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Notes keeps crashing after update to iOS16 - anyone else?

E

eoren1

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 17, 2007
431
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Updated iPhone 13 Pro at noon. Opened Notes app at 3pm. Able to look up note and start reading only for it to crash. Reopened and crashed within a few seconds. Rebooted phone - same.

Anyone else experiencing this? Any good fixes without losing anything (I have 1,200 notes on iCloud)

Thanks!
 
Apparently you are writing a Games of Thrones length epic. Can you access the novel if you turn off iCloud or go to airplane mode?
 
My thought is it needs to download and index all 1200 first. What if you simply open Notes and let it complete that process before opening a note to read it?
 
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WildSky said:
My thought is it needs to download and index all 1200 first. What if you simply open Notes and let it complete that process before opening a note to read it?
Click to expand...
Crashes. Just opening causes a crash within 5 seconds
 
And tried loading in iCloud web. Waited for full sync. Then opened on iPhone. Waited 5 seconds. Got all excited...crashed
 
Damn - thought I had it

Unchecked Notes in iCloud on phone
Confirmed no notes
Made 1 new note - all solid
Re-enabled iCloud
Was working well until 993 notes in and crashed. Now crashing on opening
 
Got a bit closer:
Unchecked Notes in iCloud
Deleted Notes
Restarted iPhone
Installed Notes
Checked Notes in iCloud
Put on MagSafe and watched
Got to 996 when crashed and now crashes within 2 seconds of opening
 
I'm having an identical issue. I only have 59 total notes, each are pretty unchecked the notes in icloud. got them to download again. and same problem.
Mac notes work fine.
 
Hello, yes. I have the same problem. I have about 130 notes and it crashes after a few seconds.

I tried restarting the phone, I reinstalled the Notes app, neither worked. I did have success turning off iCloud sync and letting it delete the data synced to the phone. Notes will stay open but, obviously, it’s not useful to me without all of my notes. I turn sync back on, it begins populating the notes again, but at some point it will crash and the cycle starts over again.

There must be a character, attachment, handwriting, etc in at least one of the notes that is causing the app to crash. Notes still works fine on my iPad.

I worked with Apple Support a bit yesterday and after exhausting all options they suggested restoring the OS through iTunes. I wasn’t in a position to be able to do that at the time and hasn’t followed up yet. I doubt that is the problem, though.

It is not urgent I get this fixed but I do hope Apple identifies the problem and releases an update soon.
 
I wonder if the problem might be similar to the character/app crash (or some other Notes content) issue that happened in a previous iOS version. I don't recall all of the details, but something like that might explain why some of us aren't experiencing the iOS 16 Notes crash.

Added: Found a description on Open Radar about that past character-based bug:
 
Last edited:
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christianwilson said:
There must be a character, attachment, handwriting, etc in at least one of the notes that is causing the app to crash. Notes still works fine on my iPad.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I missed that you suggested the same thing, that it's some Note content that might be the problem.
 
So I just tried this and it has worked so far.
I shared a word document, from a text message, to one of my previous notes in the notes app. It went through and I haven’t had a problem since. Going on an hour without crashing
 
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magnod30 said:
So I just tried this and it has worked so far.
I shared a word document, from a text message, to one of my previous notes in the notes app. It went through and I haven’t had a problem since. Going on an hour without crashing
Click to expand...
That's good news and an interesting workaround. How did you come up with that?
 
magnod30 said:
So I just tried this and it has worked so far.
I shared a word document, from a text message, to one of my previous notes in the notes app. It went through and I haven’t had a problem since. Going on an hour without crashing
Click to expand...
How did you do this exactly?
 
Notes was working well until I had a problem sharing a nested shared folder. The other user deleted several notes, and then I restricted access. Since then, the app in iOS16 keeps ceashing
 
I can confirm above this works!

Not sure it matters from where you share a document, but I did as above - went to a text message and found a pdf, shared to Notes, picked a previous note. Saved it.
Then exited and went back into Notes and so far not crashing!
 
It does work! I have over 4000 notes and the app was crashing immediately after opening it. I shared a photo to an existing Note and no more crashes! I wonder if copying and pasting text to a note would give the same results. Thank you @magnod30 for discovering this fix!
 
Sharing a document to an existent note solves the problem. No more crashes and my 1000+ notes now sync just fine. Thanks for posting the solution.
 
I had exactly the same issue: the apps notes on the iPhone was unable to stay open for more than 10 seconds. It all started after sharing a nested folder that was inside of another folder that had different sharing permissions (i.e. the folder on the higher level was shared with one person while the folder in the shower level had an additional person sharing). When adding that additional person to the folder, that person not only had access to the shared folder but to the folder and notes that were located in the folder containing that folder. I managed to remove that person from the shared folder but, after that, the app began to crash. In the computer I tried to edit permission rights for that folder and it was impossible. That folder was not appearing on iCloud.com but yes on the iPad and in the Mac. Finally I did the following:

1. Deleted the folder on the Mac and synced with iCloud: it worked

2. Deactivated iCloud for notes in the iPhone and in the iPad

3. Reactivated iCloud on the iPhone: it worked.

4. Reactivated iCloud in the iPad: it worked.

5. Uninstalled the Notes app and reinstalled: in minutes you will see again all your notes populating on your app, and no more crashes.



On a nutshell: it seems shared folders can create syncing problems with iCloud and, potentially, expose some unwanted notes to people who were not intended to see them and also make your notes app unusuable
 
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Toothache32 said:
I can confirm above this works!

Not sure it matters from where you share a document, but I did as above - went to a text message and found a pdf, shared to Notes, picked a previous note. Saved it.
Then exited and went back into Notes and so far not crashing!
Click to expand...
Thank you!

Went to Messages. Clicked on my wife at top where get to items shares. Scrolled to bottom where documents are and opened a pdf there and clicked the Share icon.

Interestingly, the first time I clicked Notes, it caused Messages to crash out and go back to Home Screen. Second time worked.
 
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I have 1,630 notes, 5 of which were Shared Notes. The bug fix others have had success with so far hasn’t worked for me- I made 3 attempts at it, sharing 2 diff photos & 1 PDF from text messages to separate notes. It changed the length of time Notes would stay open before crashing, extended to about 5 seconds from 2 seconds originally. Enough time for me to navigate to & delete each shared note one by one. Then I shared another photo after deleting all shared notes. Still crashing…
 
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