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Problem with OneNote

Doomster

New Member
Hello.
I have a MSFT Surface Pro 4 that I use as my personal laptop at work.

I use OneNote for taking notes.

It is connected to my OneDrive account.

I used OneNote. It's the one that is displayed when I click the Microsoft Icon in the bottom left and listed under "Play and explore."

I took many notes but a week ago, the OneNote stopped working. When I click the OneNote icon, it asks me to sign in. I sign in with a valid email address but it then displays a dialogbox stating "We can't sign you in right now".

I tried logging in to my OneDrive account via a web browswer and I can log in fine, with the same email address for OneDrive. However, I can't use OneNote anymore.

But if I start OneNote 2016 (which I think is not the same as OneNote), I can use it if I start it as the Administrator.

In OneNote 2016, it allows me to sync my personal Notebook for OneNote. However, the sync always fails.

Now, I had no problems with OneNote until a week ago. Was there some update from MSFT that changed things? I cannot sync the personal Notebook for OneNote and I cannot access it anymore.

Does anyone have a solution to this problem?

Thanks
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
Make sure its updated and you are signed in with the same account - you can also verify from the OneNote Webapp...
 

convergent

Active Member
OneNote App and OneNote 2016 are two different applications that can use the same notebooks; but they each keep their own sync'd copy of the notebooks. So edit in OneNote App... its syncs to OneDrive first... then OneNote 2016 syncs it ; and same in reverse. I had a situation last week where the OneNote App would no longer sync... getting errors. I had to create a new notebook and copy/paste all the pages to that; and then delete the old notebook, to fix it. When I deleted them, I deleted all the extra notebooks in OneDrive via the web. Just be careful that you don't delete something that is syncing before you make a copy of it or the sync will delete it everywhere.
 

kristalsoldier

Well-Known Member
OneNote App and OneNote 2016 are two different applications that can use the same notebooks; but they each keep their own sync'd copy of the notebooks. So edit in OneNote App... its syncs to OneDrive first... then OneNote 2016 syncs it ; and same in reverse. I had a situation last week where the OneNote App would no longer sync... getting errors. I had to create a new notebook and copy/paste all the pages to that; and then delete the old notebook, to fix it. When I deleted them, I deleted all the extra notebooks in OneDrive via the web. Just be careful that you don't delete something that is syncing before you make a copy of it or the sync will delete it everywhere.

Oh no!!! I have to do this then...damn!! Edit: That part in bold - can you please explain it? Is it the offending Notebook all you deleted (after making copies and putting them in a new Notebook)? What are the "extra notebooks" you are referring to? Thanks in advance.
 
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convergent

Active Member
Oh no!!! I have to do this then...damn!! Edit: That part in bold - can you please explain it? Is it the offending Notebook all you deleted (after making copies and putting them in a new Notebook)? What are the "extra notebooks" you are referring to? Thanks in advance.

If you log into Office365 in your browser and go to OneDrive, you should see one (or more) OneNote notebooks there. I had 3 of them. One was the one I used, and two were there for reasons I can't explain. I know that when I setup the Surface Pro, it added another one. I deleted the extra ones on the web, and also on my Windows machine. If you only have one to start with, then you can disregard my comments about this.

Adding to my complexity, I also use OneDrive for Business, which has a second environment and I did want a second OneNote notebook there. The OneNote apps on all platform seem to be able to handle both that just fine.
 
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