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Duplicate notes? Notes not syncing?

Is anyone having problems with duplicate notes in Mountain Lion?


When I first open up Notes.app on MacBook, I am greeted with "This Mac can't connect to iCloud because of a problem with (my iCloud account)."

User uploaded file

I open iCloud Preferences, but everything looks fine.

User uploaded file

And these settings are exactly the same on my iPhone 4S.


It looks like my MacBook thinks I have two iCloud accounts in the Note.app but I should only have one. Unchecking the Notes box in iCloud Preferences, only takes one iCloud account off of notes. So, even with iCloud turned totally off and signed out, my notes application still thinks I am signed in.

User uploaded file

So when I add a noted from the MacBook, the note gets duplicated just seconds afterwards.

Sometimes it even makes three copies.

User uploaded file

None of the notes from my Mac sync to my iPhone and none from iPhone sync to my Mac.

Sometimes, the application on the Mac will crash, interestingly enough exactly at the time when my iPhone and Mac *should* be communicating together.

From Crash Reporter:


Process: Notes [542]

Path: /Applications/Notes.app/Contents/MacOS/Notes

Identifier: com.apple.Notes

Version: 1.0 (81)

Build Info: Notes-81000000000000~3

Code Type: X86-64 (Native)

Parent Process: launchd [151]

User ID: 502



Date/Time: 2012-07-26 16:55:08.354 -0500

OS Version: Mac OS X 10.8 (12A269)

Report Version: 10



Interval Since Last Report: 37865 sec

Crashes Since Last Report: 3

Per-App Interval Since Last Report: 1636 sec

Per-App Crashes Since Last Report: 3

Anonymous UUID:



Crashed Thread: 10 Dispatch queue: NSManagedObjectContext Queue



Exception Type: EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT)

Exception Codes: 0x0000000000000000, 0x0000000000000000



Application Specific Information:

*** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: 'Unable to generate SQL for predicate (folder == $folder) (problem on RHS)'

abort() called

terminate called throwing an exception


Anyone else have these issues? Or just me?


Thanks in advance.

MacBook (13-inch Aluminum Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.7.4), 2.4GHz, 320GB 7,200 RPM, 4GB Memory

Posted on Jul 26, 2012 3:10 PM

Reply
166 replies

Aug 20, 2012 12:28 AM in response to Zool The Tool

What a complete Apple-induced mess. What about the users like myself who don't use iCloud whatsoever and have no desire to? Why remove the ability to sync via iTunes, either over WiFi or USB? Apple boasts "over 200 new features" in Mountain Lion, but what they don't tell you are the features they pointlessly remove.


And please don't tell me that's progress, things get left behind. There is no need to remove one function to add another. Notes worked fine between my MB Pro, iPhone 4 and iPad 3 synced through iTunes. My internet here in Dubai can be sketchy, not to mention I'm away from networks a lot of the time with my job as an airline pilot. The bigger worry is they move Calendars and Contacts exclusively into the "cloud". (God I hate that term.)


There isn't any logic or consistency. You can sync Calendars and Contacts locally...butttt...not Notes and Reminders?


But now I have to register a new email adress, configure three devices, and depend on a remote server...just to have the same notes on my devices? And hopefully, not have an even bigger mess of dupicated/missing notes, as five pages of this thread detail?


No thanks.

Sep 12, 2012 9:20 PM in response to winglet

Winglet,



winglet wrote:


What a complete Apple-induced mess. What about the users like myself who don't use iCloud whatsoever and have no desire to? Why remove the ability to sync via iTunes, either over WiFi or USB? Apple boasts "over 200 new features" in Mountain Lion, but what they don't tell you are the features they pointlessly remove.


And please don't tell me that's progress, things get left behind. There is no need to remove one function to add another. Notes worked fine between my MB Pro, iPhone 4 and iPad 3 synced through iTunes. My internet here in Dubai can be sketchy, not to mention I'm away from networks a lot of the time with my job as an airline pilot. The bigger worry is they move Calendars and Contacts exclusively into the "cloud". (God I hate that term.)


There isn't any logic or consistency. You can sync Calendars and Contacts locally...butttt...not Notes and Reminders?


But now I have to register a new email adress, configure three devices, and depend on a remote server...just to have the same notes on my devices? And hopefully, not have an even bigger mess of dupicated/missing notes, as five pages of this thread detail?


