Notes app in both MacOS and IOS fails to update over very long times, causing data loss and other havoc

BDAqua wrote:

Oh, Are you running any VPN, Anti-Virus, or Cleaning apps?

I have to thank you for this suggestion - for now. So I was using Sophos Anti-virus, and on the advice of various others, I removed that from all machines/devices. Since then I have, for these few days, not had any problems. However, I bet you a beer or whatever your favorite public forum acceptable currency might be, that this problem will recur. If not, many thanks, but I'm only letting this lie with *great* skepticism.

I'm guessing that what you are saying is that you think Sophos might have been blocking updates to the notes, which caused timeouts, which caused communication failures with the Google server, and ultimately over-writes? That is hard for me to accept since the notes are transmitted via email and stored on the Google server as emails with a Notes "tag". So, if what you are saying is correct, then wouldn't it screw up all email messages? If you have any further explanation, that would be really helpful.

Again thanks,

-TPC

The Notes app on my second MacPro appears to have updated at 3:54 PM. What is really interesting is that on the computer where it was initially modified, the Note app gives a time of 3:15 PM before the title; on the other MacPro, the given time is 3:54. So, I suppose that's not a server modify time but a Notes app on your particular device time ??? Maybe that's part of the problem, Notes doesn't necessarily designate the server document as the authoritative copy, and perhaps this is the reason for data loss: Notes app will allow you to modify a note without checking if an update is available on the server, Notes app will then assign this time and document as authoritative, then later if it sees the older document on the server, it will ignore it, or even write over it.

Apple, any comments? Community, any suggestions?

The Notes app on my second MacPro appears to have updated at 3:54 PM. What is really interesting is that on the computer where it was initially modified, the Note app gives a time of 3:15 PM before the title; on the other MacPro, the given time is 3:54. So, I suppose that's not a server modify time but a Notes app on your particular device time ??? Maybe that's part of the problem, Notes doesn't necessarily designate the server document as the authoritative copy, and perhaps this is the reason for data loss: Notes app will allow you to modify a note without checking if an update is available on the server, Notes app will then assign this time and document as authoritative, then later if it sees the older document on the server, it will ignore it, or even write over it.

UPDATE: This gets even more interesting: The Notes app displays two DIFFERENT times on each note. Is this what it is supposed to do, or is this an indication it is confused? On the list of document titles, it gives the time 4:07, which it gave when I made an (accidental) entry. At the top of the document the time is given as twelve days ago... and indeed this does not reflect the changes I made at 3:15.

So now, more than an hour later, the changes have *NEVER* shown up on the second MacPRO!!!!

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thank you BD Aqua for answering this.

I try to never use iCloud. Though the system preferences asks me to log in several times per day, I try to always refuse. There are strictly and only notes associated with my gmail accounts.

Thanks

-TPC

Dear BDAqua:

I am running Sophos on both my macs, but no VPN or Cleaning apps. Again, this update failure occurs on both my computers, an ipad, and a phone. Unless it is an interaction between them, I believe this means no issue on any one device can be the culprit.

Thanks,

-TPC

SOrry if this is a duplicate post, but I'm trying to reply to BD Aqua:

Thank you BD Aqua for answering this.

I try to never use iCloud. Though the system preferences asks me to log in several times per day, I try to always refuse. These are strictly and only notes associated with my gmail accounts.

If you want me to do this as some sort of more general test, let me know.

Thanks

-TPC

Thank you BDAqua for that suggestion. I removed all the anti-virus software on all my computers around Feb 28. For a while things seemed OK.

Then, on Mar 22, for no reason in particular, Notes wrote 34 COPIES of the same note into my gmail account. I just found another file with many copies filling up my storage on Mar 17, and then several other examples going back in time. (Sometimes they hide in some kind of "recovered" folder, which I cannot consistently access. Sometimes they are NOT in this recovered folder.)

Again, Notes seems to have some fundamental issue with synching with google. It seems to get confused and either re-write, over-write, or multiple write files to google. This could be the result of changes on multiple devices, and it could be the result of multiple devices going in and out of connection. However, this should have been an anticipated issue.

Any help or suggestions, again, would be much appreciated.

I'm looking for alternatives, fast, simple ways of taking notes and getting access to them on all devices. However, most are not as convenient as the Notes app (e.g. google keep has very limited note size, google docs is not convenient to use, doesn't have as simple file access).

Thanks,

-TPC

I don't use icloud. This is a problem with the interface between Notes and Google. Notes somehow causes the note files to be overwritten on the Google server.