I find Endnote X8 to be lagging when I am editing entries. I am using a Mac, and the spinning colorful circle often appears when I am using Endnote, for example saving a new entry or editing fields within an entry.
I had the same issue with Endnote X7.
To clarify: This is not a Microsoft Word issue, but happens within EndNote itself. Microsoft Word is switched off.
Has anyone else had similar issues? And if yes, could you resolve them?
I’m happy to supply more information if required. All other programs are working well on my computer.
Library Name: ObsteSENTE.enl
Location: /Users/jorge/Medicina/Biblioteca/Reference Manager/EndNote/Bibliografia.enlp/ObsteSENTE.enl
Last Saved: sábado, 17 de junio de 2017, 8:30:41 (hora de verano de Europa central)
Records: 6.169
Custom Groups: 10
Reference Types Used: 9
Most Used ref. types: Journal Article, Web Page, Thesis, Book Section, Book
File Attachments: 3.044
Figures: 0
Authors Term List: 18.931
Journals Term List: 690
Keywords Term List: 5.048
I don’t have any of the terms list active except for journal. The oly other thing seems to be the “depth” of your library in the folder structure? This could lead to very long names for your attachments. Also – how many output styles do you have?
If you haven’t already, though, I would consider cleaning up your journal terms list according to the suggestions here: http://endnote.com/kb/82228 and turning off journal auto-updating.
Library Name: Leanne-X7-2015.enl
Location: L:\Endnote libraries RW\Leanne-X7-2015.enl
Last Saved: Wednesday, June 28, 2017 9:38:32 AM
Records: 5654
Custom and Smart Groups: 29
Reference Types Used: 19
Most used ref. types: Journal Article, Book, Book Section, Web Page, Electronic Book
File Attachments: 1229
Figures: 0
Authors Term List: 0
Journals Term List: 17276
Keywords Term List: 1
Journal tems update options in are “preferences”. (see image) If you watch that video in the KB article, the journal terms list is used to automatically ensure that the correct abbreviation or the full title is used, according to the journal publisher requirements, and they are consistent.
When we import from various sources, the abbreviation often gets pulled into the full title and vica versa which is why I turn it off, and start with a clean version. On occassion, if I use an unusual journal, I might have to add it to the terms manually, but having it pulled in wrong, isn’t helpful either.
I set mine as in image. Since 99% of my entries are downloaded directly, it really isn’t useful to have the author or keywords auto-updating, although it might be nice to have some terms (keywords maybe) updated but leave the journal terms alone. The auto suggest during manual updating (which you might want to use for adding specific keywords for example and maintain consistency) might be one reason to keep the update on. Once you have a pretty complete journal list, it should be safe from additions, except in the case of those rare or new journals.
I am also having this trouble. Only working with records in a library without inserting citations into Word or any other applications, I find that I can open between 5 and 10 records before the application begins to slow. Before long, it really begins to lag. Has a solution for this been found yet?
I am using Endnote X8.1 on PowerMac OS 10.11.6
Library Name: Flag Debates.enl
Location: /Users/jmontezd/Documents/School/Projects/Active/Flag anthem debate/Flag Debates.enl
Last Saved: Thursday, December 14, 2017 at 3:30:10 PM Mountain Standard Time
Records: 356
Custom Groups: 0
Reference Types Used: 2
Most Used ref. types: Web Page, Electronic Article
File Attachments: 0
Figures: 0
Authors Term List: 2
Journals Term List: 0
Keywords Term List: 5
I’m having the same problem here. Slow when moving from reference to reference (especially if PDF is attached). I’ve just moved from Sente to EndNote so I have a lot of non-DOI pdfs to attach to existing references. This process is SO slow, but improves when I turn off wifi so EndNote stops trying to update the sync server.
Library Name: My EndNote Library.enl
Location: /Users/Alison/Documents/My EndNote Library.enl
Last Saved: Monday, January 1, 2018 at 2:13:35 PM Pacific Standard Time
Records: 6,079
Custom Groups: 8
Reference Types Used: 15
Most Used ref. types: Journal Article, Book Section, Book, Newspaper Article, Generic
File Attachments: 2,080
Figures: 0
Authors Term List: 8,306
Journals Term List: 989
Keywords Term List: 768
I’ve reported this to tech support twice now and have been told it has to do with a Mac bug related to PDFs. But that just doesn’t pass the sniff test with me. Yes, if I create a new library and load some references with PDFs, the slowdowns eventually recur. But just having a library open will produce a spinning ball with any operation within minutes of having Endnote open. That never happened in the past.
It’s made EndNote 8 pretty unusable unless it’s used for a short period. Selecting a reference (any reference-doesn’t matter if there are PDFs or not) starts off ok but within minutes of opening the app, everything is horribly slow.
This is a pretty critical problem affecting many people. I don’t think it’s simply a macOS issue since every other application I have that involves PDFs has no such issue.
