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What are 'Conflicting Changes'?


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Hi there! I'm trying to figure out what conflicting changes are, what causes them, and how to prevent them from happening. I tried looking around but I can't find anything on the matter. It's a rare occurrence but it happens nevertheless. Perhaps it has something to do with formatting or the notes being synced prematurely if that's even possible? I don't know but I'm really curious. Any thoughts?

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Conflicting changes occur when you have edited the same note on two different clients between syncs.  Evernote uses a hub and spoke synchronisation method, with the hub (EN server) being the master copy, updating with changes from each of the spokes (clients).  If you edit a note on your Windows PC ('spoke') and tablet (another 'spoke'), for example, subsequent to a sync, the server sees two different versions and, rather than making an arbitrary decision about which note might be correct, puts one of them (I'm not sure which) into a 'conflicting changes' notebook.

 

To resolve the issues, you need to find the duplicate note to the one in conflicting changes and decide which one is current, then re-sync.  To avoid it happening again, always make sure the client you are working with is synced before making any edits and after making them.  I often run into this problem with a PC and laptop running simultaneously!

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  • 5 months later...

This appears to be a problem looking for a solution.

 

Perhaps Evernote Development can concoct a utility function that allows N versions of a 'conflicted' note to be 'merged' inside a temporary 'workspace'.

 

Then allow the User (me) to simply point/click... or drag/drop ... the most current updates into a New Master version of the Note?   I'd like to think that is on your development backlog.  ;-)

 

It beats the User (me) having to find a general purpose Match/Merge tool and doing it myself.

 

PS: I have 4 'spokes' -- 2 macs, 1 win7, and 1 iphone -- in terms of EN architecture.    I also have 3 versions of my most used note to reconcile... in conflicted status.  (Argh!!... that won't take LONG!).

 

Thanks.

John

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This appears to be a problem looking for a solution.

 

Perhaps Evernote Development can concoct a utility function that allows N versions of a 'conflicted' note to be 'merged' inside a temporary 'workspace'.

 

Then allow the User (me) to simply point/click... or drag/drop ... the most current updates into a New Master version of the Note?   I'd like to think that is on your development backlog.  ;-)

 

It beats the User (me) having to find a general purpose Match/Merge tool and doing it myself.

 

PS: I have 4 'spokes' -- 2 macs, 1 win7, and 1 iphone -- in terms of EN architecture.    I also have 3 versions of my most used note to reconcile... in conflicted status.  (Argh!!... that won't take LONG!).

 

Thanks.

John

 

Actually, the best option is to sync your computer/device before making any changes, then syncing the computer/device after making any changes thereby eliminating conflicting notes altogether. 

Cloud apps (not just Evernote) are funny that way. If I make changes to my Toodledo list on my PC but don't sync it, I don't see the changes from my phone, when I'm at the grocery, no matter how many times I sync my phone. Or if I put a document into my Dropbox folder but shut down my computer before it's sync'd to the cloud, I can't access that note from my phone. And yeah, you have to sync the changes DOWN before you can see them on a different computer/device for all three (EN, Toodledo, Dropbox) apps.

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This appears to be a problem looking for a solution.

 

Perhaps Evernote Development can concoct a utility function that allows N versions of a 'conflicted' note to be 'merged' inside a temporary 'workspace'.

 

Then allow the User (me) to simply point/click... or drag/drop ... the most current updates into a New Master version of the Note?   I'd like to think that is on your development backlog.  ;-)

 

It beats the User (me) having to find a general purpose Match/Merge tool and doing it myself.

 

PS: I have 4 'spokes' -- 2 macs, 1 win7, and 1 iphone -- in terms of EN architecture.    I also have 3 versions of my most used note to reconcile... in conflicted status.  (Argh!!... that won't take LONG!).

 

Thanks.

John

 

Actually, the best option is to sync your computer/device before making any changes, then syncing the computer/device after making any changes thereby eliminating conflicting notes altogether. 

Cloud apps (not just Evernote) are funny that way. If I make changes to my Toodledo list on my PC but don't sync it, I don't see the changes from my phone, when I'm at the grocery, no matter how many times I sync my phone. Or if I put a document into my Dropbox folder but shut down my computer before it's sync'd to the cloud, I can't access that note from my phone. And yeah, you have to sync the changes DOWN before you can see them on a different computer/device for all three (EN, Toodledo, Dropbox) apps.

