Level 1

49 points

Apple Notes keeps crashing in iOS11

Hope you can help me, I appreciate your input and suggestions. FYI... I usually upgrade my iPhone every two years and upgrade to the most advanced Apple device that Apple offers. I’ve been using my current iPhone 7+ 256gb for almost a year now, with no issues. I have been using Apple Notes for many years with no issues prior to my recent upgrade to iOS11. I just upgraded to iOS 11 the day of the release and have now noticed that Notes is always crashing. I do use Notes quite extensively. After a couple a crashes, I think tried exiting Notes, it often resets itself and then crashes again. I have tried both hard and soft re-boots, but that doesn’t help... Any ideas? Thanks in advance... Rob

Posted on Sep 24, 2017 5:29 AM

Top-ranking reply

davidfromholladay

Level 1

20 points

Posted on Dec 15, 2017 9:12 AM

My problem seems to be solved. I went back and compared my most recent notes on the iPhone against the same notes in iCloud. Found about 15 that were out of sync (the iPhone version was correct since that is where I edit most of them, thus confirming what I knew before: that my sync problem was originating on the iPhone). I then copied each of the notes that were out of sync emailed them to myself, and copied and pasted them into my Mac notes app. They all synced fine through iCloud and onto my iPhone. I then went back a year to verify there were no problems with other notes. All other notes were in sync. I then turned note off on my iPhone, this deleting them from the device. I lastly turned Notes on in my iPhone. All downloaded from iCloud to my iPhone. I tested the sync process by creating a new note on my iPhone. It IMMEDIATELY synced to both iCloud and my Mac. Problem solved!

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292 replies

Dec 5, 2017 4:05 PM in response to robert.burns

I’d very much recommend reconsidering MS OneNote.

The only reason that I’m not using OneNote for all my notes is that my brain needs to see my work and personal notes in different applications.

Kind of like using Outlook for work and personal email together. Your brain may accidentally send a personal email using your work account … or vice versa!

But again, MS OneNote is now a solid option given their Office Integration and iPad Pro/Pencil support.

Dec 6, 2017 12:01 PM in response to TheHardt

Now that Amazon Prime Video is finally launched on Apple TV, perhaps the Notes/iCloud issue is next on Apple’s To Do List . . .

Maybe someone should ask Alexa . . . knowing what Siri’s answer would be . . .

Xbaz

Level 1

8 points

Dec 7, 2017 12:53 AM in response to robert.burns

I don't want to sound overly dramatic, but Apple Notes is the number one reason I have an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. I'm switching to OneNote for now (as I mentioned before, it's embarrassing being in a meeting and asking people to wait while I kill and restart Notes) - but suddenly, it's loosened the ties I have to Apple products. My iPhone is good for reading stuff on the go, I have a Mac for In-depth work - the note taking and sketching was the reason for the iPad. But if I'm on OneNote, why not a Surface? Or try out the Remarkable, which sounds much better as a paper alternative? In reality I don't really want either of those (well, maybe the Remarkable), I just want Notes to work properly so I can do what I need to do.

Dec 7, 2017 7:24 AM in response to robert.burns

As do I—it is so unfortunate to see this happening on a core app. I've seen Apple Photos and iCloud are also areas of deterioration. The more we switch to alternative services, the less we vendor lock ourselves to Apple in the future. In the past that wasn't a problem because what they offered was good. They are losing their touch though.

bedchr2

Level 1

8 points

Dec 7, 2017 8:51 AM in response to Kyle Hayes

Agreed. Apple is having a rough year with software updates. The final release of iOS 10 made my iPhone 7 Plus start heating up non-stop and I followed all the steps to fix it, didn’t work. Notes with iOS 11 is horrible, my photos are a hot mess right now and had to turn them on and off on my multiple devices to get the faces to properly sync because one device would randomly merge faces and it would mess everything else up, and then the security nightmare with Mac OS X. I think Apple is due for one of those main releases that focuses on bugs and performance as opposed to a ton of new features. I like OneNote but Notes is better integrated with iOS and quicker to access.

bedchr2

Level 1

8 points

Dec 7, 2017 8:53 AM in response to robert.burns

I used to use OneNote but the syncing was horrible back in the day so I then switched to Evernote and then Apple Notes. OneNote is very sophisticated and definitely designed more so for a tablet and a computer compared to a phone. The phone is for quick access to things, in my opinion. OneNote also offer an Apple Watch app as well.

robert.burns Author

Level 1

49 points

Dec 7, 2017 10:50 AM in response to Kyle Hayes

That's right Kyle, the more we switch to alternative services the less we are locked in the Apple garden. My life is filled with Apple... iPhone 8 Plus, Apple Watch, iPad Air and iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, iMac 5K, 4 Thunderbolts 27" displays, Apple TV's, Airport Extremes, most of my music library is on iTunes and almost 1000 movies on iTunes... and that's just me, my entire family has iPads and iPhones as well. "At this time" Windows, Android and Chrome are not platforms I would move to... Even though I have such a significant loyalty, financial investment and familiarity with Apple and would it be difficult to leave, even that "investment, loyalty and familiarity" has it's limits. I think we just need some attention from Apple, communication builds trust and there is no communication or direction from Apple on this issue.

