OneNote does not sync

Hi Kartik,

I want to start by thanking you for starting this thread because I had the same issue.  Nothing suggested here worked, but the following did work for me.

I first pressed the Windows key + R to open the Run Window.  In the RunWindow, I entered the following:  

%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe

This did not work because I got a "Location is not available" error message saying that C:\Users\K8Village\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\ is unavailable" and that "it might have been moved or deleted." 

I right clicked on the OneDrive cloud icon in my File Explorer and found it under C:\Windows\OneDrive.   I have never moved the files and, as far as I know, this is where they were placed when first installed in early July 2016. Note that it has worked fine from here until recent Windows updates were installed last week.

I created a new empty OneDrive folder in C:\Users\K8Village\AppData\Local\Microsoft\ and then clicked the "Move" button on the location tab of the properties window for the existing OneDrive folder (in  C:\Windows\OneDrive).  This moved all of the files to the new location, i.e., C:\Users\K8Village\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive.  

NOTE:  For those of you that are not experienced in this kind of thing, you need to type your own user name between the slashes above that say \K8Village.

I then opened OneNote, closed all of the open (empty) notebooks, and reopened them.  They immediately began syncing, and I am now up and running as usual.

Whatever caused the problem clearly stemmed from the recent Windows updates and Microsoft needs to be repair it immediately.  I'm not holding my breath.

I hope this helps others facing the same paralyzing issue.

K8Village

So finally I was able to get everything back together in its original state, without losing more than about 10 - 15 minutes of my most recent edits before the problem started (which isn't that bad). I can confirm that I didn't have to update any versions, restore any backups or reopen the notebooks on the desktop client. I only needed to reset the iOS client. On my laptop OneNote starting syncing again on Saturday.

Thanks to everyone who posted information on this forum. Normal high-productivity service has resumed :)

--Kartik

Bart,

I am still confused about "restoring files" and how that is different in business. Onenote does two things: it creates backups (even double and triple if selected) to the local drive (under the "users" directory). It also creates up-to-the-minute saves in case of the program crashing (all MS products do this). This is what I dub the "cache". This is what I believe you mean by reverting to the "last edits". 

Does Business version save the "last edits"? If not, I can see no advantage to paying 5$/month or the 10$/m for the full service in down-time server issue such as this.

thanks again,

Hi Shawn,

No, when I talk about saving/rescuing last edits, the approach I mention is to copy individual pages from the OneNote in difficulty to another OneNote which has no issues. This is done in the OneNote desktop client. I'm not talking about working with the cache (which is described in another post by ConnerTenn), which is done in desktop explorer.

The difference I see between OneDrive and OneDrive for business is not related to any of the above two approaches. That difference plays (I believe) a role when (A) you need support from Microsoft. You will be getting phone support with OneDrive for Business and chat/email support with the free OneDrive. Or (B) when you would need to restore an older copy of your OneDrive files. I have unconfirmed information that in both versions this can be done, but I can imagine that there are more options, more support on the OneDrive for business version.

That's what I wanted to say. :-)

All the best from Belgium,

Bart

I seem to be getting somewhere now. Removing the notebook from the iOS client and readding it, resulted in about 30 minutes of "Syncing..." before it stopped with an error. 

So I "Reset" the iOS OneNote client, which presumably did the equivalent of clearing it's cache. Restarting the client after resetting it, followed by about 40 minutes of "Syncing..." finally resulted in a notebook that now seems to sync correctly between iOS and the web version, and also correctly when manually sync'd with the desktop client.

I'm now going to start re-collecting all my sections into a single notebook, to achieve the same structure I had before the problem started on Thursday. I'll post back here whether I needed to clear my desktop client's cache, which at the moment doesn't seem necessary.

Thanks

--Kartik

Thanks ConnerTenn. I figured the "Not syncing" and red X might just be a visual cue to indicate that it's in manual syncing mode. Some quick changes that I made to test in the web version made it to the desktop version after a manual sync (although the progress bar stays stuck forever, until you click somewhere and it changes to the "Not syncing." state). 

However, the web changes didn't make it to my iOS version. Currently trying to remove and re-add the notebook in there, let's see what happens.

--Kartik