 

 

Thanks BnF... I'm a very early, Premium user of EN... with lots of experience with it's charms... and warts.

 

I couldn't agree more with general guidance "synch each note after modification, on each platform... bla bla bla... or you'll be sorry".  Because that's what I do -- every time I make a change on any of 4 my platforms.

 

And, oh, by the way, so  many  things   can  and   do   go   wrong   to   delay/prevent/abort/postpone   a  specific  sync  operation  in  clown- cloud-based  architectures   that   when  things  do  go  wrong....  there is a huge burden placed on the User (me)  to fix it.  Thousands of EN Users are 'in the ditch' right now... many may not even know it.

 

EN developers should take a peek at some open source software to see if it can be used as a model to remove this one huge dissatisfier amongst it's loyal, heavy users.

 

Perhaps it's possible to economically remove this one, last, HUGE issue that bites me infrequently but with a significant impact. (Recall from comment above, I already practice safe-syncing... and still end up in the ditch a couple times a year.)

 

I've never had to resolve three (3) conficting versions of a note before.  Let's see how much time it takes... maybe I'll post my results here.

 

I plan to evaluate and potentially use this product: http://winmerge.org/about/  check it out. (And wish me well.)

 

 

Cheers...

John

 

PS: I just discovered the EN  *MERGE* function which automatically CONCATENATES  any number of notes into one... but does not do the sophisticated match/merge function that we need.  It should be called the CONCATENATE function.  

 

See:  http://blog.evernote.com/blog/2012/11/09/quick-tip-friday-merging-notes/ 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thank you both for helping me see that (a) it matters that much to sync manually <I saw circles chruning often enough I thought it just got handled whenever I closed a note> and that (B) I am not alone in these issues.

That leaves me with © my newer Win8 laptop issues but I should return to a windows thread before delving in there ;->

(hmmm.. Funny karma on all of this. Now I cant get this reply to post! (from ipad at the moment -- your site says I am not logged in as a user even though my avatar is showing)

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  • 1 month later...

I've just created a new notebook, added a note, and started editing it, all on a PC.

 

I took a look at another note, then came back to the one I was editing. Most of my text had gone. I performed a search and sure enough there was a 'conflicting' copy with all my missing text in it.

 

This therefore had nothing to do with sync ops since my other platforms were not being used.

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  • 6 months later...

A Note To Evernote Team;

 

At least add some text to the HELP menu explaining what a conflicting change is and showing some ideas on how to deal with them.  The forums are not supposed to be used for training on "common" functions.

 

I just had a brand new document disappear, because it became a conflcting change.  I would love to see some clear guidence on how to "cleanly" recover it.

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I just had a brand new document disappear, because it became a conflcting change.  I would love to see some clear guidence on how to "cleanly" recover it.

 

That isn't the way conflicting change should behave. There should be one version of the note, left in the notebook where it lived before, and a conflicting note in a local "conflicting changes" notebook.

 

Also, there is official documentation about conflicts (though there is no single "conflicting changes" article), this might clarify some of the ambiguity:

https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#/article/23275623

https://evernote.com/contact/support/kb/#/article/23275423

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Well, the conflicting version was the only one I found.  I put it back in the correct notebook.

 

@Evernote:   The HELP search function should be able to turn up something intelligible when you enter the word "conflicting".

For the record, the knowledge base article I linked to was retrieved using "conflicting" as the search term. 

That being said, documentation on this could be much, much better (part of a broader documentation issue that i have been rather vocal about for quite a while!)

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  • 4 months later...

Why don't Evernote create a line of code that automatically syncs the device as you select to make a change and then a line of code that automatically syncs it when you have finished making the change ?

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Why don't Evernote create a line of code that automatically syncs the device as you select to make a change and then a line of code that automatically syncs it when you have finished making the change ?

I suspect they don't auto-sync to reduce bandwidth utilization issues.  One possible suggestion: Add a big red flag at the top of the frame whenever a sync update is required.  It is simply too easy for the phone to ring at the wrong time, causing you to forget to click.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm familiar with conflicting changes, and I try to take care to sync before editing.

