Anki cards not scheduling right

My Anki has been acting up for the past couple of days, and the problem hasn’t resolved. Around 20 cards keep repeating over and over, even when I select ‘easy.’ The random cards keep getting added to the repeating card pile every session. Despite clicking ‘easy’ multiple times, the review interval stays stuck at 1 or 2 days, even though I have many cards set for much longer intervals. This issue affects only certain cards, while others seem to behave semi-normally, which brings me to the second issue.

Another issue is that some cards don’t repeat at all and are being automatically placed into the ‘learned’ or ‘easy’ pile without me telling Anki to do so. Even when I click ‘again,’ those cards don’t show up for review again. Interestingly, the new cards I’m trying to learn and click ‘again’ on—those that are initially registered as ‘learned’ or ‘easy’ for some reason—do show up in my red learning pile once I exit and re-enter Anki. However U can’t do that forever and I don’t know if it’s reliable. I’ve noticed that the Anki app on my phone seems to handle reviews slightly better, but the issue with the repeating cards persists there as well.

I’ve tried several troubleshooting steps, including removing corrupted add-ons (like card postponing), checking the database multiple times, restarting and reinstalling the app, ensuring it’s updated, using manual clicks instead of my remote, and disabling FSRS (though nothing changed, so I re-enabled it).

I believe this issue started the same day I adjusted my 8bitdo remote keyboard settings, however I don’t believe they’re related. I’ve since reverted the remote settings back to the old ones and am currently manually clicking without using the remote, but the problem still persists. It’s frustrating because new cards often register as if I already know them when I click ‘1’ or ‘again,’ and I can’t properly learn them. Meanwhile, those 50 cards keep cycling regardless of how often I select ‘easy.’

Again, I have used anki almost every day for 2.5 years, i’ve adjusted settings here and there, have had remote problems, but never this. Theres no duplicate notes. Let me know if i should and how I can reset all these cards before I go too deep into Anking and risk losing more progress. I apologize for the length of this post, but I’ve tried a lot of solutions before resorting to posting on the forum, and I want to provide as much background as possible to avoid too much back-and-forth.

Attached are screenshots of my settings for one of my decks, but again this problem is affecting the other one too: (they’re almost identical, just one has 100 new cards daily, other only has 20 new cards daily)


Can you find an affected card and show what the card info says?

Just so that both of us are on the same page, there is no such thing is learned pile. The card counts show you new cards (blue), (re)learning cards (red), review cards (green).

They never show up? Or they do after some time? I feel like this might be an issue with your learn ahead limit. If your learn ahead limit (in preferences) is set to 0, the cards won’t instantly show up in learning count because they are due for review in the future. Did you change this setting?

We can’t see all of your FSRS parameters in your screenshot (please post those as text when you do) – but the here are the things that stand out –

  1. The parameters we can see so far indicate that FSRS will be setting very short intervals for you – that would probably feel like you’re seeing the same 50 cards over and over again. Is this extremely challenging material?
  2. You are ignoring almost all of your 2.5y of review history – is that intentional?
  3. How are your retention results? If 90% desired retention is far above your actual retention, FSRS will keep cards at shorter intervals trying to get you to the retention you asked for.
  4. You have a maximum interval of 30d. Trapping all of your cards under such a low ceiling can certainly also make it feel like you’re seeing the same 50 cards.
  5. [I expect that the parameters for your other preset are different, so these responses may or may not apply there.]

If you post the Card Info from a couple examples of what you’re seeing, we might be able to help you figure out why it is happening. If there are any differences in the learning/relearning steps between your presets, we’ll need to know that too.

Thank you for your reply. I will get back to you on the repeating cards info, they disappeared in my last study session on anki.

Thank you for the review on terminology too!

The cards I am trying to re(learn) sometimes come back. Like I said, if I exit out of my anki at any point and re-enter, they show up. While I’m in there, they don’t come back to review. I did try to see my learn ahead limit in preferences, however my “tools” tab doesn’t have preferences; wasnt sure if you could direct me on where to check this setting. I don’t think I’ve changed it since I dont know how to locate it lol.
Screenshot 2024-09-17 at 8.50.10 AM

Can you check the “Anki” menu instead? There are a few menu items that MacOS has in a different place.

I was able to navigate to the right page thanks to Danika. Attached is the preferences. I honestly don’t know if I’ve ever opened this page before, as I’ve never adjust these scheduler settings. Makes me confused how it went from normal learning cards to being placed for review in the future if I’ve never opened this page before. Is 0 the automatic setting for learn ahead limit? what would be best to schedule it as?

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Do you use any add-ons that automatically change settings for you? I know the AnkiHub “butler” does. The default setting is 20m.

Reasonable minds can differ on the “Learn ahead limit” – so here’s your options (based on your 10m learning/relearning step) –

  • Set it to 10m (or more) – Cards in Learn/Relearn will be available to be studied again immediately after you see them, so they will be included on the red counter right away. However, those cards will only be pulled forward 10m if there are no other cards waiting.
  • Set it to anything less than 10m – Cards in Learn/Relearn will be available to be studied that many minutes “early,” so they will be included on the red counter that many minutes before they are due. But it’s the same as above, cards will only be pulled forward that many minutes if there are no other cards waiting.
  • Set it to 0m – Cards will be eligible to be studied in 10m when they are due. That is when they will be included on the red counter, and they will not be pulled forward at all.