Do you have a ScanSnap scanner on your Mac and scan things to Evernote? You notice that if you have Evernote running, ScanSnap can’t launch Evernote properly? You might get an error message like the following:
Failed to start up Evernote for Mac.
Make sure that the selected application is installed correctly.
Turns out Evernote is broken. EvernoteHelper.app is an embedded application that runs while Evernote is running (or while it’s in the background) and if you’re set to English, its name is the same as the main Evernote application. Technically, the CFBundleName is being overridden in the InfoPlist.strings file. You can verify this by running /Applications/Utilities/Activity Monitor.app and seeing:
How do you fix this? Well, Evernote should really fix it. In fact, I’ve opened a support request with them. But until then, you can follow these steps to modify the bundle name by hand. Follow these directions at your own risk.
- Open Terminal.app in /Applications/Utilities.
- Type the following command and hit enter:
curl -o /Applications/Evernote.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/EvernoteHelper.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/InfoPlist.strings https://i.cloudup.com/ovQskXFl1h.strings
- Type the following command and hit enter:
killall EvernoteHelper
- Restart Evernote and try scanning!
Please note that this fix will most likely break every time Evernote is updated. Like I mentioned I submitted a support request to their team to see if it can get fixed permanently. This was attempted with the stand-alone download of Evernote, not the version available in the Mac App Store (it may work with the App Store version too).
Updated 2014/01/02 – The team handling support at Evernote has acknowledged receipt of the problem and is forwarding it to the product team for review.
Stephen Hoff
I have this problem and have been back and forth with EN and Fujitsu. The fix for me is to always “sign out xxxxxxxxx” and then “Quit Evernote” I haven’t had this error message since then. Also, EV acknowledged this is a problem that will be fixed in the next release.
Charles Araujo
Can you explain what this is doing. I get very nervous when I see a third party URL in a terminal command.
Aaron
Charles – the command that I put in the post takes the contents of this file:
https://i.cloudup.com/ovQskXFl1h.strings (preview at this URL https://cloudup.com/cT1H11lVlsQ)
And overwrites this file:
/Applications/Evernote.app/Contents/Library/LoginItems/EvernoteHelper.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/InfoPlist.strings
It effectively changes the text from:
“CFBundleName” = “Evernote”;
to
“CFBundleName” = “EvernoteHelper”;
Charles Araujo
Aaron – Thank you very much. I chose to do it manually because I’m very nervous about any kind of external connection, but this absolutely did the trick. Thank you for the work around. This is crazy silly that Evernote has caused this problem. I just downloaded v5.4.5 and the problem is still there, so this work around saved me. Thanks!
christa eagleton
Worked for me. Thanks. I’m not sure what’s more annoying, the bug or the fact they just launched the new “Evernote” version of ScanSnap. Too busy to fix this issue maybe?
Brandon
Worked like a charm. THANKS!!!!!
haagen
Thanks Aaron – worked great for me!
Felix
This works. Bugged up after my upgrade to Mavericks. Thank you.
Ken Todd
Great solution. I am migrating from Yojimbo to Evernote and was about to give up. Thanks for your spot-on analysis and solution!
D Currie
Hi There, I am a long time evernote with ix500 user, and I am afraid to say that after upgrading to Sierra and downloading a new Evernote update to go with it, I am having the same error message pop up after the ScanSnap Evernote edition opens the Evernote application. The doc scans, is OCR’ed, Evernote opens, then sits there and eventually times out with the same error as above. I tried rebooting, but this appears to either have something to do with the Sierra or Evernote updates. I am running Evernote Version 6.9 (454042 App Store), and macOS Sierra version 10.12 (16A323). I tried editing the plist file, but the CFBundleName tag is not in the file for the current version. Alas, I am stuck.
Aaron Douglas
I just upgraded to Sierra but have not scanned anything yet. I’ll let you know what I find out!
Jason Steffens
I’m having this same problem following upgrader to Sierra, running the latest versions of ScanSnap Manager and Evernote (App Store version).
Tda Hsu
I’m having this issue and it’s current as of the latest versions of all softwares – OS X, Evernote, and ScanSnap – as of 30 August 2017.