No thanks.


I couldn't agree with you more. I just upgrade to ML a week ago only to find the disaster with Notes and Reminders. These two applications are the sole reason I upgraded. Since the time I began to use Palm devices I always enjoyed its Tasks application. It was a simple To Do list application, easy to use and easy to sync. I used Entourage as my PIM (Personal Information Manager) and Microsoft had an application available that could be downloaded from its website to sync Entourage with Palm devices. I can't believe Apple just introduced the 6th iteration of the iPhone today and we still don't have a reasonably good task management / to do list application that can sync its computers with its mobile devices. Really amazing !!!


On top of the fact that I can't sync Reminders I have in addition lost the ability to sync Notes. Notes was a part of Mail and I had no problem synchronizing it before. Now I can't sync either one of the two apps. I have invested money, a considerable amount of time to perform the upgrade and found in the end that data can no longer be synchronized with my iPhone and iPad. These are important data that I am used to sync with my mobile devices every single morning at the beginning of my business day.


Many users such as myself can't use cloud services because they are required by law to maintain their data as private and confidential. The least I would expect from Apple is to allow users to choose between two or three different sync options (cable, Wi-Fi and iCloud). In doing so they would be addressing the needs of their entire user base and not just a percentage of it. Instead they have chosen to force their iCloud solution down everyone's throats with total disregard for users preferences. I hate to think that this is a forceful sales approach to push consumers to subscribe and pay for yet another service/product but at the end of the day this is probably what it is.


I just found I have a useless system I can't rely on for something as simple as the daily management of my business data and tasks.


Apple has to decide where it wishes to stand in terms of the products it provides. Does it want to build little gizmos consumers like to use for their entertainment or does it wish to build 'professional' computers that businesses can use for truly professional purposes.

Sep 20, 2012 12:06 AM in response to graybry

I was just able to get rid of the problem. I also got the duplicate accounts problem and did the following:


- close Notes.app

- deactivate iCloud-Syncing for Notes

- started the terminal

- typed in "rm -rf ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.Notes/Data/Library/Notes

- start Notes.app (folder will be recreated)

- reactivate iCloud-Syncing for Notes


That worked for me 🙂


Cheers,

Pablo

Sep 21, 2012 5:43 AM in response to PabloV12345

I had the same problem, too. After the update 10.8.2 my notes did not sync at all. Deleting those files solved the problem once and for all! Thanks!


Simply using the finder to delete the files works fine. Just option click on "go" in the menu bar to reach the library folder. No need to use terminal. Unless you want to.


Thanks again for the solution!

Sep 22, 2012 1:07 PM in response to WillJayAre

Great to hear that it helps at least some of you!


Using the Finder is only possible if the Library folder is unhidden, which is not the default setting since 10.7 if i remember correct.


@RMW123

please remember to use it as i have posted as OSX is case sensitive on the command line. It's the only hint i can give you as i only have two machines (one running 10.7.4 and the other one on 10.8.2) to control the path.


Cheers,
Pablo

Sep 23, 2012 8:16 AM in response to Talkingpengwin

This was perfect and worked like a charm. I think this problem was due to a bad converter when Notes was a part of Mail in Lion and prior. I notices that initially after the upgrade I had 2 accounts, an iCloud and a MobileMe account. Deleting the MobileMe took care of the duplicate mail but it was too late for Notes since the app was already split from Mail and duplicate iCloud accounts were already created.


All I had to do was the following:


Go to Mailbox and rebuild

Close Mail

Go under my username

Select (hidden folder) Library

Select Containers

Drag com.apple.notes to the trash

Restart computer (this is important because some files are in use and you can't get rid of them unless your restart)

Empty trash

Start Notes (came up with blank sheet)

Go to Accounts

Select iCloud

Notes is unchecked at that time, check Notes and it says "Setting up..." In 5 seconds, all the notes from iCloud show up


Thanks everyone for your help.

Sep 23, 2012 12:11 PM in response to PabloV12345

Library folder is hidden by default. That is why you have to "option-klick", i.e. holding down the option key while klicking "Go" in the finder menu bar, in order to reveal the option to go to the hidden library folder. To make this dead clear: you have to hold down the option key, while in the menu. Releasing the option key will drop the option to go to library. Toggling the option key will reveal/hide the library...

Duplicate notes? Notes not syncing?

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