Church website -- Notes Tool not showing up

Hi All,

About 1 week ago I found a problem with the desktop version of the Notes tool on the Church Website. It continues to work well on the Android platform but on windows desktop log in and access Notes and it will for about 1 second show my notes and then it disappears.

I usually use Firefox as a browser. The same thing happens if I use Chrome or Edge so the problem would seem to be at the Church website.

I use the Notes section or tool extensively for my daily scripture study. I hope that someone can fix this or suggest a solution.

Warm regards,
Brother Osbon

Are you going to Study.ChurchofJesusChrist.org, and clicking Notes, or are you trying to go directly to Notes.ChurchofJesusChrist.org?

Thank you for the reply.

I usually go to the account under Leaders Resources and over to notes. I checked out the two URL you cited and both times the same thing happened. My notes would appear for 1 or 2 seconds and then disappear altogether.

I am not sure what is happening. I hope a fix can be found. Thanks!

Try highlighting a section of text and see what happens. I noticed that "notes" wanted me to log in despite the fact the page header showed me as already being logged in.

Probably another glitch in the move from lds.org to churchofjesuschrist.org.

But if they appear and then disappear, it sounds like they've been "turned off" and you need to find the icon to turn them back on again.

I will try your suggestions and I tried on a different computer but still the same. My notes come up for only 1 to 2 seconds and then the panel disappears to nothing with just the Church header, etc.

My challenge is having enough time to highlight the notes on the desktop. It disappears too quickly. It still has been working on my Android phone thought the Gospel Library App. I wish I could take a short video clip of what happens. Hmmm.. maybe I can do that on my phone. Can I attach a small video file to a post?? If so then I could show what is happening.

Hi All,

I just figured out how to record a small 10 second video on my phone of the computer screen where I can show you precisely the problem I have. Please unzip and view it. I am hoping with this illustration you can all see what is happening. I do believe it is something at the web site.

I look forward to your additional feedback.

Warm regards,
Brother Osbon

You could try clearing cache and locally-stored site data in your browser. Here are instructions for Firefox to remove only the cache and local data for the Church website:

1. Close any windows that are opened to the Church website.
2. Go to Preferences (under the three-lines menu in the top right of a Firefox window – or you can type about:preferences into the titlebar).
3. Tap "Privacy & Security."
4. Under Cookies and Site Data, tap "Manage Data..."
5. Search for "lds.org" and remove all of the entries that appear.
6. Search for "churchofjesuschrist.org" and remove all of the entries that appear.
7. Save changes and exit preferences.
8. Try to open Notes.ChurchofJesusChrist.org (you'll have to sign in again).

(Clearing cache and site data will not remove notes/annotations or anything like that, because those are stored on the Church's server, not in the browser – which is good. )

Though less likely to be a problem in this case, you could also try temporarily turning off any content-blocking extensions or filtering services on your network, if there are any.

If none of that works – I wonder if it has to do with the special characters in your note? The backslash, equal sign, and @ symbol are commonly used in code. Normally, a website should be escaping these kinds of special characters behind the scenes to prevent them from causing problems, but it's possible that something isn't being escaped properly (which would be a bug).

Hello.

I have the same problem with the Edge browser as with the Firefox browser. So, I cleared cache on the edge browser and still the same result.

I have had Notes on LDS server since 2011. I have always used the same characters and never had an issue. I perceive the problem must be at the Church server end. I do note that the Android version of Gospel Library is storing the notes fine. No problem there. I have been copying and pasting from my phone using OneNote where I temporarily store the notes until the server or Notes issue is fixed and that keeps them up to date but it is a painful workaround.

I hope you can continue to look into the problem and appreciate all your suggestions and review. I will keep trying from day to day and will report any changes.

Warm regards,
Brother Osbon

Hi All,

Just an added observation. This is happening now with both Edge and Firefox browser which leads me to believe this on the server end.

Now, when I try to go to Notes, there is no longer a short 1 to 1.5 second opening of my notes before disappearing. It now goes immediately to blank. Very curious situation.

Rgds,
Brother Osbon

ljosbon wrote:So, I cleared cache on the edge browser and still the same result.

What about cookies?

Cleared out cookies on Edge and Firefox. No change. Still a blank page shows.

