EndNote 8.1 seriously slow on MacOS 10.13

I have the same problem!!! Please we need some indications to improve EndNote X8 usability in Mac High Sierra!!!

I reported this problem to Clarivate technical support, as my installation of Endnote had become unusably slow. They suggested that upgrading MacOS to the latest version of High Sierra (10.13.3) (I had previously upgaded to the latest version of Endnote X8.2 and it was still very slow) and this combination resolves the problem. Now Endnote functions as I would expect it to, Wow, night and day! Endnote is usable again. 

Still ridiculously slow on my mac. I’m running 10.13.3 and the latest EndNote 8 update. It’s garbage for me right now. I am on my 30-day trial. I used to use EndNote X7, so I figured I’d take this one for a spin. I won’t be buying it if this is what it’s going to be like while writing my thesis. I’ll go with Zotero or something else, even if they’re not as good. This is absolutely useless to work with for how expensive it is. Takes up to 90 seconds to update, even when I’m just removing some artifacts from exporting citations from my university’s website. 90 seconds to remove the word “NEW YORK”?!

Our workaround was to install a virtual Windows machine on my student worker’s Macbook Pro (2017) and running the Windows version of EndNote… It seems to run at full speed now.

I did test out Mendeley, which seemed very promising, but there’s no way to replicate our existing folder assignments without manually reassigning every publication.

Same problem here. I tried a new library and with only three references, only one of which has a PDF attached to it, there is a several second lag when switching between references (spinning beach ball and all). This is on both a pretty new (last year) MacBook Pro and a slightly older iMac, so computing resouces should not be a problem.

This is a great shame as it renders EndNote completely unusable in practice. And as far as I know EndNote is the only cross-platform reference management that allows for easy editing of citation formats (I know you can edit CSLs as used by Zotero and others, but that process is far from intuitive).

Longtime Endnote/Mac user here (15+ years). Was forced into upgrading to X8 (from X7) when I updated Word 16 and found that this borked X7. $100 later, I also am finding X8.2 (build 13302) painfully slow under 10.13.3 (running on a 2013 13" Macbook Pro, 16 GB RAM). Every click on a new reference in my library is 5-10 sec of spinning disk wait time. Every click between my library and the PubMed is likewise slow. I suspect that the delay has to do with the new cloud-based library storage, which clearly is being pushed by the developers, but which I neither need nor want. If this doesn’t get resolved, I will have to switch to another biobliography app.

The slowness started about a week ago for me, and now I have a damaged library.  Back up your library and take a look at the “your library is be accessed by another user” error.  I’d be willing to bet that’s what will happen next.   Grrrrr

Me too. Reported this ages ago and it was dismissed as a “MacOS bug that needs to be resolved by Apple.” Kicking the can down the road. As an Apple seed tester, I don’t deny there are issues with macOS (I’m currently running 10.13.4, but EN8 has been nearly unusuable for months now) but I’m not seeing anything like this with any other software I use. This is truly an EndNote 8 issue and nothing I’ve tried (using a test library, for one) helped. It starts off ok and within minutes triggers a beachball with every click.

Please fix this.

I contacted Clarivate tech support and was given the same answer: a Mac problem with annotated pdfs. It’s a bit hard to believe this however as I have very few of these and the entire app works as others describe: move a reference to anohter folder? see the beach ball and wait three minutes watch endnote crash, reopen repeat. I’m working on a project right now where I need to organize hundreds of citations for coding and endnote (after 15 years of use) is UNUSABLE!! Please please fix this!

This problem is NOT solved, as the discussion suggests. EN 8.1, macOS 10.13.3, 5 to 10 minutes for *any* transaction. Please fix.

Experiencing the same problem here too.

I’m running EndNote X8.2 on Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.2.

The problem has, of course, not been resolved. I have tried many “good” tricks with no results (removed PDF’s attachments, cancelled groups and smart groups, updated MacOS to 10.13.2 and then 10.13.3 as well as EndNote to 8.2). Do I have to mention that it did not help anything? Could anyone support this or at least does anyone in Thomson care?

I just returned here after getting a lot of spinning balls in Endnote with each operation (clicking on a reference, marking one as read, etc). Scrolling continues to be impractical, so I have to drag the scrollbar to where I want it. I’ve reported this numerous times, communicated with tech support, sent logs, did various possible fixes, all to no avail.

EndNote 8 is broken. It becomes unusuable slow within minutes of reasonable use. It is NOT an Apple issue, since I don’t see this with anything else on my Mac. In any event, I want to know when Thomson intends to update the app for a possible fix. This is affecting many people, and EndNote has replaced MS Word as my most hated app at this point.

C’mon already-please address this issue.

I think it might relate to background syncing with EndNote Web. I disabled Sync Automatically in the prefs, and so far that has worked, but I need to test for a longer period. Scrolling with a trackpad is still unusable, and that’s a longstanding problem, but I have been able to live with that. The general slowdown, however, is excrutiating. Hoping that disabling sync fixes it; you can still sync manually.

I have just paid a substantial sum of money from the update of endnote and am running the latest versions of endnote and OS 1013 4, or whatever. None of these things make any difference to how slow it is. I have turned off all of the automatic things that they have cleverly added more recently and it is still stuffed and a slow as an old cripple like me.

 This simply isn’t good enough, I can’t see any response from either of them indicating they’re making an effort to solve the problem. Having spent thousands of dollars over the last decade or two on these programs I am not a happy camper and am thinking of just saying stuff you and chucking it all in.

Same here with endnote X8.2, now on OS X 10.13.4.

Unexplainably slow while half of motherboard memory is free and 90% of the CPU is idling. I have arelatively large library (3600 records) but no PDFs at all.

This really should be fixed, it’s ridiculous.

Yup. I’ve been bringing it to the attention of tech support for many months now (I first reported it to tech support directly in November, 2017) and they blamed it on Apple’s PDFKit implementation, which doesn’t seem to really be the root cause (since I created a new user library and could produce the slowdowns even in the absence of PDFs). Good luck. The lack of progress is frustrating.

Endnote giving me same problem, did you find a solution?

This is the last time I am using EndNote, going to move to an open source system after finishing my current project.

Not for me to find a definitive solution as I’m just a user like you. But when it gets unusable I just restart EndNote and it works better again for a short period. Rinse and repeat.

To EndNote tech support: it’s seems to be quiet here and no real official feedback. You might want to take control of this as to my mind, this is kinda embarrassing. And the longer this persists (like I said, it’s been an issue for a long time now), the more users will defect. I’d do it myself if it were practical. C’mon!

Using Endnote 8 on my 5 year old mac and it has been INTOLERABLY slow. Wasn’t sure if it was Endnote or my computer. Restarting endnote helped, but not enough.

The helpdesk at my university’s library recommended I contact this number:

1-800-722-1227

I just spoke with the most helpful person named Steve. Basically, the problem was that my endnote library was being saved in a folder that was being backed up on Google Drive. I can’t give as thorough of an explanation as he did because I don’t fully understand why this is problematic, but he said that most people having issues with Endnote being slow can fix it by just saving their library somewhere else that is not being backed up by a 3rd party server.

This includes anything like Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, etc…

I did it and problem SOLVED! Who knew the fix could be so simple.

Hope it helps some of you guys having a similar problem. If not, I’d recommend calling the number above!