Hello,
I’m wondering if there has been any new progress on fixing MarginNote’s syncing problems. I’m hoping these and other features can been remedied soon, since I’m unable to work in MarginNote until they make fixes to these core features.
Thank you.
Hello, Journoprof,
We have released an update of version 3.6. So next we will work on version 3.7 which you know is meant to improve the sync between different platforms. Actually, we have already set out to reproduce sync issues users encountered since November of the previous year.
If you have some more requests about sync, you might as well tell me. As Developer-min said technical realization is not such difficult as long as we provide him with a simple idea and user background(i.e. why do you want this feature to be realized)
Regards,
Bryan
Thank you, @Sushi_Support-Team – that’s very kind of you.
Well, the most pressing request is just for sync to work! That is, we want to ensure that the work we do on a MarginNote file in one platform is seamlessly and successfully synced with the same file on another platform. Since you asked, here are some additional suggestions:
Bookmarks: Ensure that Bookmarks are synced so that bookmarks created in files on one platform have been successfully synced with the same file on another platform.
Files and folders: Right now, MarginNote’s files and folders aren’t clearly functioning for reasons that I, @jprint and other users have identified. As such, there’s no way to properly organize files and folders in MarginNote – until this is seriously resolved.
Identifying info showing last work done on a file and when a file has been successfully synced across platforms: I think we would benefit by having MarginNote provide clear info about the time/date of last work done on a file, and assurances that any additional work on the file on one platform has been successfully synced with the same file on another platform. Without such information, we’re just guessing which file has the most current, up-to-date save annotations. I’ve tried to the info from the icon that show the number of annotations (notes) per file, but that’s inadequate and unreliable.
I hope this helps answer your questions. Please let me know if you need additional input.
Thank you.
Hi everyone. My first post here. I’ve readen the hole topic because I had problems with the sync. Thanks to support team for the efforts and everyone helping here.
I work on MN3 with the three platforms, Mac, Ipad and iPhone and the sync was working until I didn’t sync some maps made with the iPad and continued working on Mac. 2 different maps were in iPad and Mac and at this point the sync became imposible. I lost 2 days work and restore via handoff the maps from the iPad on the Mac. ( Thanks @gykpro )
Now that the maps are the same everywhere Sync seems to work again, but I’m really looking forward to the new Update for better sync, and hopefully realtime sync please 
I add to the request of @JournoProf for the time/date and maybe device of last sync so we know fore sure that our work is safe. I expend a lot of hours working with MN3 and I want to feel sure that all my mind maps are exactly how I leave them, a small changue could mean a lot.
Thanks again for best App for studying PDFs. You have really something here. Please fix bugs and be famous
Hello, Carlos,
Thanks for your encouragement and support. The sync issue is the biggest problems now we are dealing with.
Regards,
Bryan
I’m experiencing the same problem with syncs. iPad is not syncing Doc Notebook, MindMap Notebook, and Card Deck. It hangs on “Fetching data from iCloud infinitely”.
Regular documents still sync.
I’ve tried
Interestingly, the bug persists through all these steps and left my iPad unable to sync the items in “Study” section. No resetting, deleting of the app or the iCloud does anything. On Mac side alone, everything syncs fine without hanging at “Fetching data from iCloud”, which is pointless because all iOS devices can’t receive those files.
There’s something completely messed up about MarginNote sync system. I’d say nuke and reimplement the sync codebase…
Hello snowman,
We’re sorry to hear your problems.
In order to improve performance under large amount of notes, notebooks in Marginnote are implemented as a monolithic database, with syncs performed as incremental updates on the database, which is difficult and can occasionally fail. (On the other hand, syncing PDF files is easy and fast.) In case it shows “fetching data from iCloud”, please wait patiently, and it should eventually get all the data and finish.
We suggest you try the following:
(1) Ensure good Wi-Fi connectivity.
(2) Try setting your DNS
(3) Stay in “syncing from iCloud” interface to ensure your device does not go into sleep. Plug in the AC adapter.
(4) If all fails, try rebooting your device and resetting all network settings.
(5) You can also try using Apple Handoff or Airdrop to transfer your data.
We are optimizing the sync system, and we expect to see improvements in MarginNote 3.7. Thank you for your patience.
Regards,
Kevin
When will you release the version 3.7 with the fixation of the sync problem?
Hi,
I don’t know if this could help anyone,
I had syncing problem like most of you ( with ‘fetching data from Icloud’ forever , for Doc, mindmap and card deck). However, I never had issue syncing my documents from Ipad > Laptop.