Hi All,

I have noted that the problem of the notes section not appearing has continued. May I ask if there is another email I should contact for support as this appears to me to not be a problem at my end. Is there a way to request a help ticket?

I am just wondering how I might get this issue up the chain a bit to be carefully reviewed and hopefully fixed. Please look at all the emails of this thread including the short 10 second video clip I uploaded which really shows the problem.

Thanks and warmest regards,
Brother Osbon

ljosbon wrote:Hi All,

I have noted that the problem of the notes section not appearing has continued. May I ask if there is another email I should contact for support as this appears to me to not be a problem at my end. Is there a way to request a help ticket?

I am just wondering how I might get this issue up the chain a bit to be carefully reviewed and hopefully fixed. Please look at all the emails of this thread including the short 10 second video clip I uploaded which really shows the problem.

Thanks and warmest regards,
Brother Osbon

This forum is user-to-user tech support. It is not an official support arm for the church. Some church programmers visit occasionally, but there is no guarantee they will see this thread. Official support is accessed by using the feedback link on the bottom of most pages of churchofjesuschrist.org. You may not get an individualized response, but I understand that all feedback is reviewed and routed to the appropriate organization.

Thank you.

I watched your video and observed the problem. I've seen stuff like that happen in the new Gospel Library several times, but never in Notes.

In Gospel Library, sometimes when taking a note the data seems to be unexpected and it causes the Gospel Library page not to render. I'm guessing it could be a similar problem in Notes.

I took a look and the "classic" Notes page is still available. It doesn't work that well, but what would be good for you to do is see if you can see your notes there:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... s?lang=eng

If you see your notes there, then it may be an indication of some unexpected data is causing the new Notes to fail. I would consider deleting your recent notes (save the content elsewhere if you want to keep it). My guess is that if you delete your most recent note from the classic interface, that the new Notes interface might work again.

Dear Mevans,

Your comment was very helpful. I went to the link and it worked to the older study notes. All the notes were there including a few I had added from the Android app. The new location now has a different behavior. It now shows the following ---

PAGE NOT FOUND -- sorry but the page you're looking for was not found... etc.

I will try your suggestion to see if deleting a note or two will allow the new notes interface to work.

I did not know the older notes section was still available. That is good to know.

Warm regards,
Brother Osbon

I recommend deleting the most recent notes. I suspect something you did recently isn't working with Notes. It's helpful to know that some changes were made with the Android app: that could be a place where an incompatible note was added. If you submit feedback to the Church about the problem, that's a key piece of information to include.

@mevans. Thank you so very much!!!! That worked!!! I went into the old notes section and copied 16 entries of notes and saved them to OneNote so I would have them. I then deleted the 16 or so entries within the old study notes program. (by the way it was you that had sent the link of the old study program that I did not know still existed -- that was very helpful)

Well, once I deleted those 16 entries, I was able to get into the new Notes Program. I am now going to restore my entries. If I have the problem again then I know I have a way to go back. I will do it 5 entries at a time to make sure.

I am so pleased and thank you all for your comments and helping me get to this solution.

Warmest regards,
Brother Osbon in Michigan USA

If it stops working again after pasting in a specific note, post here and let us know – I'm curious if there are certain special characters or something similar in a specific note that would cause a problem.

@sbradshaw. I will be happy to report back if the problem occurs again. I restored one note and so far so good. Later on I will restore my other notes.

I am just so happy now it is working again. I use it every day and it is a great placeholder as it were for my daily scripture devotionals.

I'm happy that worked for you.

I'd also recommend paying attention as to what notes you make with the Android Gospel Library and what notes you make with the online Gospel Library. I've not seen Notes fail like that before--just the Gospel Library content on the web. I wonder if the app version somehow introduced data with which the web version was not compatible. I primarily use the mobile gospel library app to read things, not create content.

I don't know the architecture between the web and mobile Gospel Library apps. For example, do they call different services behind the scenes to do their stuff? I believe the mobile apps sync their changes, so it doesn't have to be a live connection to the church to create notes. Without knowing more, it's a bit difficult to figure out where to look for problems.

Hello @mevans. Thank you for your reply and thoughts.

