Douglas Mcdonald

Q: Notes App: Duplicate entries as I type + sync problems

I have a few problems with the new Notes App. Maybe someone has some ideas on what the problem is. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

     1. Duplicate entries are appearing as I type, such that whenever I type a new note, it is duplicated for every few characters (including  the title). This means that typing a simple note will create multiple versions (i.e. "H", "He", "Hel", "****", "Hello".). After I'm finished entering the note I have to delete the other previous 20+ versions or whatever. This was happening before attempting to sync via iCloud; and I definately don't have multiple accounts, etc.

 

     2. I really do not understand the iCloud note sync process at all, maybe someone can explain it to me. I tried activating iCloud Notes syncing (mainly in an attempt to resolve the first issue above). However, to activate iCloud notes sync I was forced to create a new "###@me.com" address (without being requiring to add a password no less), which is strange considering I already have an iCloud account using my apple id. But ok. However, moving over to the iphone and ipad, I don't see any place to enter this info without over-riding my existing iCloud sync account info (the one based on my apple id).

 

I applaud apple for trying to impliment an easy way to sync devices via iCloud. But I have to say the process has been anything but easy. — and I consider myself to be a pro-user. I feel sorry for the non-computer literate out there. I have a feeling they haven't quite flushed this out completely yet.

 

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Aug 17, 2012 3:13 PM

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Q: Notes App: Duplicate entries as I type + sync problems

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  • by Douglas Mcdonald,

    Douglas Mcdonald Douglas Mcdonald Aug 17, 2012 3:18 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Aug 17, 2012 3:18 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    OK. It looks like issue #2 is a non-issue. The notes appear to be syncing properly now. How exactly? I don't know, considering I never entered my @me.com address anywhere, but aparently it is attached to my primary iCloud account on the backend.

  • by Douglas Mcdonald,

    Douglas Mcdonald Douglas Mcdonald Aug 17, 2012 3:32 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 1 (11 points)
    Aug 17, 2012 3:32 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    Also seems like getting the sync through iCloud working has somehow helped resolve issue #1. Go figure. I also deleted the "recovered items" folders, not sure if that had anything to do with it. Everything seems to be working properly for now. I will post back if there continues to be a problem.

  • by Keith Gardner1,

    Keith Gardner1 Keith Gardner1 Nov 13, 2012 7:29 AM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 2 (223 points)
    Desktops
    Nov 13, 2012 7:29 AM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    I know it seems like you're talking to yourself here Douglas, but I'm having a similar problem. Not me, actually, but one of my cohorts who relies on me to know what to do!

     

    He just upgraded his home MBP to Lion, and was entering some notes to himself, and then received something like 250 copies of the note as individual items in his email inbox on his iPhone (iOS 5.1.x) and his iMac (10.5.8) at the office. This is someone who believes in read-process-delete approach to email, so he's flipping out about it. I really have no idea where to start with it. The MBP is not with him of course, and that I'm guessing is where I need to start? Any suggestions?

     

    I should add that he doesn't have an iCloud email accout, we use gmail's hosting solution for business with our own domain name. He does have an iTunes account, obviously. Not really sure where this syncing-gone-wild is coming from.

  • by Real Williams,

    Real Williams Real Williams Dec 9, 2012 9:02 AM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 9, 2012 9:02 AM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    Are we the only ones in the world having this problem? Are we doing something wrong? Using iCloud wrong, perhaps?

     

    I don't have the issue with iCloud duplicating every letter I type into the notes app but I do have a problem with the notes app duplicatating notes I am working on.

     

    I am using Lion (latest version) and iPhone 4 iOS 5.1.1.  I was using my google account with Notes prior to upgrading to Lion and iCloud but I have since turned that off and have moved all of my notes to my iCloud account under my apple ID.

     

    Please help this is really annoying and seems like an obvious bug Apple should have fixed.

  • by Keith Gardner1,

    Keith Gardner1 Keith Gardner1 Dec 10, 2012 8:05 AM in response to Real Williams
    Level 2 (223 points)
    Desktops
    Dec 10, 2012 8:05 AM in response to Real Williams

    I was on the phone with Apple tech support and reached someone who was clearly not one of their shining stars... That being said, he indicated that he had not seen evidence of this problem before, and really had no solution. He was pointing me to the phone, saying that I should reset the network settings on ~that~ device, which I did, to no avail. I really don't know where to go with it from here.

  • by JMichael Felty,

    JMichael Felty JMichael Felty Dec 13, 2012 10:40 AM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Safari
    Dec 13, 2012 10:40 AM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    Real Williams, you are not alone in this.  I have the same problem (start a new note in Notes, get a duplicate note shortly after typing some characters, continuing until I stop typing, then it adds one more and pauses until I type again).

     

    I have tried everything I could think of -- removed all login items from my account, turned off all third-party preference panes (Default Folder, Hazel, etc.), turned Notes off in iCloud, deleted all Notes from every computer and started over, turned off network connections.  Nothing has worked so far.  I reinstituted everything, so I could get on with things.

     

    It stands unusable to me.  PIty.  I have two Macs running Mountain Lion, and it would be nice to have something that could let me synchronize task lists and so forth.

  • by swpenraeth,

    swpenraeth swpenraeth Feb 8, 2013 12:12 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 8, 2013 12:12 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    I've got this bug too, on 10.8.2

     

    I don't use iCloud at all, I don't sync or anything. I just start typing and end up with 60+ duplicate entries. It's automatically saving a copy periodically. Very odd behavior for an application. Any solution?

