from EN would set up a poll to ask us what could work best.

M

Honestly I think the programmers at EN are eminently qualified. The problem is the Windows database goes back to version 3, and has roots in an app written in 2004, before Evernote acknowledges it existed. It would be a massive undertaking to rewrite, and a second massive undertaking to handle the migration on the user's end. For me, I'd just as soon blow away my database and let it redownload in a new structure, but that is a lot of bandwidth for some people (some well over 50GB!). Doing a straight copy will temporarily double your EN disk usage, and that might not be feasible for some people that are nearing their HD size, so the third option is to migrate some, then compact the current database, then migrate some, then compact, etc. That is MASSIVE disk churning and I could see it taking an hour per GB or two to migrate, so defintely an overnight or weekend process.

In any event, all I know for sure is the current database sucks on Windows. iOS and OS X have it right.

Hello,

I am currently using EverNote 5.9.6 and apparently the problem has been mitigated. I will continue to give feedbacks on the usage.

As a clarification: suggesting the poll I was misunderstood. I did not imply that EN programmers are not qualified, nor they need users advice to create a good piece of software.

I think EN is a great and useful program, and I'm pretty sure programmers working on it are doing great.

I too am on Evernote 5.9.6.9494 and an staring at Evernote's window saying "Not Responding" while a big journal file is being messed with, so it isn't mitigated here.

10gallonhat · December 21, 2015

Hey @ MauroC "I am currently using EverNote 5.9.6 and apparently the problem has been mitigated. I will continue to give feedbacks on the usage."

I completely disagree. I started using 5.9.6.9494 about a week ago and this is still happening to me. I think it's been going on since I moved to Win7 (Pro, SP1, 8GB RAM). My EN freezes periodically - like maybe a dozen times a day - for up to 20 seconds or so. I get that it might need to do that while syncing, but it also does it at other random times and its more and more frequent. I have a 4.5GB database with just over 10,000 notes now. That this happens with something that is all one giant file makes a lot of sense. If the MacOS method of multiple files isn't an option right now, what is?

Does anyone have a good, clean, way to archive a portion of their files that would be fairly easy to restore in case something needed to be looked up?

CalS · December 21, 2015

May not be what youi want to hear, but my not responding issues went away when I switched to a Solid State Disk, I already had plenty of memory.. 27k notes and 16GB data base. The investment was worth it to me pending any software improvements to address the issue. Other benefits of SSD incluide everything runs faster including boot time. I installed while I was using Win7 Pro and am now on Win 10. FWIW.

EdH · December 22, 2015

4 hours ago, csihilling said:

May not be what youi want to hear, but my not responding issues went away when I switched to a Solid State Disk, I already had plenty of memory.. 27k notes and 16GB data base. The investment was worth it to me pending any software improvements to address the issue. Other benefits of SSD incluide everything runs faster including boot time. I installed while I was using Win7 Pro and am now on Win 10. FWIW.

I hope that continues for you. I've had EN 5.x on an SSD and hybrid drive and the UI would still freeze often enough that it wasn't an effective note-taking tool. Sort of sad, but often I would type stuff up in Textpad then copy|paste it into Evernote.

No such problems on iOS or OS X.

JMichaelTX · December 22, 2015

4 hours ago, csihilling said:

May not be what youi want to hear, but my not responding issues went away when I switched to a Solid State Disk, I already had plenty of memory

This seems to work for some, but not others, so it is clearly not a cure-all. IAC it is just masking an issue that Evernote really needs to deal with.

I highly recommend that everyone who is having this issue to submit an official bug report, and provide as many details as possible about your environment, including, but not limited to, full HW specs, version of EN and OS you're running, and any repeatable steps that lead up to the issue. This will make sure that Evernote is aware of the issue, provide your specific data to help identify/fix the issue, and put more pressure on Evernote to fix.

Submit a BUG report via an EN Support Ticket. In the Support Form, select "Report a bug", and start the Ticket Title with "BUG: " to make it clear. Reporting a bug should be available to all users, including Free Account owners. Other Ticket types available to Free users are "Data Loss", "Crash", & "Sync Issue", "Payment/Billing Issue", and "Log in issues".

EdH · December 22, 2015

1 hour ago, JMichaelTX said:

This seems to work for some, but not others, so it is clearly not a cure-all. IAC it is just masking an issue that Evernote really needs to deal with.

I highly recommend that everyone who is having this issue to submit an official bug report, and provide as many details as possible about your environment, including, but not limited to, full HW specs, version of EN and OS you're running, and any repeatable steps that lead up to the issue. This will make sure that Evernote is aware of the issue, provide your specific data to help identify/fix the issue, and put more pressure on Evernote to fix.

Submit a BUG report via an EN Support Ticket. In the Support Form, select "Report a bug", and start the Ticket Title with "BUG: " to make it clear. Reporting a bug should be available to all users, including Free Account owners. Other Ticket types available to Free users are "Data Loss", "Crash", & "Sync Issue", "Payment/Billing Issue", and "Log in issues".