I can tell you that usually I prefer to use the windows desktop or maybe you could call it web version of the Notes. It is easier to create content that way. I will share that one bug I did notice. If you can call it a bug is that if I create content on the Android Gospel Library version, the formatting is messed up a bit when I reopen the app on the desktop. I will provide an example right here below --

Here is an entry created on the Android as it was later opened on the Desktop version --

Volume VII Journal Entry 70 LJO Personal Gospel Study June 28, 2019

Hymn #310 -- A Key was Turned in Latter Days \=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\= pr..pr
Read 2 Nephi 10 with verse 12.
\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\= Tomorrow read 2 Nephi 11.
Read Benson \@ 4 minutes mark.

======= Tomorrow read Next GC talk.

All those character \=\ are inserted. the pr..pr is mine but the \=\= etc. are shown in the entry but was not my original formatting.

Now if I created the content on the desktop version it is clean as in so --

Volume VII Journal Entry 73 -- LJO Personal Gospel Study -- July 1, 2019

Hymn #313 -- God is Love
======================================
pr..pr

Read 2 Nephi 12 with verse 10

================== Tomorrow read 2 Nephi 13.

Read Seeing the Five "A" by Marion D. Hanks


=========== Tomorrow read Hanks talk @ 6 minutes mark.

It seems to have trouble reformatting or converting the ==== symbols and instead places \=\=\=

I don't know if that answers some of your additional queries on the behavior, etc. of the different formats. I have not asked why it does this. I am just happy that it records the entries in some way. It works well for me since I use the entries as sort of a place holder or means for me to keep track of my daily study. I don't necessarily intend to go back over the notes but I do want to keep them and so far this program or application has kept all my notes since December 31, 2010.

Warm regards,
Brother Osbon

Are you using the Windows 10 Gospel Library app, or logging in to a web browser? I'm not sure of the status of the Gospel Library app, but I think I heard it's not updated too frequently. If that's your behavior on the app, see if it's the same behavior in the web browser. I've never used the Gospel Library desktop app, as my Windows 10 is at work and I can't install it there.

Hello.

I use the web browser. I do not use the Windows 10 Gospel Library App. The only systems I use are -- Web browser at the former lds.org, Android Gospel Library App on my phone and Gospel Library App on an Android tablet.

amberpest wrote:Hmmm, I just posted a comment, but it's not showing up, so I don't know if it's waiting approval, or just lost.

The first. But your second post makes the first redundant.

@amberpest and @russelhtn. Both links go to the old version of Study Notes which still could be useful. Before posting back in June about this problem, I had not know the older version of Study Notes was still available.

I will say, since I received all the helpful feedback from the posts on this thread, I continue to not have any additional problems. When I use the app to create content versus the web, I still have some odd formatting but it is not a problem for me.

Thanks again, everyone.

I am having the same issue as described above. Any ideas on how to resolve the issue?

Which issue in particular -- the one with odd formatting or notes not showing up at all? Those were the two issues I originally had. The one with the notes not showing up has been solved. The other one occurs if you use Android app to take notes vs. the desktop version. The Desktop takes clean notes without odd formatting characters. Inside the Android app the notes look fine but if you type notes in Android app and then open them on Desktop (Windows) they appear odd.

I am having the same issue

I use the Notes tool accessed by clicking on "My Account and Ward", and then "Notes" under the My Account column. Clicking this link takes me to this URL: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/notes?lang=eng. I am using the latest Chrome browser. I have several notebooks, but I primarily use a notebook called Journal. It has around 180 notes. Of the other 3 or 4 notebooks I have, none have more than 10 notes. Most only have a couple of notes. I also write notes into the Journal notebook using the Android app. In Chrome I see the icons and page layout load, and then the screen goes blank below the line under the Scripture and Study, Families and Individuals, ... drop down menus. Basically, the desktop version is useless. I can only access my notes in the Gospel Library App.
This behavior is slightly different that what I saw last week when I sent a note in through the feedback link on the website describing my problem. Last week I could see the notebooks listed, but when I clicked on the Journal notebook, the screen went blank. I could click on the other notebooks and see the various entries. This led me to think that the error might be due to the number of entries in a given notebook since my Journal notebook has so many more entries. However, now that today, I cannot even see the list of notebooks on https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/notes?lang=eng, I don't know that this is true. I would appreciate any help you can offer. Unfortunately, I do not have these notes saved elsewhere. This is my personal journal and I would love to recover this. I can do this using the Android app, but it will be very cumbersome. I would like to not loose the ability to use the nice desktop tool.

