Notes got an error: Can’t make container into type text.

[dmd]

$ notes list
Account  Folder            Name                            Body
iCloud   Notes             freezer inventory               freezer inventory  2 ground beef  broccoli 4..
    ... lots of successful lines here and then ...
iCloud   Notes             zoo new england membership c..  
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/bin/notes", line 8, in <module>
    sys.exit(cli_main())
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1130, in __call__
    return self.main(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1055, in main
    rv = self.invoke(ctx)
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1657, in invoke
    return _process_result(sub_ctx.command.invoke(sub_ctx))
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1404, in invoke
    return ctx.invoke(self.callback, **ctx.params)
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/click/core.py", line 760, in invoke
    return __callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/macnotesapp/cli/cli.py", line 226, in list_notes
    print_notes(notesapp)
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/macnotesapp/cli/cli.py", line 368, in print_notes
    folder = note.folder
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/macnotesapp/__init__.py", line 267, in folder
    return str(self._run_script("noteGetContainer"))
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/macnotesapp/__init__.py", line 274, in _run_script
    return run_script(script, self._account, self._id, *args)
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/macnotesapp/script_loader.py", line 12, in run_script
    return SCRIPT_OBJ.call(name, *args)
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/applescript/__init__.py", line 110, in call
    return self._unpackresult(*self._script.executeAppleEvent_error_(evt, None))
  File "/Users/dmd/venvs/general-python/lib/python3.9/site-packages/applescript/__init__.py", line 65, in _unpackresult
    raise ScriptError(errorinfo)
applescript.ScriptError: Notes got an error: Can’t make container into type text. (-1700) app='Notes' range=6226-6230

[RhetTbull]

This is an AppleScript error. macnotesapp uses a Python to Applescript bridge to interact with Notes (because Apple frustratingly provides no native API for doing so). Unfortunately, the Notes AppleScript interface is quite buggy and fickle so I'll have to try to reproduce this to figure out what's causing it. The error is caused when calling the AppleScript function noteGetContainer which gets the parent folder of the note. This function uses some hackery to get around a bug in the Notes AppleScript interface.

I'll try to think about how to add some debugging output that might help identify the note in question which might then let me reproduce it.

[RhetTbull]

I've added a dump command to v0.4.0. Give this a try instead of list. It will dump all data on notes and when you get the error, we should be able to see the ID and name of the note (which gets printed before the body, which is what is causing the error) and thus do some further debugging.

I used list on my entire Notes collection and was not able to reproduce the error.

[dmd]

In 0.4.0, neither list nor dump crashes!