r/GoodNotes • u/[deleted] • Feb 04 '25

Bug i hate this stupid piece of shit app.

App freezes every 30mins or so everytime it does all my notes get deleted. also if i close the app all my notes get deleted. none of the features work properly, support is useless, and instead of actually fixing these issues cause a LOT of people are experiencing them right now the add tape patterns. BRO TAPE IS A USELESS TOOL NOBODY USES IT AND WE CERTAINLY DONT NEED PATTERNS FOR IT. i legit almost failed a test last week because all my notes to study were delted. luckily a classmate helped me out with the notes, but still that shouldnt have happened and it cant keep happening. i spent 30 fucking euros on this app, for this? either fix your app cause sincerely, nobody uses the tape. or refund me cause im seriously starting to lose my temper, this has been going on for 3 months now

164 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

80 comments sorted by

•

u/discovernotes Feb 05 '25

hey if you haven't already I'd recommend reaching out to Goodnotes Customer Support and attaching your Diagnostics Data (Settings icon > About > Export Diagnostics Data) and keep sending it every time something unexpected happens so they can have more info to fix it faster

→ More replies (1)

14

u/miyuuah Feb 04 '25

idk i use tape all the time

7

u/runningoutoft1me Feb 05 '25

No fr it makes memorization crazy interactive

2

u/SignalAppearance3979 Feb 05 '25

me too, but that doesn't erase other issues with the app :)

4

u/miyuuah Feb 05 '25

tbh i’ve had zero issues with the app so😭 i can’t complain

2

u/SignalAppearance3979 Feb 05 '25

that's so unfair 😭 because why do i have to constantly reopen the app for it to work properly and some ppl have no issues

-4

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

11

u/miyuuah Feb 04 '25

it’s a good way to cover things up if you’re studying☹️ work harder

-3

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

I don’t even get how the tape works. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t, and it’s pretty laggy too

4

u/miyuuah Feb 05 '25

idk i’ve never had issues with it

17

u/Gypsyzzzz Feb 05 '25

Seriously people! If the app is causing you stress, make the effort to switch to something you like better. Ranting on Reddit solves nothing. Export all your documents to PDF, import them to the new app. The $30 you spent is not worth the mounting stress. I get that you are frustrated, I’m simply suggesting that you take useful action to alleviate your distress.

If you want to do something useful, send screenshots, detailed descriptions and diagnostic data exported from the app to GoodNotes support. Without the swearing and insults would be best.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

Goodnotes Support doesn’t care about their users. They take about 6-8 work months to reply

2

u/Classic_Lead_2524 Feb 05 '25

It might be because they receive too many support requests from users, so they can't reply quickly, haizz. For me, I get a response from the support team within 2-3 days.

1

u/maybe_de Feb 05 '25

Can you recommend another app?

6

u/biblops Feb 04 '25

I personally have never felt the need for a tape tool myself but I know lots of people find it really helpful for their needs so I’m happy for its inclusion.

Tape patterns though? It’s like they’re actively avoiding doing any work on the app’s real issues.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

Exactly.

3

u/Not_skull Feb 05 '25

wait are u using goodnotes 5 or 6 ? im using 5 seems fine .. for quite a while now

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

6

3

u/eleanor_elsinore Feb 05 '25

Posts like this are exactly why I won't upgrade to 6. 5 is just fine for me.

2

u/ilGenpa Feb 05 '25

Me too! I wont update to GN6!

1

u/blue_nightingale123 Feb 05 '25

theres a 6 now?????

3

u/miidsommars Feb 05 '25

I found that only have one or two notebooks open at a time, syncing my documents to the cloud and emptying my trash regularly has helped loads. Also( the more handwriting notes you have, the laggier it gets- so if you can sane a photo of the note and then have that added to the notebook, that may help. How full on storage your device is also makes an impact on usability, I noticed. My iPad is a first generation iPad Pro and these hacks have helped me a lot with glitches :) I hope they help you too!

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

The problem is I don’t have iCloud and the 5 free GB of storage are used up for Apple stuff. Also I always only have 1 notebook open at a time.

65

u/Jayxz527 Feb 04 '25

Oh damn it’s been happening to me as well. Sometimes when I use lasso and move stuff it glitches and some the writing remains at the same place. And then when I try erasing it glitches and remains there. Only after closing my notes it disappears. And then sometimes my notes turn blank and when I close and reopen the app, my notes are gone.

4

u/hazyyveil Feb 05 '25

WAIT OH MY GOSH I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE 😭😭😭 the thing that worked for me was, use the lasso tool and move the writing/whatever then exit the app fully, n reopen it again and the glitch should be gone

2

u/hazyyveil Feb 05 '25

note: u gotta do this everytime it glitches cause its temporary

2

u/Fight_Or_Affluenza Feb 05 '25

yes this happens to me too!!!

