Silent Note Update Failure

The Problem

When you have a note open in Anki’s browser window, any updates attempted through your AI assistant may silently fail. The AI assistant will report success, but your changes won’t actually save to the note.

Example Scenario

You open Anki and browse to a specific note (e.g., searching for “photosynthesis”)
The note is now displayed in Anki’s browser window
You ask your AI to update that same note
AI reports “done!” but the note remains unchanged
No error message appears - it just silently fails

Why This Happens

The AnkiConnect API documentation explicitly states:

“You must not be viewing the note that you are updating on your Anki browser, otherwise the fields will not update”

See this issue for further details.

The Solution

Ensure the note is not selected or being viewed in Anki’s browser before updating it through your AI assistant.

How to avoid this issue:

If viewing a note: Either:
- Close the Anki browser window entirely, OR
- Click on a different note to deselect the current one, OR
- Press Escape to deselect without closing
Then: Ask your AI assistant to make updates
Finally: Open the browser again to verify changes

Why We Can’t Auto-Fix This

Currently, AnkiConnect doesn’t provide:

A way to detect if a note is being viewed in the browser
A method to close or deselect notes programmatically
An error response when updates are blocked

This means user awareness is the best solution for now.

Status

Under Investigation - We’re actively exploring solutions to improve this experience. For now, simply closing or switching away from the note in Anki’s browser ensures updates work correctly.