Hello. I had this same issue as you can see in the earlier threads. What happened in my case was somehow there was a character or something that threw the desktop system off. If I recall correctly I was informed of the "older" notes system for the desktop and someone provided me that link. I will provide it here too for you to try. The old system worked and what I did was copy my entries and paste them in a One Note (Microsoft One Note -- great program by the way) page so I could archive them and copy and paste them back. You could use a Word Processor or other means to copy your notes if you don't use One Note. Anyway, I then began to delete entries using the old notebook system until I was able to eliminate whatever offending code or character caused the behavior in the new current system. I then carefully pasted back my entries in the new or current system. I have not had any issues since. I hope my suggestions help. To access the older system go here (also known as Classic Notes Section) --

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... s?lang=eng

I hope this might help

@ljosbon Thank you for your post. I did see that you had done this. I had previously dismissed this as something that would no longer work because when I tried the link in the earlier post and the same one you just provided to the old notes application, I got a webpage not found message. However, I thought I'd try it again. I did get to the old notes and journal application. I have been using this long enough that I remember that old look. However, it does not populate with any notes. It is empty. I tried clearing cache and cookies and logging out and back in. But still, it is empty. That was a little disconcerting until I checked the Android Gospel Library Notes and I still have access to all my notes and journal entries there. I appreciate you trying to help me. But something is jamming the desktop system for me and notes aren't showing up in either the old or new applications.

@caballey I am sorry that did not work. I too went to the old Classic Journal site and it also does not show any of my notebooks like it did before. I am thinking if you could copy your notes from the Android app and paste them somewhere where you have them and can copy and paste them later on to your desktop, that would be an important archive step. Then, if you can delete from the desktop your entries and try to reload that might work. It could be tedious though. In my case there was a character or something that caused the malfunction and once it was removed, everything worked again like it should. This is perplexing...

I too have entered many notes containing my thoughts into my scriptures. About 2 weeks ago they disappeared. On the computer all I get is the highlighted scripture with no note showing up. On my Ipad I get a note icon to the right and when I click on it it lists the date I entered the note but the note is gone. It's like someone went thru my physical scriptures and erased all of the side notes I have written over the years.

@McLaughlinEs I wish I could offer some help. I do know that from time to time the scripture tools have had changes with some bugs but usually things do get fixed. I suggestion might be to make a screen image of the points you raise that are not working and if you have an instance where it did work also. Sometimes, using graphical description can help the other more tech-savvy hosts and guests to this forum realize there is an issue and maybe provide some good steps to a workaround or solution until the problem is truly fixed. I hope you're able to get your notes back and the problem resolved.

McLaughlinES wrote:I too have entered many notes containing my thoughts into my scriptures. About 2 weeks ago they disappeared. On the computer all I get is the highlighted scripture with no note showing up. On my Ipad I get a note icon to the right and when I click on it it lists the date I entered the note but the note is gone. It's like someone went thru my physical scriptures and erased all of the side notes I have written over the years.

Have you tried force-closing and reopening Gospel Library on your iPad, to see if that fixes it? (To force close an app, go to the app switcher and swipe the app out of the recent apps.)

I am having this same problem now.

I have four notebooks on my android phone but only two show up on the website. I have tried syncing without success and the missing notebooks are old - one is a few weeks old while the other is several months old.

I've actually had this problem for years and it is one of the reasons I only have so few notebooks.

dfechser wrote:I am having this same problem now.

I have four notebooks on my android phone but only two show up on the website. I have tried syncing without success and the missing notebooks are old - one is a few weeks old while the other is several months old.

I've actually had this problem for years and it is one of the reasons I only have so few notebooks.

Are you signed in with the same Church Account on both the website and in Android Gospel Library?
Do you have any sync errors listed under your username in Gospel Library settings?
If you create a highlight online, does it sync down to Gospel Library, or vice versa (i.e. is the problem limited to notebooks)?

Thank you!
I re-entered my PW and sync'd and now I see everything in both places. It seems there was a sync error.
I've been downloading magazines and manuals with no problem so never checked syncs. I didn't realize sync could be broken by itself.

Thanks for your help!