Disappearing Ink problem in OneNote 2016 + Surface Pro 3

I am having trouble again with disappearing ink. It happened twice tonight during a lecture while taking handwritten notes.

OneNote 2016 Version 16.0.6741.2048.

This only started happening today. I hope you can get this fixed.

How can I remove the latest update, because I didn't have this problem before the latest office update that fixed issues with Outlook not allowing file previewer.

Hey atwsmu, I’m Laurentiu, a developer on the OneNote Ink team. Very sorry you’re running into these issues, but I’m investigating now and hopefully can help. J

In order for us to find out what the problem is, it would help if you can provide us with some information:

1. What Windows version you are on? steps to find out your Windows version are provided here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13443/windows-which-operating-system
2. Please describe how the ink disappears. Does it get moved somewhere else? Does it ever come back?
3. Do you see any pattern in when the ink disappears? For example, it is consistently disappearing when you do a specific task/scenario/steps?
4. How often do you hit this problem?
5. Does this problem still occur if you disable Automatic Handwriting Recognition? You can disable handwriting recognition by going in OneNote into File->Options->Advanced and disable the box “Enable automatic handwriting recognition”.

Thanks!

Laurentiu

Software Engineer, OneNote Ink Team

1. running Windows 10 PRO
2. I experienced the issue a long time ago and this was very similar. I had written about a 1.5 pages of handwritten notes and the ink totally disappeared.
3. I am not sure what occurred that caused the ink to disappear. I tried to click undo to try to get the ink to reappear, but it did not work.
4. I have only had this occur the one time, which I reported. It was very frustrating.
5. I have not disabled the automatic handwriting recognition. I was recording audio while I was taking the notes. I have experienced some issues while recording audio. This past Tuesday, OneNote crashed unexpectedly after only 10-15 minutes of recording audio and taking handwritten notes. Fortunately, my ink didn't disappear after I restarted OneNote and began recording again.

If I turn off handwriting recognition, will I be able to turn it back on and be able to search handwriting that was written while the feature was turned off? I find it extremely helpful to search my text when reviewing notes and preparing for exams.

I wonder if the issues could be related to the audio recording feature following my text as I write my notes while recording.

atwsmu,

To strictly answer your question, handwriting recognition can be re-enabled at any time. Re-enabling the feature only requires navigating to the pages containing the ink introduced when the feature was switched off in order for you to be able to search your handwritten notes. 

Also, can you please tell me:

1. What device you were using when this happened?
2. Has that happened since that one time?

Based on the information you provided, I believe there is a threading problem that is not necessarily related to handwriting recognition.

Please let us know if you hit this problem again. If you do see ink disappearing again, please do the following 3 things:

1. Use lasso select where you know you used to have ink and see whether something shows up
2. Scroll up or down the page, or zoom into the page and see whether the ink shows back up
3. Navigate to another page and then go back to the one where the ink disappeared.

Please let us know if you hit this bug again and if any of these 3 steps do anything. If ink still does not appear back, please disable handwriting recognition and see whether the problem still occurs. All this feedback would help us narrow down the investigation and solve the issue quicker.

Thank you,

Laurentiu

1. Device Surface Pro 3
2. It has not occurred again since my original post a week ago

I did try to do all the think you suggested right after the ink disappeared. I was not able to recover any of my work besides 2 or 3 random lines and circles. I attempted to use the lasso select tool, scrolled up and down, zoomed in and out, moved to another page, and even closed and re-opened OneNote.

I will definitely let you know if this occurs again. Although, I hope it doesn't, because it is very frustrating to lose handwritten notes from a lecture.