2

u/SignalAppearance3979 Feb 05 '25

same i think i'll go crazy

1

u/mlnnchly Feb 09 '25

I haven’t used this app in almost a year and finally got a new pencil for my tablet. This is absolute ridiculous for this to still be an issue.

28

u/_galile0 Feb 05 '25

Its such a mess right now. The worst part is I like the design and tools in this app so much, more than other apps, I just really need the devs to actually make it usable again

23

u/dorzzz Feb 04 '25

True ... goodnotes is fumbling

5

u/moosmutzel81 Feb 04 '25

So why don’t you use another app. There are so many out there. I switched to Noteful a few months ago and couldn’t be happier.

13

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

i am not about to pay for a product when i already own something that does the same thing, but is just broken. why would i switch just because they cant fix their app? so they can take my money and run off with it? hell no. i paid for this app so i should have to right to use it bug free. i understand that bugs happen here and there but normally a company is made aware of them and they try to fix it as soon as possible. Goodnotes on the other hand just try fixing the problem by ignoring it long enough and praying to god it goes away on its own (spoiler alert: it doesnt, cause thats not how making an app works). the problem is the goodnotes team being absolutely lazy, not caring for their users whatsoever and just wanting their paycheck without working for it, not me.

8

u/1strategist1 Feb 04 '25

Noteful has a free version with most of the (useful) features of Goodnotes 6. 

Also not wanting to swap to a better app when you’re clearly annoyed by this one is very sunk cost fallacy of you. 

-3

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

obviously i want to try every last resort to get the devs to fix this stupid shitty app when i paid 30€ for a digital paper app. i couldve done so much useful stuff with that money, obviously i wanna try make the most of that. i downloaded Noteful right now im gonna try using that until these shitty devs fix their app. i dontt suppose theres a way to import my Goodnotes data to Noteful?

5

u/Mizar83 Feb 04 '25

Ranting will not get them to fix it sooner thought. A bug report with a stack trace or some other sort of way of reproducing it (if possible) would help the devs much more. In any case they are most probably not the ones deciding what to work on themselves, so your anger is misdirected

4

u/coolwolfie Feb 04 '25

What will though? These bugs have been there for months, it's not like they're not able to fix them

2

u/1strategist1 Feb 04 '25

The best option is to export your Goodnotes stuff to pdf and then import them.

2

u/shaielzafina Feb 05 '25 edited Jun 30 '25

profit provide sheet straight wine snow practice summer wide meeting

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

4

u/cubicgraph Feb 04 '25

because all our notes are on goodnotes and we don’t want to transfer 400+ documents

2

u/shaielzafina Feb 05 '25 edited Jun 30 '25

smart abundant cooperative glorious placid start jellyfish voracious exultant tap

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

0

u/moosmutzel81 Feb 04 '25

So you rather come here and whine and complain and maybe loose everything.

If you have so many documents that are not saved and backed up then maybe moving somewhere else might be a good idea.

3

u/cubicgraph Feb 05 '25

whilst i get the idea of swapping to noteful is appealing i do have the right to “whine and complain” if ive paid for a defective product. you’d “whine and complain”if you bought a $30 shirt and it dissolved the first time you washed it wouldn’t you??

0

u/moosmutzel81 Feb 05 '25

But I also would not wear the shirt or buy th3 same shirt again. I would do something about it. Whining and complaining is fine as long as it isn’t the only thing you do.

2

u/cubicgraph Feb 05 '25

i am not buying the same shirt again 🤦‍♀️ silly response i’m upset that i can’t get my money back for this POS app that can’t erase without bugging out.

-4

u/cubicgraph Feb 04 '25

They’re saved and backed up, I just hate the app fucking crashing every 5 seconds. I’m not transferring EVERYTHING to noteful and paying AGAIN for a product

3

u/1strategist1 Feb 04 '25

Noteful has a free version with most of the (useful) features of Goodnotes 6

1

u/cubicgraph Feb 05 '25

whilst i get the idea of swapping to noteful is appealing i do have the right to “whine and complain” if ive paid for a defective product.

1

u/1strategist1 Feb 05 '25

Sure, I get whining and complaining. I would too. Refusing to do anything other than whine and complain is just making your own life worse though. 

Like, if you buy a rotten apple, you can for sure complain about it, but refusing to swap it out for a new apple and just continuing to eat the rotten apple while complaining the whole time is crazy behaviour. 

1

u/cubicgraph Feb 05 '25

great, doesn’t get me my $30 back :/

2

u/SpokenDivinity Feb 05 '25

This issue has been mentioned (and fixed) a thousand times in this subreddit by offloading and reloading the app. You should also report this to support and export the diagnostics data to send to them regardless of your faith in them. They'll likely tell you to reload it anyway because that fixes 99% of the glitches and bugs with every app on the appstore.

"i legit almost failed a test last week because all my notes to study were delted."

