Cannot access notebooks on desktop version.

Discussions about the Notes and Journal tool on LDS.org. This includes the Study Toolbar as well as the scriptures and other content on LDS.org that is integrated with Notes and Journal.
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mcjonmor
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Posts: 1
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2019 6:34 am

Cannot access notebooks on desktop version.

#1

Post by mcjonmor »

I saw someone already made a post about this same topic a few months ago, but the thread was left unresolved, so I'm bringing it up as well.

As the title states, I cannot view/open/edit/create notebooks on the desktop version of https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study. All that happens is that I get a blank page with the regular links on top and bottom, nothing in between. I have the same results when I go to https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org, click the "scriptures and study" tab, click study tools, and click notes. I use Chrome, but the same thing happens with firefox and Opera.

Pretty sure this is a server side issue, so if nothing else, could someone notify whomever can fix this?
tcbott
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Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Aug 26, 2019 12:08 pm

Re: Cannot access notebooks on desktop version.

#2

Post by tcbott »

Same problem on my side. Notes not working. Not showing the tagged text.
Need some repair help.
mevans
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Posts: 2049
Joined: Tue May 22, 2012 1:52 pm
Location: California, USA

Re: Cannot access notebooks on desktop version.

#3

Post by mevans »

It seems to be working for me. Are you still having the issue?
mlz01
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Joined: Tue Jul 07, 2015 10:16 am

Re: Cannot access notebooks on desktop version.

#4

Post by mlz01 »

I have been having this same issue on and off over the last few months. I tried to look in one of my notebooks today and it still only shows me a blank page. It's frustrating. I wanted to use my notes to prepare a talk last week and I couldn't open any of my notebooks. Hopefully they are working on this.
ebyers
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Joined: Fri Jun 05, 2015 5:44 am

Re: Cannot access notebooks on desktop version.

#5

Post by ebyers »

I presume that everyone who has posted here is still just suffering through this? Or did any of yours resolve? Mine is still problematic on ALL browsers. You cannot go straight to the tools - it starts to load and then you get a blank page. Then, virtually all of my note books seem to have disappeared to somewhere. There used to be an unassigned category, but can't find it as the All Notes section does not work. In fact when I go to the All Notes it gives me a blank page. And yes, this has been going on for a long time.

As I noted in another post, this is a gross dereliction of duty. How many thousands or hundreds of thousands are using the web site for scripture study, talks, lessons? And this is the regard which the Church gives it? I realize that many of those working on this and other projects are volunteers - and that's exactly the problem. Studying the scriptures is vital to all of us - but it doesn't appear that the Church leadership thinks so. Right, I'm sure there are arguments for saying that the online version is a supplement or some kind of privilege - excuses abound. But I have not seen any explanations of what has happened or what is being done to rectify the situation.
mevans
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Location: California, USA

Re: Cannot access notebooks on desktop version.

#6

Post by mevans »

ebyers wrote:I presume that everyone who has posted here is still just suffering through this? Or did any of yours resolve?
Although my current problems have been resolved, I agree there are frequent problems.
ebyers wrote:Mine is still problematic on ALL browsers. You cannot go straight to the tools - it starts to load and then you get a blank page.
What "tools" are you referring to? Can you be more specific of what starts to load and then you get a blank page? Are you referring to the "Notes" page or content, such as scriptures?
ebyers wrote:Then, virtually all of my note books seem to have disappeared to somewhere.
I notice that you also have some posts in the Android Gospel Library forum. Are you using both the Android Gospel Library and the web-based Gospel Library? If so, do your notebooks appear in the Android Gospel Library, but not in the web-based Gospel Library? Or did they disappear everywhere? If they disappeared everywhere, did your notes also disappear, or just the organization of them into notebooks?
ebyers wrote:There used to be an unassigned category, but can't find it as the All Notes section does not work. In fact when I go to the All Notes it gives me a blank page. And yes, this has been going on for a long time.
This appears to be another feature that has been removed in the new version. I wonder if the old "Classic" notes page is still working. I need to search previous posts in this forum for the URL. It's possible you'll find everything there.

I would recommend that you use the Feedback link and make the church aware of the missing "unassigned" notebook. My experience lately has been that things submitted to feedback are getting better attention.
ebyers wrote:As I noted in another post, this is a gross dereliction of duty. How many thousands or hundreds of thousands are using the web site for scripture study, talks, lessons? And this is the regard which the Church gives it? I realize that many of those working on this and other projects are volunteers - and that's exactly the problem. Studying the scriptures is vital to all of us - but it doesn't appear that the Church leadership thinks so. Right, I'm sure there are arguments for saying that the online version is a supplement or some kind of privilege - excuses abound. But I have not seen any explanations of what has happened or what is being done to rectify the situation.
There are many frustrated people, myself included. I believe some people who work for the church are frustrated, too. I do not believe that there are many volunteers working on the projects anymore. An effort was made to include volunteers several years ago and my understanding is that it did not produce the desired results. I believe there are still volunteers in a few situations, but that for the most part, the church has proceeded to do most development work internally. The church rarely tells anyone what is going on. I don't know much about what happens at the church, but there is a general belief that the IT teams are small and understaffed. We know that a few years back there were also layoffs (tech writers, maybe more?). If you look at this from a business perspective, bear in mind that in an organization such as the church that the IT department staff salaries and needs will likely be significantly higher than many other employment opportunities and that may be a challenge for the organization. HR policies, budgeting processes, etc. may not be aligned well with typical IT needs (I don't know details about the church, but I have worked in an organization that may have similar types of job distribution as the church and I know IT didn't fit well with the way things ran).

Perhaps the best things I can recommend are 1) Convince your stake president to talk to his leaders about the problems; 2) Pray that the Lord will help this aspect of the church function better; 3) Have faith and patience - remember that patience is something we are supposed to learn in this life and look at this as a good opportunity to develop that spiritual gift; 4) Use Feedback to provide specific feedback about problems. You may need be patient in responding to the feedback, as the first response to most problems is generally to clear your browser cache.
mevans
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Location: California, USA

Re: Cannot access notebooks on desktop version.

#7

Post by mevans »

It's my lucky day...the next post I reviewed had a link to the "classic" study tools:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... s?lang=eng

@ebyers: Try the above link. You should see the unassigned notebooks. See if that helps. See if you see anything else.
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