 

Usually EN is good when this is happening but I just came back to my computer to find that in my pre-trip "Todo's" note, it was note where I left it off...

 

Actually what happened was, I clicked on my Trip notebook, clicked on my Todo's, and started adding, then realized that the list was not up to date where I left off.

 

I KNEW I had made a lot of changes compared to the version I was editing. So I searched for some key words, (a todo list is curt and can have a lot of hits for a long time EN user!-P) and eventually hit on the copy with my changes. In this case I found a search term that was in the version I wanted but not in the current one, so all I saw in the search results was the same named note which makes it really confusing. So I had to go back and see that there were two different notes with the same name. I could see that the "Updated" date/time of the version with the changes I wanted had a reasonable date (12:20AM).

 

What it appears that happened is at some point I ended up editing the "Conflicting Changes (2015-05-04 05:56:12 +0000) version of the note... That is not very user friendly. It seems to indicate a conflict around 10:56PM if my time conversion is correct to PST. but I am pretty sure I was only changing the note on the laptop and not my phone at that time... I could be wrong BUT how would I even know?!

 

What if my change had been smaller, then I may not have even known/found out till it was too late.

 

Like I said, I usually don't SEEM to have a problem in the conflicting changes workflow, but now this current situation makes me wonder if I've ever ended up in this situation before and just didn't realize it!-P

 

I think there should be a big warning if you are editing a "Conflicting" version of a note. Like another posted said, there should be a much better tool for seeing the changes that were conflicting (base version that the two share, changes on the two devices, a three-way visual difference in one form or another).

 

Peter

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  • 2 months later...
  • 3 months later...
  • 4 months later...
On 9/25/2013 at 11:00 PM, logandb said:

Conflicting changes occur when you have edited the same note on two different clients between syncs.  Evernote uses a hub and spoke synchronisation method, with the hub (EN server) being the master copy, updating with changes from each of the spokes (clients).  If you edit a note on your Windows PC ('spoke') and tablet (another 'spoke'), for example, subsequent to a sync, the server sees two different versions and, rather than making an arbitrary decision about which note might be correct, puts one of them (I'm not sure which) into a 'conflicting changes' notebook.

 

To resolve the issues, you need to find the duplicate note to the one in conflicting changes and decide which one is current, then re-sync.  To avoid it happening again, always make sure the client you are working with is synced before making any edits and after making them.  I often run into this problem with a PC and laptop running simultaneously!

How do I determine which is the "latest & greatest" note? By date? By content? I often make hefty changes within a note, go a month before looking at "them" again, and then wonder which Note is the one I desire. This is extremely frustrating since my work involves changing the world. I simply don't have the time nor the patience of dealing with this problem. I chose Evernote because they seemed to be the best. I will leave them and find a competitor who is willing to not have these type issues. 

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On 3/11/2014 at 4:16 PM, BurgersNFries said:

Actually, the best option is to sync your computer/device before making any changes, then syncing the computer/device after making any changes thereby eliminating conflicting notes altogether. 

Worth reposting. Kind of like "Saving" your work very often throughout the writing process = no lost work.

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  • Level 5*
1 hour ago, grandaddymike@gmail.com said:

How do I determine which is the "latest & greatest" note? By date? By content? I often make hefty changes within a note, go a month before looking at "them" again, and then wonder which Note is the one I desire. This is extremely frustrating since my work involves changing the world. I simply don't have the time nor the patience of dealing with this problem. I chose Evernote because they seemed to be the best. I will leave them and find a competitor who is willing to not have these type issues. 

Conflicting changes resolution is pretty much a manual process.  Only Rx is to be sure you sync when you enter/exit any platform.  That eliminates the issue.

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14 hours ago, csihilling said:

Conflicting changes resolution is pretty much a manual process.  Only Rx is to be sure you sync when you enter/exit any platform.  That eliminates the issue.

I now set my laptop & my Note 4 to automatically sync at the shortest time allowable. I'm also getting into the habit of pressing F9 on my laptop (Dell) to sync manually. Finding the "Sync" command on both devices is crucial, as is utilizing any software program. You simply must learn how to use it. 

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  • Level 5*
On July 22, 2015 at 10:11 AM, TdeV said:

I rarely use any version of Evernote but my desktop. I get "conflicting changes" several times per year, so it's not because I'm using EN on a different platform.