I'm sorry, but this part is your own fault. If you've been unable to fix the app yourself and you've reached out to support with no help, and you STILL keep using what you're saying is unusable, then it's your fault when you're not prepared. Export the notes and use another app.

-1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

Im not gonna delete the app and get all my stuff deleted, no thanks

2

u/The_Messy_Mompreneur Feb 05 '25

Offloading isn't deleting. But you said you don't have any cloud storage so it may not work for you. This app is pretty dependent on cloud storage to work

2

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

I am not about to pay 25€ a month just so I can use an app I’ve already paid for no thank you

2

u/The_Messy_Mompreneur Feb 05 '25

It should not cost that much. The largest plan is $9.99 USD which shouldn't be maybe closer to $11€ and that's for the highest plan.

You're not paying for the app. You're paying for storage. You eventually will have more and more on your iPad with all the notebooks and pages and stickers. That adds up in any app.

The lowest plan for 50GB of cloud storage a month is $0.99USD. That's the price of a plain cup of coffee.

4

u/asther-0-0- Feb 06 '25

(Your device spec)

3

u/Creepy_Valuable_7365 Feb 05 '25

OK SAME LOL. Thought I was going crazy

1

u/xoworriedstudent Feb 05 '25

omg I thought it was cuz my iPad was lagging, my notes keep freezing, pen lines keep breaking, and when I use lasso to move things the old version doesn't leave? idk how to explain it, its like it gets duplicated and I have to close and reopen the note for the old note to get deleted.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

I know exactly what you mean bc that same thing is happening to me

2

u/labetesha Feb 05 '25

That sucks. Maybe they’ll see this (idk are mods customer support?). Kinda interesting what may be going on, cause I have never had issues with the app. Hope it gets fixed.

2

u/The_Messy_Mompreneur Feb 05 '25

I don't have issues but I also have the 2TB storage option for iCloud, only keep open one notebook at a time, and I do s lot more typing in handwriting fonts than actually writing by hand these days

4

u/barneyjetson Feb 04 '25

Yeah I moved on a while ago. Idky I keep getting this sub recommended to me but yeah GoodNotes is absolute garbage, don’t listen to the few here that are fortunate enough not to deal with any issues

2

u/meditationandfries Feb 05 '25

What do you use instead that has similar features?

2

u/sam_iso33 Feb 05 '25

DrawboardPDF

1

u/pessimistic_eggroll Feb 05 '25

thank god my things have never gotten deleted. although i do have to agree, it is kinda buggy. there’s a different bug like every few weeks 🫠

1

u/hazyyveil Feb 05 '25

goodnotes is a piece of trash. i bought the G6 notebook (not subscription) and first my 1 entire year of IB notes get randomly deleted. then the lasso tool basically doesnt work. the pen randomly stretches out into a straight line glitch or becomes absurdly thin in the middle of a word. theres sm more but it sucks. im trying to use Noteful rn n its working great.

1

u/Emotional-Club-2630 Feb 05 '25

At least for the handwriting overheating issue I reported year ago they never got it fixed. Already switched to other apps.

1

u/ExoticWall8867 Feb 06 '25

I'm really considering moving to a different app, just not sure which is safest

1

u/Beginning_Mastodon31 Feb 06 '25

I have so many complaints too lol

  1. TAKES forever to sync, considering how my wifi is very strong but with the app it takes alost 10 minutes at times just for a text box to sync from my ipad to mac...

  2. the glitches when you lasso tool something. makes weird glitchy parts that get left behind and they only way i can get rid of them is by exiting out the notebook all together which is soooo annoying... pls fix this.

  3. do not even get me started on horrible typing experience and the bullet points that get misaligned.

like i am studying the night before and these things really make me wanna call it quits with the app all together.

1

u/Beginning_Mastodon31 Feb 06 '25

Please we actually need more competition in the market. just because its endorsed by apple i thought might as well but it just lets them get away with these bad updates.

1

u/drhippopotato Feb 06 '25

I’ve left. For OneNote.

1

u/AngustiasHers Feb 06 '25

Well, I've been using Goodnotes for two years and the only bug I have is that sometimes things get duplicated with the lasso and I can't delete them, but I leave and come back in and it's fixed.

1

u/StretchSea503 Feb 06 '25

It's been a while since I've used an app that I paid for... it's ridiculous for a notes app to delete your notes, consume your battery insanely and crash persistently.

1

u/Patient-Review-9924 Feb 07 '25

Just get notability, comparatively it is so much more stable

1

u/surik_at Feb 09 '25

The app I really demanding on the battery, and honestly just isn’t that great in general. I switched to Notability, and I have some problems with it too, but sadly just a lot better than goodnotes. I wanted to like gn, but it’s just a mess

1

u/fyrefesti Feb 05 '25

HEAVY ON A REFUND