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Bug Desktops (Apple) Data Storage OS X Operating Systems Software News Technology

Evernote Confirms a Serious Bug Caused Data Loss For Some Mac Users (techcrunch.com) 31

Evernote has sent an email to users warning of a serious bug "in some versions of Evernote for Mac that can cause images and other attachments to be deleted from a note under specific conditions." The company claims only "a small number of people" are affected, but those who have received the email will need to update their Mac app as soon as possible. The glitch occurs in the September version of the software, and less frequently in the versions released since June. TechCrunch reports: In these applications, certain sequences of events can cause an image or other attachments to be deleted from notes without warning, but text is not affected. For example, the bug can be triggered by skimming quickly through a large number of notes, Evernote says. The email explains that once the company identified the problem, it worked quickly to implement a solution and attempted to restore all lost data. The issue was under discussion in Evernote's forums earlier this month. For heavy Evernote users, the bug could have a major impact. One user in the forums posted that they had 20,000 notes in their Evernote account, as part of their PhD research. Hundreds (or maybe even thousands) of their notes may have now become corrupted, according to their post. Unfortunately for some affected users, data recovery was not possible through automated means, the company's email stated. Instead, Evernote is advising those users who are missing attachments to use Evernote's note history feature in Evernote Premium to try to recover the missing data.
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Evernote Confirms a Serious Bug Caused Data Loss For Some Mac Users

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  • You're just storing your stuff on someone else's computer.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      You're just storing your stuff on someone else's computer.

      There are no cars. You are just riding in a box with wheels.

    • Appropriate XKCD:
      https://xkcd.com/908/ [xkcd.com]

      I forget the number of the one where he gets his website corrupted and just asks his users to fix the database though.

    • by Megane ( 129182 )
      What is it about PhD students that causes so many of them to store all their work using ONE PROGRAM on ONE COMPUTER (or even worse, ONE DISK) and never make backups? I guess there must be something to the old joke of "piled higher and deeper".
  • Don't Evernote have any backups?

    That sounds dangerous.

    • What I don't understand is how someone who claims to be taking a PhD stores everything in one place. I mean I had like 4 backups in different media and in different places. I actually lost my main system once when my HD went to the shitter, but I had a backup so I lost like 1 months work.

      Storing years work on one single place? Incredibly nearsighted.

  • by darkain ( 749283 ) on Thursday October 13, 2016 @06:24PM (#53072967) Homepage

    Repeat after me: HOST YOUR OWN DAMN FILES. Put them on a good quality local server with ZFS backed storage. Set up automated snapshots. Then setup automated ZFS send/recv to another off-set (geographically diverse, so at least a few hundred miles away) server.

    When files are borkt locally, just pull em out of your snapshots, or just entirely revert to a snapshot. Local server is borkt? Just pull the contents from the remote server. For an added bonus, sync to multiple remote locations, especially because co-location hosting and bandwidth is so damn cheap now.

    • by darkain ( 749283 )

      As an added note: you wanna make this shit as simple as possible? Just install FreeNAS. It has all this built in. Need "cloud" (automatic doc syncing between desktops), there is the OwnCloud plugin with a desktop client that does this right there built in. This whole process is actually really damn simple compared to what it was years ago.

      • "...you wanna make this shit as simple as possible? Just install FreeNAS. It has all this built in. "

        So that next time you have a fire or a breakin, you will have lost EVERYTHING.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Repeat after me: HOST YOUR OWN DAMN FILES. Put them on a good quality local server with ZFS backed storage. Set up automated snapshots. Then setup automated ZFS send/recv to another off-set (geographically diverse, so at least a few hundred miles away) server.

      When files are borkt locally, just pull em out of your snapshots, or just entirely revert to a snapshot. Local server is borkt? Just pull the contents from the remote server. For an added bonus, sync to multiple remote locations, especially because co-location hosting and bandwidth is so damn cheap now.

      Ain't nobody got time for that.

    • excellent idea. I do something similar myself. However, hosting your own files takes time and expertise that many (most?) don't have. No easy solution I'm afraid.
      • Huh, you put your files that you create on your computer onto your computer. Tada, hosted! Of course no one else can see them, that means they're safer that way! Your phone can't see them but so what, phones are insecure by design and full of spyware so you don't want to share your files with your phone anyway.

    • So everybody with computing needs (i.e. everyone except your grandpa) should invest in geographically diverse real estate so that they can set up their own servers for backing up their data?

      Wouldn't it make more sense for all those backups to be in datacenters dedicated for that purpose, run by people who know how to manage large computing infrastructure?

      You know, the cloud?

  • Evernote, y u no revision?
  • by Sir Holo ( 531007 ) on Thursday October 13, 2016 @07:18PM (#53073187)

    Evernote is advising those users who are missing attachments to use Evernote's note history feature in Evernote Premium to try to recover the missing data.

    Huh?

    You want these people to buy a more expensive edition of your software – as the solution for your main product failing?

    Tone-deaf.

    • Huh?

      You want these people to buy a more expensive edition of your software – as the solution for your main product failing?

      Tone-deaf.

      Fortunately, several weeks ago there was an OS X update to the stock Notes application that has the same essential features as Evernote, including being able to sync to multiple computers and devices. When Evernote restricted its free version to one machine, I moved over to Notes. Now it appears that I acted at the right time.

      • The Evernote free version actually restricts you to two nodes, not one. It triggered me to abandon Evernote. And the cool new Apple trick was the ability to share notes between users. Apple Notes synced over iCloud for a while. The other cool thing is local notes. Evernote free was always cloud based. If you need a local note, you had to pay premium. Apple Notes is save locally then update the cloud version. So you always have the note locally. Great for notes for the Airport where WiFi is expensiv

  • Had this been a OneNote flaw, it would have read:

    Microsoft has sent an email to users warning of a critical flaw in multiple version of Microsoft's OneNote that can cause a severe loss of data, the extent of which is not entirely known. Microsoft refuses to acknowledge the severity of this issue, claiming that only "a small number of people" are affected. Those who have received the email may be able to install an update to repair the flaw, but the efficacy of this "fix" has not been confirmed. Regard

    • Had this been a OneNote flaw, it would have read:

      Microsoft has sent an email to users warning of a critical flaw in multiple version of Microsoft's OneNote that can cause a severe loss of data, the extent of which is not entirely known. Microsoft refuses to acknowledge the severity of this issue, claiming that only "a small number of people" are affected. Those who have received the email may be able to install an update to repair the flaw, but the efficacy of this "fix" has not been confirmed. Regardless of the "fix", the users data has been lost irrevocably. The glitch has been occurring for many months but this is the first response Microsoft has provided.

      Top tip. Don't use Microsoft products on MacOs. It won't end well.

      Numbers is fine.

  • .... this will certainly help :)

    So, Evernote has massive competition for Apple iOS/macOS Notes, Google Keep, MS OneNote, even DropBox paper.
    So the thought seems to be, lets get rid of all these non-paying folks, lets concentrate on the much smaller group of paying folks. For the free tier, they've reduced the number of hosts you can access this from.

    I personally have migrated all my notes away from Evernote to Apple Notes. macOS notes has added an import filter specifically for the Evernote XML export. Was pretty easy.

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

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