robert.burns Author

Level 1

49 points

Dec 7, 2017 11:03 AM in response to bedchr2

I couldn't agree with you more. OneNote is far more sophisticated for my requirements, and outside of "somewhat" slow synchronization, it appears stable on the iPhone and iPad, so that's why I am slowly moving to OneNote. I'm using Evernote now in the meantime, but is not 100%. In a perfect world I would be using Apple Notes and that's is my preference, but it's not working, and here we are on this thread. The reason I prefer Apple Notes (when it works) is it's simple functionality and it's fluid integration across all of my iOS devices and my OSX desktop and laptop. But all the integration in the world won't help us the Notes application doesn't work and keeps crashing.

robert.burns Author

Level 1

49 points

Dec 7, 2017 11:06 AM in response to bedchr2

That's interesting... I gave up trouble-shooting Notes issues and the reasons why Notes keeps crashing a couple weeks back (after three months of troubleshooting). I keep monitoring these discussions hoping for a "hail mary" solution. There have been some awesome suggestions on this thread, some that have worked in the short term, but these Notes issues continue to resurface after a "fix". Thanks for your insights.

MrSmall

Level 1

8 points

Dec 15, 2017 7:45 AM in response to robert.burns

This notes crashing issue for iOS 11 still isn't resolved. As of 12/15/2017 iPhone X running 11.2

As a loyal die hard apple fan, I've never had an issue with the software before even on older devices, but now when I'm typing, doing a copy & paste or even multi-task swiping over from one app back to notes. It freezes and/or crashes. It's an annoying glitch that still needs attention. Please fix.

robert.burns Author

Level 1

49 points

Dec 21, 2017 11:13 AM in response to Kyle Hayes

Hi Kyle, Aside from Notes, I’m sorry to hear about your troubles in the ICU, I hope everything worked out for the best.

I’ve practically moved away from Apple Notes, and have been using Evernote as a back up and have been slowly transitioning to Microsoft OneNote. This community string has been in effect for sometime now, and the community has offered some valuable suggestions and recommendations, that are worth a look. I haven’t had any luck with iOS 11 and it’s updates... Apple Notes was my “go to” notes application prior to iOS 11, and now it’s practically useless to me, its unusable.

I’ve been in contact with Apple Support and they haven’t been able to help. It’s as though Apple has abandoned it’s notes platform for theor powrler Notes users. Aside from an intial suggestion atvthe beginning of this community discussion, they havent shown any interesting in engaging or offering assistance, I’m an Apple advocate, buy not for Notes any longer, so you and I are onnyhe same page.

fzim777

Level 1

8 points

Dec 24, 2017 5:24 AM in response to fzim777

Update-Notes is indeed better, but it still has notes that imported nothing but the headers, and it freezes up for 3 or 4 minutes at a time. I see no solution. Even the latest beta updates are no help.

Dec 24, 2017 7:06 AM in response to robert.burns

I am still having problems with the Notes app. In my observation, the app freezes when it syncs in the background, if I wait for the sync to finish (meaning no more loading icon displayed above) then I can continue editing my notes etc. But there are also times where it freezes suddenly as I am taking notes. It's making me nuts. I'm so tempted to switch back to EN or OneNote but I couldn't because I already have issues with them from the past. I hate this. Please apple fix this asap.

Dec 28, 2017 12:09 PM in response to robert.burns

I have a case open with Apple Senior Support. I was told today that most people are out for holidays so there has been no response on the ticket. I will update this thread with new information. I would encourage all of you to download the Apple Support app and start making some noise about this.

P.S. Totally unrelated, but just an indication of the poor software quality, if you are on an iPad typing a reply on this website using a hardware keyboard, every time you hit the left or right arrow keys, the page jumps up hiding the entire editing UI. If you use a common shortcut like shift+up arrow to select something, the typed text gets deleted and you have to recover it. Rediculous. I have seen my compay’s internal wiki website working better than this.

Dec 28, 2017 2:32 PM in response to iravgupta

iravgupta wrote:

P.S. Totally unrelated, but just an indication of the poor software quality, if you are on an iPad typing a reply on this website using a hardware keyboard, every time you hit the left or right arrow keys, the page jumps up hiding the entire editing UI. If you use a common shortcut like shift+up arrow to select something, the typed text gets deleted and you have to recover it. Rediculous. I have seen my compay’s internal wiki website working better than this.

You can thank Jive Software for the editor issues you're seeing; they've hacked so much into the TinyMCE editor that it has caused numerous problems in every software release they've had in the last 5 years. Don't even get me started about trying to edit tables with it.

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Apple Notes keeps crashing in iOS11