Ive done that. Many times. I've submitted video, special crash and performance logs from a build that spit out a higher level of diagnostics. Sadly, the answer is always the same after a while. Thanks for the valuable data, we are making progress.

two years later since my last bit with this, no improvement.

JMichaelTX · December 22, 2015

4 hours ago, EdH said:

Ive done that. Many times.

@EdH: This is an issue that only Evernote can solve. All I know is that the more people that continue to submit bug reports, the more pressure on Evernote there will be to fix.

I'm not a big Twitter fan, but that is another , more public, way of putting pressure on Evernote. If all of you post on Twitter, and continue to do so until the issue is fixed, the more likely it will happen.

Since Evernote now is providing official support to all users via Twitter, you might post your issue on Twitter @evernotehelps. It might also be good to include a link back to your post here.

Why don't you guys figure out a consistent hash-tag you can use on Twitter, something like "Evernote-freezes", and everyone use that.

MauroC · December 22, 2015

13 hours ago, 10gallonhat said:

Hey @ MauroC "I am currently using EverNote 5.9.6 and apparently the problem has been mitigated. I will continue to give feedbacks on the usage."

I completely disagree. I started using 5.9.6.9494 about a week ago and this is still happening to me. I think it's been going on since I moved to Win7 (Pro, SP1, 8GB RAM). My EN freezes periodically - like maybe a dozen times a day - for up to 20 seconds or so. I get that it might need to do that while syncing, but it also does it at other random times and its more and more frequent. I have a 4.5GB database with just over 10,000 notes now. That this happens with something that is all one giant file makes a lot of sense. If the MacOS method of multiple files isn't an option right now, what is?

Does anyone have a good, clean, way to archive a portion of their files that would be fairly easy to restore in case something needed to be looked up?

Hello @10gallonhat

yes, I have to reconsider my previous update:

notes quite "big" (ex. 5MB) still are a mess to edit and the freezing happens about every 10/15 seconds.

Even opening them by selecting them in the list takes seconds to perform the action.

CalS · December 22, 2015

Could be my "good" luck is related to how I use EN. I do not have any large text only notes, so no editing of such. I do have large PDF and spreadsheet notes and many forwarded emails. IAC, 2000 plus notes that are larger than 1MB in size, biggest at 49MB.

Prior to switching to SSD I was suffering from the freezing, have not since the switch 3+ years ago. Don't know what to say other than that it is an option in some cases, and as I said before, my machine runs faster overall as a result, not a bad thing.

Anecdotally I do see large text notes in the conversation re freezes. Submitting bug reports certainly can't hurt the process.

gazumped · December 22, 2015

What Cal said. Similar non-freezing experience / no long text notes / the odd 300-page PDF (but I don't annotate those) / but in my case no SSD.

EdH · December 22, 2015

37 minutes ago, gazumped said:

What Cal said. Similar non-freezing experience / no long text notes / the odd 300-page PDF (but I don't annotate those) / but in my case no SSD.

That may be the issue. I have a wide WIDE variety of notes. From dozens (hundreds?) of 116 byte files that are nothing more than a title (a task in my GTD system) to nearly 1,000 notes with attachments over 1MB (excel, pdf, images, word, encrypted archives, etc.) totalling over 15,500 notes and 7.5GB in size.

I routinely use EN for small writing tasks, like blogs, bible study notes, etc. 100-4,000 words. It is a joy to use on my Mac, and decent on my iPad, especially with a BT keyboard. It is decent to use on the web too.

I cannot use it on WIndows though. It is unusable, and has been for YEARS - ever since EN 5 came out in 2012, and maybe some before that. I don't want to lay this all at EN5's feet as I don't think the database changed much.

Submitting bug reports via the bug reporting channel get me nowhere. "Send me your sync log." Sync log doesn't report this because syncing isn't involved. I can be offline and it still happens. Deleting and redownloading doesn't help either. I've done that dozens of times, usually out of necessity with a new machine.

I'd gladly assist if I could be assured EN was taking very seriously and I had a direct line to someone in or near the development team working on it. I am not working with their front-line support people that rarely read the entire response and often give info little better than "you should uninstall and reinstall and see if that fixes it."

Mongobear · December 22, 2015

The freezing bug bites me all the time too... I frequently have to just click out and go do something else, and come back to Evernote when things have thawed out. It's frustrating, but luckily, I don't often need to make a note while on a phone call or with a time crunch, so it's been tolerable. In cases where I need to, I resort to working on the iPad rather than the computer (I keep both open most of the time).

The worst of it is when I click in the search box and start typing. It pretty much ALWAYS freezes when I do that.

But my EverNote is kind of huge. I have about 65,000 notes and growing. I pretty much live in my Evernote, but I've had to create a lot of workarounds and deal with a lot of frustrations to deal with the freezing issue. I'd be so grateful if it could finally be addressed, even if that meant users having to rebuild a whole new individual note-based database...

Regular screen freezes, "not responding"

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