Cards only update after “Edit”? Here’s a fix that actually works no restart, no editing

Anki Help
1

If you’re hitting that frustrating Anki bug where:

You update a card or change the template,

But in review it still shows the old version,

And it only shows the correct version after clicking “Edit” (even without changing anything)…

I ran into the same thing — specifically after updating cards via import with MathJax.

Restarting didn’t help.
Find & Replace didn’t help.
Changing note type didn’t help.
Check Database didn’t help.

I had:

  • Exported my notes as plain text (with GUIDs)
  • Fixed MathJax using proper <anki-mathjax> tags
  • Re-imported with “Update existing notes” enabled
    → Everything showed correctly in the Edit window…
    → But the reviewer still showed old content.

:white_check_mark: Fix (no add-ons, no edits, no restart):

Open Browse
Click the first card
Hold the ↓ Down Arrow key
(or use a script to automate if you have 100s of cards)

As the right-side preview pane updates, Anki re-renders the HTML for each card.

After doing that, the review screen finally showed the updated version for every card — no need to open Edit one by one.

I haven’t seen this workaround posted before. Hope it saves someone the headache I went through.

2

I never experienced something like that before but there is something similar if you try to import a .csv file with mathjax (though I think it was due to user error). But I think to remember that a simple Check Database solves this already, which is way faster than your workaround.

If you can consistently reproduce your issue, maybe try Check Database.

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3

I appreciate the suggestion, but unfortunately:

  • My issue was with MathJax updates, and yes, I used proper <anki-mathjax tags (not raw LaTeX).

  • I did run Check Database multiple times — it didn’t help.

  • I also tried:

    • changing note type (same-to-same and dummy-to-real)
    • field nudging (Find & Replace)
    • full restart
    • syncing
      → none of these worked

My exact workflow was:

  1. Exported cards as plain text with global GUIDs
  2. Fixed all MathJax with a custom script (converting to proper <anki-mathjax format)
  3. Re-imported with “Update existing notes” enabled

Even though the updated content was in the Edit window, the reviewer kept showing old content.

:white_check_mark: The only thing that forced Anki to refresh the HTML was:

  • Opening Browse
  • Holding ↓ key to scroll through cards
  • Letting the right-side preview trigger re-render

That caused all affected cards to finally show the new MathJax during review.

4

Just in case: If you import from a file then the syntax should be \( for <anki-mathjax> and \) for </anki-mathjax>. Essentially, that way you import

\(\sqrt{x}\)

and anki will automatically (without your workaround) convert it to

<anki-mathjax>\sqrt{x}</anki-mathjax>

If you do it the other way around (importing <anki-mathjax>\sqrt{x}</anki-mathjax>) then you’ll have to manually step through each card.

Though I’m surprised Check Database didn’t solve it. I am certain there was some easy way in Anki and thought to remember than Check Database was it; maybe someone else knows more, though.

2 Likes
5

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