OneNote: why does this message keep coming up: There are no sections open in this notebook or section group

Anonymous
2017-05-31T20:12:42+00:00

Hello,

I have OneNote 2010 downloaded from a CD onto an upgraded Windows 10 pro -- from Windows 8.1 pro -- and it's been working okay, but for the past two weeks I've been seeing a message that states, "There are no sections open in this notebook or section group," regarding all three of my Notebooks, which in fact contain many sections, and have for years. The first time I saw the message I became scared because I thought it meant that my OneNote Notebooks' sections were all missing, with all my work and research gone, but then -- lo and behold -- the sections reappeared, usually after I synced -- sometimes, however, the syncing didn't work right away, and so I would repeatedly try it and anything else that came to mind.

This "disappearance" has happened over and over, but, again, only for the past two weeks. I don't know what's going on, and I'm a bit concerned that one day my Notebook sections might never reappear again.

I might add that I've also been seeing a message repeatedly pop up up asking if I want to upgrade my OneNote 2010, but I always decline; I don't know if this has anything to do with the "disappearance" problem.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Thanks

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2017-06-07T22:00:39+00:00

**Update 6/9 6PM PDT:**According to the OneDrive team they've fixed this issue. Please let me know if it recurs.

OneNote Engineer here: We're aware of this problem and working to get it resolved ASAP. Thanks for letting us know!

6/9: We've narrowed it down to a problem with receiving an updated authentication token from OneDrive. This results in OneNote believing you don't have permission to the sections and removing them from display.

Update 6/8: As mentioned above, if you open the notebook in Edge and restart all processes, OneNote 2010 appears to properly get the auth token and sync properly.

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  1. Anonymous
    2017-06-06T14:12:39+00:00

    I have had this problem also for the last two weeks.  It is a pain.

    This is what I do to get everything back again.

    • Right click on on one of your notebooks.
    • Select Notebook Sync Status.
    • Click on one of the hyperlinks to take you to the website.
    • Then click "Synch All" in OneNote on your desktop.
    • All the notebooks will now synch.  Without the website open in the background they won't synch.

    Hope this helps.  It's time consuming,  Sometimes I have to do this more than once a day.  I definitely keep OneNote deskop open all day.

    Good luck.

    This workaround actually doesn't work for me. Usually, I can get my missing sections to come back if I manually sync my notebook one or two times, but opening up the website link to the notebook causes my OneNote application to still come up with no restoration of my missing notebook sections. I had to close the website link to get the OneNote application to re-sync successfully to get back my missing sections.

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-06-04T17:18:17+00:00

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-06-04T11:32:52+00:00

    Thank you, QuilterC, for your suggested workaround.

    I have been having this problem for about a fortnight.

    For Microsoft's attention (I could start another question as this is important enough, though it seems to make sense to report here at the moment), this is a fundamental issue for me.  I use OneNote for every day across four devices, each with different versions of the software as follows:

    OneNote 2010 (Windows 7 desktop)

    OneNote 2016, installed through an update request [OneNote 2010 is also installed, though I have not opened the 2010 version since starting to use OneNote 2016, which might have been from first use.]  (Windows 10 laptop)

    OneNote for iPad - latest version

    OneNote for Android on Samsung phone - latest version

    My notes have been dropping out of my Desktop for the past fortnight or so.  I read a forum entry which said that having a caret symbol (^) in a notebook URL started causing an issue at the end of 2016, so I closed those of my notebooks which had a caret in the URL.  I re-opened them using the 'Open in Desktop' button in the OneNote Online version.  Even so, I am still losing access to my notebooks several times a day.

    I find that my notes are available on my other devices, and up until now, I have been using those as a workaround until the information reappears in OneNote 2010 on my desktop.

    Local backups: in both the OneNote 2010 and OneNote 2016 versions I am using, I have increased the frequency of the local backups to daily and the number to 3.  I want to retain as much of the notebook information in multiple locations as possible in case I ever lose access online.

    I am wary of upgrading the version of OneNote 2010 on my desktop, where I have Office Professional 2010 loaded, in particular because this machine is still on Windows 7.

    I would be grateful for Microsoft to review these OneNote 2010 issues and fix them permanently.

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