I tried simplenote sync. It didn’t behave the way the manual describes it.
I expected it to ask me which SImplenotes to download. Instead it tried to get all 800. After authentication it told me it was getting 1/800 (or so) – then it said “Download Failed” and “there was a problem downloading the notes from the server”.
Is this known not to work? Why is Simplenote trying to download every note?
Well some things need to be gathered from the server in order provide you with lists to select notes from, display sync actions that will be taken (upload vs. download) and so forth. So yes, prior to actually syncing there will be server usage, this is unavoidable.
So it sounds like the server is getting tripped up during that initial process if you never see the subsequent screens. It’s not uncommon in my experience, in fact I just got one of those errors a few seconds ago while double-checking. Without changing a single setting I fired up sync again and it worked the second time.
As an aside, we’ll probably be removing SimpleNote sync from Scrivener in the future (most likely not in a minor update though) precisely for reasons such as this. Most of the problems we’ve encountered in recent years have been relatively benign (like connection errors such as this), but we’ve had enough negative feedback at this point.
Still works for me, last time I checked. But that was some time ago. I seldom find a need (or even a realistic use) for it and won’t miss it at all.
ps
Yeah it still basically works for me too, but even in a simple little test with three notes on their server, where I tried syncing a few times in a row with some minor changes, I ran into a server error. In my experience you can usually just brute force it to work by trying again, but that may be too annoying to put up with if it happens often on an 800 item transaction.
I tried it today and it worked, but I also had some server connection issues. They seem to be underinvesting in infrastructure.
Katherine
This is very annoying. I’ve had simplenote for a while. The app is so so, semi ok, but since it is supposed to synch with Scrivener, I’ve kept returning to try it out every now and then after writeroom dissapeared.
But I’ve only once or twice managed to synch Scrivener successfully with their site. Sitting here, trying to make things work, it synchs one note and then the connection fails.
Its all very depressing. Well, sortof.
Have you considered using Dropbox and an external folder sync instead? It’s way more efficient since Scrivener doesn’t have to connect to the Internet at all in the first place, and it also means you have dozens of nice programs to choose from instead of being stuck with the one Simplenote app.