15 min ago I uploaded some pdfs in Icloud, in marginnote’s folder, just to check if I could download them on my Ipad (laptop > Ipad). Worked wonderfully and it seemed to have unblocked the syncing of other files (from Ipad to Laptop) !
I know I tried to sync manually my documents yesterday, without much success (loading forever). And I don’t think it’s related : I have just created a new mindmap: it got synced immediately ( I then deleted from my device and was able to retrieve it from my lcloud).
Quite happy now !
And big thing is, I don’t understand after so many customers having the same problem,
So Many complaining not just on margin note forum but also on the App Store …for a such a long time of more than 6 months minimum and yet… there is no improvement, why!!!
After every update, they improve many other things but not this…
I mean seriously, I don’t understand what is the developer and technical support team thinking here. Like there are many threads going on in the marginnote forum only about syncing problem…and they are seeing that Problem for a long time but why they are developing other things in the app and not the basic one …the most important one i would say in this era …that is providing “Sync support”…and Also the best of quality “sync support”
Because copying and pasting everything in iCloud is not a solutions to syncing, Because that takes away great chunk of time in anyone’s studies
How one is supposed to work in this digital era without being able to transfer data to other devices?and for that good quality syncing must work perfectly, Especially when this is the educational app where syncing is the utmost of importance for studies.
Seriously, Please do take some steps in this matter now.
Hi guys. I have the same problem, “Fetching data from iCloud” takes forever. I use it in MacOS and iOS. problems are on both platforms, but on iOS it seems that it syncs faster (like tens of mins instead of hours). When it gets stuck in Mac, I don’t see any Internet activity (with Little Snitch) from MN3 or from iCloud syncing services.
Looking forward to getting a solution to this persistent problem.
Stuck on fetching data. Every single day same problem here.
After removing older version on mac and updating to latest version 3.6.12 notebook/mindmap no longer seems to sync between iPad and Mac. I have many notebooks/mind maps, I could see these as documents on my Mac but I don’t see associated notes and the “notebook tab” is empty
Edit: my problem is solved by manually downloading mind maps in mac sync tabs, but this was not very intuitive 
Just want to update on the situation. All my sync issues are gone with the latest app updates. Now the process is fast and smooth.
Hoping the update happens this year!
Any updates on this? My sync between the iPad and Mac are not working well.
Hello
Hello, please first check whether the document and the notebook have been opened iCloud synchronization (has been opened will be displayed in the bottom of a ☁️); after the main interface in the lower left corner of the more select iCloud, enter the synchronization interface, see if there are errors, if there are errors can try to turn off the corresponding iCloud switch, 30 seconds and then try again; if the display is downloading, then please wait patiently:. Make sure you have a smooth WI-FI connection, set DNS to 114, keep the iCloud sync interface, make sure the device is always on, connect the power charger; you can also try to restart the device or restore the network settings, the sync function is being optimised and will be gradually improved in 3.7~3.8. You can also try airdrop.
Kind Regards,
MarginNote-Relight
Support Team
Hi Guys,
I’m 2 days old on MN3 and looking at this.
Success Transferring OSx to iOS
I tried creating a notebook on OSx
I back it up to disk two ways. First with marginpkg file and second with marginbackupall file.
I copy both files to google drive.
One file (marginbackupall) loads to google drive as a folder (completely unzipped) as if it’s a zip file (and I guess it is.
The other file (marginpkg) loads as a zip file to google drive.
Then I go to my iPhone and I use the google drive app.
I can’t do anything with the marginbackupall file because it’s a folder. So open in, is not an option.
The marginpkg file, however, I can choose open in and then choose MN3.
That works. I get my work on my iPhone. I can draw on it with some tools in iOS that do not exist in OSx.
Transfer from iOS to OSx
These files upload easily to Google Drive using Open In.
I am able to move around the objects I drew on iOS, but I can’t modify them.
Conclusions
So. For me, I can make everything work, but there are those two weird file situations.
Also, I would feel a lot more comfortable if the data wasn’t just zipped. I feel that today, we need to be ultra careful about cloud providers. They can look inside those zips because they are not encrypted with a password and this isn’t good. MN3 iOS and MN3 OSx need to offer a password system that encrypts those zips so that as the data is moving through the cloud and stored on cloud drives, it’s protected from anybody looking at it. The user should be able to password protect everything before it is synchronized or stored on their local device. Even if it’s as simple as a password protected zip, it should be there.
This is 2023. The issue is still not resolved. The syncing between iPad & Mac is dead & the devs just don’t care at all.
