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
    2017-06-06T18:20:25+00:00

    Just for the heck of it, I created a feature request to get this bug fixed on OneNote UserVoice.  If everyone votes to get this fixed maybe someone will pass it along to the right person. 

    [BUG] Fix OneNote 2010 Sync With OneDrive (aka All Sections Disappear Bug 2017)

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-06-06T18:54:24+00:00

    We are being forced to use OneNote Live.  It really sucks...

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-06-06T19:44:19+00:00

    Same issue

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