  • by aaaaaaakkkkkk,

    aaaaaaakkkkkk aaaaaaakkkkkk Feb 10, 2013 9:09 AM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 10, 2013 9:09 AM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    I've been having a notes sync issue for a while now.  On my iPhone and iPad I get duplicate (old) copies of some notes, while on my Macbook I only have one (true/uptodate) copy of each note.

     

    Seems to be something with iCloud as I recently reset my iPhone and set it up from scratch, and the duplicate notes are still there.

     

    I wonder does someone fropm Apple not read these support discussions?

     

    My satisfation with Apple has been in steady decline for a few years now, but that decline is seriously starting to accelerate. Whereas Apple was once about putting out products that "just work", they are now pumping out products riddled with bugs that cost users a lot of time and frustration... Apple is now as bad as Microsoft ever was it this game

  • by bissabissa,

    bissabissa bissabissa Mar 7, 2013 10:54 AM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 7, 2013 10:54 AM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    Same issue here ~ just downloaded Lion from APPLE on my iMac~ if anyone has figured this out I'd love an update ~ Come on APPLE GENIUS BAR people out there reading this thread on your day off??? PLEASE

  • by JMichael Felty,

    JMichael Felty JMichael Felty Mar 7, 2013 12:05 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Safari
    Mar 7, 2013 12:05 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    It STOPPED!  I am not sure of what I did that caused it to stop, because in frustration I simply stopped trying to use Notes.  Between when I stopped and when I tried using it again (right after bissabissa's note came into my email), the continuous generation of new Notes stoped.  Although I am ready to speculate, I am unwilling to try to blunder through a backtracking process and accidentally start it happening again.

     

    My current setup.  In System Preferences -> Mail, Contacts & Calendars I have four entries:  iCloud (checked: Mail, Contacts, Calendars&Reminders, Notes, Documents & Data), my email provider POP account (checked: Notes, but not Mail because I want email only on my main computer), a Facebook entry which has Contacts checked, and a Comcast Mail thing that has "Enable This Account" UN-checked.

     

    Before.  I used to have a separate entry in that panel from my email provider that was an IMAP entry, but was otherwise identical to the POP entry.  At the same time, I also had "Enable This Account" CHECKED in the Comcast entry.  At that time, the PROBLEM was active.

     

    I think the PROBLEM stopped when I deleted the extra IMAP account and UN-checked the Comcast "Enable This Account" box.  I cannot be sure, because I did a lot of other things to my iCloud/iPads (2)/Macs (3) setup when I bought the 2nd iPad, trying to get iCloud sync to work in a way that I could live with.

     

    The other computers have the email accounts disabled, and the iPads have mail and Contacts "OFF" under the iCloud panel in Settings, and under "Mail, Contacts, Calendars" the iCloud account is my email address, and I have my email address listed separately.  So, my current setup has all email funneled through my main email account onto my mail computer.

     

    I am guessing, but I think it has something to do with either 1) having two active email accounts, or 2) having an email account that is accessed both by POP and IMAP.

     

    The funny thing is, I never use IMAP, and I don't know how that extra entry got there -- so I deleted it.

     

    So, my position is "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."  However, if it is still broken for someone else who has the same kind of setup in "Mail, Contacts & Calendars" that I used to, maybe you could experiment with this, see what happens, and report back to everybody.  Good luck!

  • by bissabissa,

    bissabissa bissabissa Mar 7, 2013 1:22 PM in response to JMichael Felty
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 7, 2013 1:22 PM in response to JMichael Felty

    glad we both figured this out! The APPLE tech people could not have been NICER, an 1.5 hrs later problem resoloved ( they hadnt seen this issue either) Problem just started yesterday after I downloaded Mountain lion. Problem resolved by removing YAHOO notes on the devices ( imac, ipad, iphone) . Sorry YAHOO but you created problems for me!

     

    settings>mail,contacts,calenars>yahoo>notes OFF

     

    **iCloud Notes on

  • by swpenraeth,

    swpenraeth swpenraeth Mar 7, 2013 1:53 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 7, 2013 1:53 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    I was able to solve this problem for myself by deleting "folders" associated with my email accounts, listed under "On My Mac" in the left most column of Notes. Previously, Apple Mail included the notes functionality, and my notes created in Mail appeared in Notes after the upgrade. In Notes, I selected the folders associtated with the email accounts and hit the delete key. Some of these had no notes at all, and some did, though my notes didn't go away, interestingly. (Or maybe I moved them, don't recall.)

     

    Anyway, this problem doesn't seem to be specific to iCloud or Yahoo, but to the way Notes organizes data.

  • by Eric Root,

    Eric Root Eric Root Mar 7, 2013 2:46 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald
    Level 9 (69,813 points)
    iTunes
    Mar 7, 2013 2:46 PM in response to Douglas Mcdonald

    Apple support article:

     

    iCloud Notes – Fix Duplicates

  • by Ruskat,

    Ruskat Ruskat Jun 16, 2013 9:51 PM in response to bissabissa
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jun 16, 2013 9:51 PM in response to bissabissa

    Genius, worked straight up, am so pleased as it was driving me nuts.  Thanks so much for taking the time to solve this issue for us and writing it herre

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