EndNote X8 Keeps Crashing on Mac

Meredith, 

You all have to be working on a fix for this. I’m seriously contemplating leaving endnote. What are you all doing about this? What have you found???

Thank you,

K

I am also desperate to see if theer is any alternative. I have been long time user but cannot cope any longer with a system whcih doesn’t work.

Any alternative that works woudl be good at this stage.

I am also desperate to see if there is any alternative. I have been long time user but cannot cope any longer with a system which doesn’t work. Any alternative that works would be good at this stage.

Although I am not on a MAC - on my PC windows 7 pro x64 with endnotex8.0.1, everytime I attempt to do a find reference updates on more than a couple of records the program crashes.  I have reported this multiple times to support.  I update approximately 1000 publications daily, so this has not been a tenable situation.

Updating to EN version X.8.0.1 does not help. 

There are many of us experiencing what appears to be the same problem. 

Can’t a patch be issued?

So despite the X8.0.1 update the problem persists. I am in contact with the Customer Care Support for two weeks now - they instructed me to try different things like switching Cloud Off, moving my EndNote library, recovering the library, moving the pdf folder of the library… ALL OF WHICH DID NOT WORK. So dear EndNote, are you guys working on a pug fix for this or is this going to be the status quo??

Can’t afford the time and energy loss from these 3482938 crashes a day. If anyone successfully switched programmes and has some good experiences to share with another software, I would appreciate it :)! Thanks!

There are several threads on this. This problem is a complete disaster. It is been continuous for the last several months. I am in touch with tech support and despite software updates, it persists. I originally spent several hours on the phone w/ them and tried everything and was told to wait for an EndNote software update. That came and it didn’t help.

I was just told the crashing happens with applications that rely on Apple’s PDFkit and they are waiting for an update from Apple. Perhaps, but no other application I use has this problem. I am dumbfounded such a critical error could go on for so long. This is supposed to be a mature software package… it has been around for years. It is doing something very simple… like what iTunes did over a decade ago for music files. It has always been a little unstable - a source of frustration - however, this problem is deadly.

  

I have since gotten a brand new computer and intalled a fresh copy of EndNote. Same problem.

If I did not invest hundreds (thousands?) of hours building up my EndNote libraries, I would quickly switch to a different product. I held out for years putting my PDFs in EndNote b/c I have always been hesitant about trusting the clunky old-fashioned feeling application to manage all my scientific papers. Now my fears have turned into a nightmare.

I would just like to add my frustration here. I am using Endnote X8 because my academic supervisor and team use it and we want to share libraries to enable academic collaboration. But I have to say that since I installed it on my Mac running OSX Sierrra, it continually freezes on me whenever I try and open a new reference. This is completely unacceptable, and I am dismayed and shocked to read such continual feedback in these forums from two years ago with seemingly no improvement in stability! Are you hearing us at all? How can the most widely used professional academic reference software, actively promoted by the university, not work on both platforms? Now I can’t even access my library to transfer it!!

Can anyone else give some advice here, or let me know how to transfer my library to another more Mac-friendly service? 

Thanks! 

I feel everyone’s pain. I received an email from one of the techs after reaching out for support. Essentially, you can use endnote on mac ONLY as a citation manager (not a reference manager).

The entire point of spending money on this program was to be able to easily organize files and access the pdf to refresh my thoughts. I was told…

“Am afraid to inform that this issue has been identified it as a bug withing the Mac OS. However, you may consider removing PDF file attachments from the references in your library and work without any errors. You can also try removing the PDF folder from the .Data folder of your library to omit loading of PDF files and to prevent EndNote from crashing.”

It was frustrating when I realized (after I purchased the product) that the endnote pdf viewer was bugged, and I would have to open each pdf in adobe. Now, if I were to follow the above instructions, I have now paid for a bulky citation machine. Regardless of who’s fault this is, Clarivate or Mac, the tech’s email did not give me much hope that there would be a fix anytime soon.

“I shall notify you if we have an update on this.” 

For the love of God can you please fix this problem, Its driving everyone mad. 