 

On November 19, 2015 at 9:15 AM, Andrew G. said:

Am in same situation.

I'd recommend opening a support ticket on this.  
I know its easy to resolve the conflict, but its indicating an error in the application which needs to be fixed.

Just curious - is the error showing two notes with conflicting differences i.e. note A has change 1 and note B has change 2? 

>>I now set my laptop & my Note 4 to automatically sync at the shortest time allowable.
Good advise.
Also, before switching devices, you should do a manual sync.

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  • 1 year later...

Hi @stempe4390,

Here's a brief explanation of why conflicting modifications occur and how to resolve them:

Quote

 

Occasionally, two copies of the same note will be found to be in conflict. This could arise when a given note is edited in two different locations before a sync has taken place. In this instance, the note will be placed into a temporary "Conflicting changes" notebook or the note will be copied within itself with the conflicting modification listed below the original note. You can then view both the local version of the note and the conflicting version from the server and manually apply any changes that couldn't be merged automatically. Once you're satisfied that original version has all of the changes, delete the version in the "Conflicting changes" notebook (as well as the notebook itself, if it's empty) or the conflicting change version shown inside the original note.

To reduce the conflicting changes issue on your devices, manually sync before you start working on a note and sync again when you finish. Do this whenever you change devices to keep the notes updated on our servers and ready to be synced to the other device.

I think users adopt several different ways to resolve conflicting changes, but personally, what I do is open the conflicting note and the original note each in their own window. I align the two windows side-by-side with approximately the same width so that I can visually identify if anything is missing, line by line. Usually, I will just be able to delete one of the notes without making any changes.

 

I hope that helps. Please let me know if you have any additional questions.

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  • 2 weeks later...

"I align the two windows side-by-side with approximately the same width so that I can visually identify if anything is missing, line by line." 

I switched from using Workflowy (never had conflicts, used on desktop and mobile every day) to Evernote as I thought it would be a better platform as it's actually being worked on and improved. But this makes me wonder if I should go back, this is the minimal expected functionality you'd expect of anything cloud based. Imagine if Google told you to bring up your two conflicting Google docs next to each other and read through line by line. 

There must be a solution for this. I use Google, Workflowy, Asana, Jira, Dropbox all on multiple devices and never have any sync issues. 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Since the last update, I'm having "conflicting changes" issue every single time I edit a note. And I'm only editing on my laptop, nowhere else

I've configured to only sync manually, but EN keeps syncing automatically. Setting to sync every hour didn't had any effect either. My last show was uninstalling EN of the phone (even if the program didn't mention it at all, and even though I almost never use it)

Hoping that it does the job, because these issues are driving me nuts – because I use EN every day for work and switching to other program would be troublesome

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  • Level 5*
On 2017-09-05 at 11:36 AM, gsouzapr said:

Since the last update, I'm having "conflicting changes" issue every single time I edit a note. And I'm only editing on my laptop, nowhere else

Better to post in the release notes discussion

I'm not having conflicting changes, but I noticed somehing amiss with the sync activity
I reported in the post below, and the development team indicated they are following up on this

 

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  • 2 months later...

I have only ever used a single instance of Evernote on my laptop -and I get about a dozen a day. The thought it might be that because you can float ta note in is own window above the main app window you could potentially edit the noted in two places at the same time. But must admit I thought Evernote saved data more or less in real time, and so when I tested by floating a docked note off and editing it,  but these changes were immediately synced back to the docked note.

This is sadly just one of the numerous issues with the editor and stubborn design values which were once quaint now just slow me down doing simple things like moving or renaming obstacles. Why can't you rename a notebook in the sidebar or rearrange them. And I know people use and alphabetising fudge the order notebook lists and stack in the sidebar review but why is this disregarded in the notebook view... where adding a new notebook to stack it appears randomly in order. 

Evernote.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

Possible FIX:

I think this might be a timezone issue.

 

Try this: Check the timezone set in your browser matches your actual timezone (e.g. if you live in London, set to London).

To do this in Chrome, you need to log into the active Google Calendar account and go to settings... I think...

Seems like a background service of is pulling the timezone from the browser in the evernote web client. This then conflicts with the local evernote client. 

 

Just a hunch. Keen to know if this works for anyone else.

 

KJ

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