Library Name: gynesonics.enl
Location: /david’s_folder/documents/professional stuff/gynesonics/gynesonics.enl
Last Saved: Wednesday, December 6, 2017 at 5:05:00 PM Eastern Standard Time
Records: 1459
Custom Groups: 6
Reference Types Used: 5
Most Used ref. types: Journal Article, Book Section, Web Page, Book, Magazine Article
File Attachments: 1061
Figures: 0
Authors Term List: 7442
Journals Term List: 578
Keywords Term List: 4755
Same issue here - I don’t have any PDFs attached, because I never trusted Endnote to perform as well with attachements than without. But still it laggs horribly!
Cleaning up the Term Lists had no effect.
Additionaly, I have noticed two minor issues that may be connected to the slowness problem:
Almost everytime I start Endnote, an error message appears, saying: “This library is currently being used by someone else. Try opening it again later”. When hitting the OK button, the application starts nevertheless.
References marked as read appear as unread when opening Endnote an other time
Library Name: 1-Diss-Bibliographie-2018-01-06.enl
Location: /Users/Eckstein/Documents/SUGUS/Publikationen/Dissertation/1-Diss-Bibliographie-2018-01-06.enl
Last Saved: Samstag, 6. Januar 2018 um 09:52:54 Mitteleuropäische Normalzeit
Records: 1’065
Custom Groups: 25
Reference Types Used: 17
Most Used ref. types: Journal Article, Book Section, Book, Web Page, Generic
File Attachments: 0
Figures: 0
Authors Term List: 0
Journals Term List: 0
Keywords Term List: 0
Same issue here. I have no PDFs attached, because I never trusted Endnote to perform as well with attachements than without. Still it laggs horribly!
Cleaning up the Term Lists hat no effect.
Additionaly, I have noticed two minor issues that may be connected to the slowness problem:
Everytime I start the application, an error message appears saying: “This library is currently being used by someone else. Try opening it again later”. This is also the case when I have no word file or any other endnote library open. So when I hit the OK button it starts regularly.
References marked as unread sometimes appear as unread when opening the application again.
Library Name: 1-Diss-Bibliographie-2018-01-06.enl
Location: /Users/Eckstein/Documents/SUGUS/Publikationen/Dissertation/1-Diss-Bibliographie-2018-01-06.enl
Last Saved: Samstag, 6. Januar 2018 um 09:52:54 Mitteleuropäische Normalzeit
Records: 1’065
Custom Groups: 25
Reference Types Used: 17
Most Used ref. types: Journal Article, Book Section, Book, Web Page, Generic
File Attachments: 0
Figures: 0
Authors Term List: 0
Journals Term List: 0
Keywords Term List: 0
Additional remark: I had to write this post two times because it was lost in nirvana when I had to register after hitting the Post button. Thank you Thomson Reuters for your brilliant weg design and software programming…
Just seen that the first post is months old and apparently there has been done nothing. Is there a way to get the money back since they sold a broken program without being able to fix it?
mac os 10.10.5, Endnote X8, exactly the same problem with a new library containing just one entry. I get the spinning rainbow wheel just by clicking on the one entry I have. Are there any fixes yet for this problem?
macOS 10.13.3, Endnote X8.2. Unusable as is. After a short amount of time ANY activity causes the spinning beachball. One CPU pegged at 100%. Looks like there is a combination of issues. Poor software architecture, an activity that should NOT block the UI, and the underlying bug that causes the issue (memory leak and something spinning on a condition?). After some time the app crashes altogether. This is seriously amateur stuff, any first year CS student can do better than this.
I would only add that I just upgraded from Endnote x7 to x8 today, and suddenly I am having the same lag issues as others describe. No issues with x7, but I was forced to upgrade as the last Word upgrade is not compatible with x7 even though I just bought x7 less than 6 months ago :(.
I am now preparing to revert back to the previous version of Word so I can continue to use Endnote x7 as I see that others have this problem and no fix is in sight.
I reported this months ago directly to tech support. All they did was blame Apple. I can blame Apple for a lot of things, but it’s pretty inexcusable that a pricey piece of software like EndNote X8 can’t be updated to make it usable again. I’m glad I only use EndNote to search for references and occasionally drop them into a paper; if I had to deal with this nonsense every day I’d have switched to another solution by now. Clearly Thomson Reuters has a history of not dealing with necessary fixes until too long a time has passed. We saw that with the release of Office365 in terms of EndNote compatibility and now this. I woudn’t mind, except I reported it, tried the suggested fixes (none of which worked) and in the end all I got was a ¯_(ツ)_/¯
My Endnote was a forced upgrade, from a version I used without problem several years ago. Now I am using a machine that processes video at 60 frames a second, and endnote has to stop and think to save, to open, to sort. Spinning, spinning (i’m on a mac) spinning ball.
Come on, please, this is a TEXT database. We aren’t calculating the position of subatomic particles ten years from now.
I am using Endnote out of the box, with no styles, no syncing. I thought it would save me some time in formatting some references and here I am writing about its slowness. How sad is that?
Final straw came this afternoon when I tried to delete a duplicate reference. Pressed delete. Spinning ball appeared, for
a
l o n g
t i m e.
Pressed delete again, and again for good measure. Duh, two references disappeared. No idea which two. Endnote has no undo under the Edit menu.
For something that costs real money, this is a really sad excuse. I see that this has been going on for a long time with no real solution.