If this is any help to those of you with papers or a thesis that you need to get finished urgently, i have found a solution that might do until the problem gets sorted. I have just spent two days tearing my hair out after my thesis doc (last opened in June) suddenly started crashing whenever I tried to insert a new citation or do anything in the doc that involved communication with Endnote. I’m on a Mac using Word 2016 and Endnote x8, but it initially started happening on Word 2011 with Endnote 7.71. I copied the entire thesis (without unformatting citations) then pasted it in a fresh Word doc. Amazingly now it works, even after I have saved it and reopened the new doc. This is obviously a significant issue that Endnote needs to fix, but hope this helps someone in the meantime.

Pitching in my frustration - upgraded to Endnote X8 last weekend. Mac OS was updated from .5 to .6 (Sierra (10.12.6) two days ago.

Now I’ve gone from a few crashes a day to crashes every hour. My library of data is in a non-cloud service folder (username/endnote). Interestingly I see that Spotlight sees the pdf folder, so now I’ve added the data folder into the privacy area to prevent spotlight from indexing the pdfs. I’ll let you know how that goes, after I reboot the system completely.   

:cry:

Same problem here. 8.0.1 on Sierra 10.12.6

Endnote is crashing all the time. Its really frustrating

Hi fellow Endnote people,

I’m making no guarantees but the following seems to have worked for me:

I am using Endnote X8.01 on a MBP running Mac OSX 10.12 Sierra.

I was having the same problem with Endnote crashing instantly upon clicking the icon. It would eventually start to run if I clicked several times (basically crash/restart/crash/restart/etc) but there was no guarantee it would work on any given day.

Careful reading of the support site reveals that Endnote doesn’t like Cloud-Based services like iCloud and Dropbox.  My Endnote library was stored in my Documents folder BUT with Mac OSX Sierra, this folder is automatically uploaded to iCloud.

So - instead of turning off iCloud sync (which I rather like), I moved my Endnote library to my home folder (/Users/XXXXX/EndnoteLibrary.enl) and so far - no problems.  I’ve tested it about half a dozen times so far and no crashes.

Anyway - fingers crossed that this fix continues to work and that it helps some of you with your oh-so-frustrating crashes.

best wishes for happy reference-managing

After 9 month Endnote still didn’t fix the issue and the program continues crashing many times a day!

What is wrong with you guys? I feel cheated that for a lot of money I get a program that I cant use!

I am in the exactly same boat as you. We I think we are sinking…

What is more frustrating is that Endnote is just THE most expensive citation manager software, from the biggest company (in comparison with the others)… and still have serius issues for MAc users…

How is it going so far? And… since I am newbie at Mac universe, how did you do it?

I know, this make sense. When I was using windows, endnote didn’t work when the folder where the files were was also backuped on cloud storage, such as Dropbox, for example. May be the problem is Icloud. Apple could give us the choice to choose which folders you would like to backup…

@ahbell wrote:

Hi fellow Endnote people,

 

I’m making no guarantees but the following seems to have worked for me:

 

I am using Endnote X8.01 on a MBP running Mac OSX 10.12 Sierra.

 

I was having the same problem with Endnote crashing instantly upon clicking the icon. It would eventually start to run if I clicked several times (basically crash/restart/crash/restart/etc) but there was no guarantee it would work on any given day.

 

Careful reading of the support site reveals that Endnote doesn’t like Cloud-Based services like iCloud and Dropbox.  My Endnote library was stored in my Documents folder BUT with Mac OSX Sierra, this folder is automatically uploaded to iCloud.

 

So - instead of turning off iCloud sync (which I rather like), I moved my Endnote library to my home folder (/Users/XXXXX/EndnoteLibrary.enl) and so far - no problems.  I’ve tested it about half a dozen times so far and no crashes.

 

Anyway - fingers crossed that this fix continues to work and that it helps some of you with your oh-so-frustrating crashes.

 

best wishes for happy reference-managing

I think I have find the root of this problem. It is all about the  New API structure.  Endnote X8 and X7.7.1 use the New API structure to adapt its PubMed. 

So, we just use the version under X7.7.1, then we will not meet this problem again. I am using the X7.7, and do not crash anymore.

I hope this will help.