Disappearing iPad note markups

Hi there,

The link there has nothing to do with the problem at hand. I have the same problem while writing notes in a PDF document. All of a sudden and out of nowhere, the notes that I took simply disappeared and it looks as there is no way to recuperate them at all.

This is very upsetting. Please find a solution!

Thanks.

Why did the moderator change the title. Read more carefully. The law student was marking a PDF, not working in notes.

I too just spent three hours working on a PDF and every single mark, text box, whatever, disappeared out of nowhere. Let me be clear that I did not hit done. I was simply in the middle of working.

I bought this $2,000 paper weight because I'm a musician and it's the only thing you can find in 4/3 ratio which is close to letter size paper. I have had nothing but frustration with this device. (If you add a text box to a PDF you cannot move it, for example.) It is my first Apple product and I'm 64 years old and very tech savvy. Never again!

Whether working in notes or in a PDF it’s the same issue. Changes made aren’t being saved.

I’ve been in touch with a senior advisor and sent her a screen shot of a video of what steps I take and what happens. This is going to the tech people to work on is my understanding. I am to receive a call back next week (Feb 2).

Hi,

I would also just like to put it on record here that I also face this issue. I actually saved the pdf each time after I annotate, but somehow, there was something like a glitch when I pressed the home button of the iPad and a lot of my notes disappeared.

A very frustrating issue losing hours of work and having spent the money on this product. I expected better.

This has just happened to me too. Hours of notes are gone. I’m a student and I was using my partner’s iPad. I was seriously considering purchasing one TODAY for note taking in articles, but now I have to print out the article and re do my notes by hand. I’m very frustrated.

First time experiencing the same issue. Didn't click home button. Did not click undo or delete. Device is up to date. Connected to wifi. Automatically saves to iCloud drive. Have used my iPad for taking notes on PDFs using pencil without problem until today.

Wrote on 83 slides over the course of a 2 hour lecture. Was going to the 84th slide and all notes were gone. Went to restore previous version and the only previous version was the blank slide deck.

Please resolve this issue. Very frustrated. Time and notes lost.

My follow up call..... they are still "working on it". This is just SO frustrating! I wonder how hard they really are working on it.

I can't believe it is taking them this long to fix this.... You'd think it would happening to them too!

Wish I could go back to the old iOS... Next new iOS, I'm not switching for a while until all the bugs are worked out....

I imagine there are very many small bugs here and there and they are inundated with requests for fixes. I would assume there is a threshold, as in after a certain number of complaints they will actually address it.

So frustrating.. same problem. Only reason my architect husband bought the iPad Pro. He sketches changes to the pdf of a cad drawing and they keep disappearing then emails to the CAD operator. Some, but not all of the changes keep disappearing. Only started happening in the last month or so.

I’m having the same problem! I have a university assignment due in 4 days and noticed that chunks of my preparation notes are gone! I spent my minimum wage, part time, money on this iPad to do my university work and this KEY feature isn’t working. Please fix or warn people because this is so incredibly frustrating.

Same exact thing has been happening to me. I'm also a law student who got this iPad to take notes. All the markups on the files I worked on today are gone. Hours of work lost. And this is not the first time this has happened to me.

This is unacceptable and needs to be fixed.

Wolf_Apple, I take that's in pages? I am having the same problem in notes, only there is no way to turn off smart annotation there, at least that I can see.... but I'm also using an iPad Air 3. I agree.... shame on Apple for not addressing this and fixing it.

I did try using pages, but sadly the eraser doesn't work properly there.... either erases the whole thing or not at all. ARGH!

Middle school teacher here. I use a PDF of my textbook questions to go over with the kids and then upload for them to access as a key. I also include notes from class that I annotate as we go along. My writing has been disappearing, even as I upload the PDF to my drive immediately after I finish writing on it! I love this application for my classes. With kids in and out for Covid, I can keep my online information in synch with what we are doing in class and the kids can work from home much more easily. But for the last couple of weeks it has not been reliable. Thanks to those who went before me to get the attention of Apple service!

This literally just happened to me.

Studying for the last 6 hours, reading and marking up a PDF in the Files application.

The screen flashed and all my markups were gone.

Holy. Crap.

My PDF is in iCloud Drive, but apparently there's no revision there, so I can't even see if there's an incremental save somewhere.

I'm completely blown away by this, and as was already said, this makes my iPad and it's usefulness drop significantly to the point where I'll go back to printing and actually writing on paper.

This thread is not about using "Apple Notes", if you read it.

It's about making notes on PDF's. When I do it, I use the "Files" application. I don't know if my iPad is using a different app to actually allow me to make notes or not. But I am not opening the "Notes" application and using that.