MacOS 11.4 - Notes frequently crashing

[Morac]

Since upgrading from 11.3.1 to 11.4 on my MBA M1, the Notes app has been frequently crashing at random (EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)). Normally it crashes if it's running in the background and I open it, but today it just crashed in the background on it's own. If I launch it again it works fine at that point.

The stack traces all look the same and end in:

Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 libobjc.A.dylib 0x0000000183d3b188 objc_retain + 8
1 com.apple.NotesShared 0x00000001b8ebe648 -[TTVectorMultiTimestamp clockForUUID:atIndex:] + 44
2 com.apple.NotesShared 0x00000001b8f89bc8 -[TTMergeableString substring:modifiedAfter:includeAttributes:] + 64

Is Notes crashing for anyone else in MacOS 11.4?

 

[Morac]

Am I the only person seeing this? I'm getting this a few times a day.

As far as I can tell it crashes if a Notes window hasn't been opened for awhile and doesn't matter if the Notes process is running or not. I don't know if it requires the Note that is pre-selected when open to have been modified by another device or not. I tend to frequently update notes on my iPad and iPhone. I do know that if I close the Notes app and modify a note on another device and then open Notes it won't crash so there is a time variable to crashing.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I haven't experienced any Notes problems thus far. Have you filed feedback with Apple?

Feedback - MacBook - Apple

 

[Morac]

I haven't experienced any Notes problems thus far. Have you filed feedback with Apple?

Feedback - MacBook - Apple

I’ve used the Feedback Assistant to submit a report, but Apple never reads those.

I guess I might have to call support. They’re probably going to make me to a reinstall though.

The crashes started after the 11.3 update and it’s always the same crash. I can just reopen Notes and it will work, but it’s really annoying.

 

[jelimero]

I’ve used the Feedback Assistant to submit a report, but Apple never reads those.

I guess I might have to call support. They’re probably going to make me to a reinstall though.

The crashes started after the 11.3 update and it’s always the same crash. I can just reopen Notes and it will work, but it’s really annoying.

Hey,

I just had this issue the last few days as well and found your post yesterday while searching for a solution.

In the meantime I was able to fix the problem with those two workarounds:

1. I deleted the Notes folder in Library/Containers and turned off the sync to iCloud afterwards https://www.mylearning.be/2016/09/notes-quit-unexpectedly-on-macos/

2. I deleted old notes, especially with broken media files (in my case screenshots ~1 week old were not loading anymore) and turned on iCloud sync again. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251022037

Maybe it helps you as well.

Best,
Jeli

 

[Morac]

I figured out under what case Notes crashes. It will crash if all the following is true:

1. The Notes app window hasn't been open for awhile. Notes can be running in the background or not.
2. The last note that was viewed in Notes (the one selected when opening Notes) was updated at least once on another device.

If both are true, Notes crashes on open. I don't know how long "awhile" is, but I've made changes and then less than a minute later opened Notes and it doesn't crash. If it's been a few hours it will.

So my work around is to close Notes with a note I never update selected.

 

[Morac]

Hey,

I just had this issue the last few days as well and found your post yesterday while searching for a solution.

In the meantime I was able to fix the problem with those two workarounds:

1. I deleted the Notes folder in Library/Containers and turned off the sync to iCloud afterwards https://www.mylearning.be/2016/09/notes-quit-unexpectedly-on-macos/

2. I deleted old notes, especially with broken media files (in my case screenshots ~1 week old were not loading anymore) and turned on iCloud sync again. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251022037

Maybe it helps you as well.

Best,
Jeli

I did this and ran into two problems:

1. One of my notes just disappeared. It wasn't in the Deleted folder, it was just gone off my Mac and iPad. Fortunately I caught this and put my iPhone into airplane mode and copied the note to the "On my iPhone" folder and then recreated it in iCloud.

2. Since doing this there is a spinning icon in Notes on my Mac next to the iCloud account as if it is syncing with iCloud, even though it finished downloading all the notes and changes to notes are properly syncing. I don't know why this is happening.

Edit: I fixed #2 by moving all my iCloud notes locally, turning off iCloud Notes on all my devices and then going into the iCloud Manage Storage and deleting all notes data. After that I re-enabled iCloud Notes on my Mac and slowly moves my notes back to iCloud. After that I re-enabled it on all my other devices and so far so good with the forever spinning. Maybe it will fix the crash too, but I doubt it.


After all that I still had Notes crash exactly the same way, so that didn't help anyway.

 

[Morac]

Even after doing all the above, Notes will still crash if I the note that is selected on launch was edited on another device.