HELLLLLLLPPPPP!!!! Unsynced OneNote Notebook - Two years of notes just disappeared!

Hello KC W! I'm Ivan and I'd be happy to help you with your question, I have a handful of questions I'd like to ask, 1. Were there any specific actions or updates made to the Surface or OneDrive settings around the time when syncing stopped? 2. Have you encountered any error messages related to synchronization during the past two years? 3. Did you modify the notebook structure, such as renaming or moving it, before attempting to reopen it? 4. Did you try accessing your OneDrive account directly through a web browser to check for the presence of the missing notebook? The loss of notes may have been triggered by the long-standing unsynced status of the notebook. OneNote relies on synchronization to ensure data consistency across devices and platforms. If synchronization fails, local changes may not be propagated to the cloud, leading to data loss. While Microsoft generally prioritizes data safety, user awareness about syncing failures is crucial. Given the complexity of the issue, it's recommended to contact Microsoft Support for personalized assistance. They can explore the possibility of data recovery, delve into synchronization logs, and offer specialized guidance. In the future, stay vigilant about syncing indicators and consider periodic manual syncing to prevent similar situations. It's also advisable to maintain backups of important notes to ensure their safety. I provided you related topics that could possibly help you, quick fixes and troubleshooting found here: - (OneNote has deleted my unsynced notes) https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/onenote-has-deleted-my-unsynced-notes/577881a4-36bd-433f-8977-d7418ec63ce0 - (Find my lost notes) https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/find-my-lost-notes-32cb2bd7-afe7-44d2-a711-398a88421287#:~:text=Check%20the%20Notebook%20Recycle%20Bin&text=Fortunately%2C%20OneNote%20automatically%20saves%20notes,Recycle%20Bin%20%3E%20Notebook%20Recycle%20Bin. - (Eight places to find missing OneNote pages or notebooks) https://office-watch.com/2022/eight-places-find-missing-onenote-info/ If you have any more questions or need further assistance, don't hesitate to reach out. I'm here to help! 'Note: This is a non-Microsoft website. The page appears to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the site that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the site before you decide to download and install it.' Best regards, Ivan

Hi Ivan,

Thanks so much for the response. In answer to your questions:

1. I'm not aware of anything, including updates, that happened around the time syncing stopped, since it was so long ago. Nothing indicated that had happened, or I would have definitely noticed.

2. I have not seen any error messages appear associated with OneNote.

3. I made no modifications to the notebook structure - I just hit Close, and went I went to reopen it, the notebook no longer appeared on the list of notebooks available to open.

4. Yes, I checked the browser version immediately after discovering the problem and, as I said, only the old version of the notebook appears there.

I agree that user awareness of syncing failures is crucial, it's just that the system doesn't seem to be designed to do that, which is especially shocking given it can apparently lead to data loss. Again, it just strikes me that there is NOTHING in the system that easily and obviously flags you or warns you that a notebook isn't syncing. I've never gotten a prompt or a notice or a message of any kind saying this notebook, which appeared to be functioning normally, was not in fact syncing. And that seems doubly critical if they know that when it's not syncing, that can lead to data loss. I've been operating under the assumption there's no way these files weren't being backed up, but apparently all the backups just backup the old file online.

Can you help me figure out how to get to the fastest source of specialized help for this ASAP? I haven't ever contacted Microsoft Support like this, and it'd be a huge help if I could go straight to the team specialized in this so I don't spend hours wandering around. THANKS for your help with this. Kelly

It's not true that NOTHING warned. There are more or less ingenious overlaying symbols for the notebook's name which signal sync problems. Admittedly easy to overlook.

Anyway: Since you seem to use OneNote from Office you should find a backup of your notebooks in

"C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\16.0\Backup"

Bernd

Thanks, Bernd. This is one of many (feels like 100) spots I've searched, but the file in there (and in the OneNote Recycle Bin) just gets me to some section files that only contain that two-year old version of the notebook. Nothing updated recently.

What I'm desperately searching for is how Windows or OneDrive or OneNote might have stashed that content somewhere not in the ordinary OneNote structure as it was sitting here for two years. I'd be happy to restore either OneDrive or my PC back to my last set-point, but I don't know if that would rescue the file where all those notes were saving. As I closed and opened OneNote each day, all those notes appeared in that notebook from SOMEWHERE they were locally being saved, wouldn't they???

And I guess my other point was, whether or not there were tiny icons or easy-to-overlook clues somewhere that it wasn't syncing, in light of MS designing this so your data'll be lost if the sync fails, my vote would be for loud, blaring flags, warnings, sirens or other VERY obvious indicators (especially if you go to Close that workbook and stuff in it isn't backed up but has to be - what other Office app would let you close something without a warning that it isn't saved).

Again, Ivan or anybody know how to identify a OneNote engineer that might have other tricks up his/her sleeve that the online advice isn't catching? THANKS SO MUCH for trying to help me with this. Kelly

It is highly unlikely an OneNote developer is going to respond.

I didn't read all the posts and I don't use OneNote for this very reason, when it fails, it fails big, but is there any Version History that would have been stored in OneDrive for it?

Hi NATT,

Not that I found before. Out of desperation, I tried restoring my OneDrive to 1 day ago. It's just sitting here in the browser window with a spinning icon saying, "Your OneDrive is being restored." Been that way for several hours now. When you click on the icon to see progress, it shows a long list of progress bars, each saying, "Your OneDrive is being restored" and "Waiting..." with 0% progress. (And no, my OneDrive isn't big or full.) If you close it, it spins off another progress bar doing nothing. You can't click on OD in the system tray now either, and you can't cancel the "restoration." I am just on a freaking roll today.... :-z

If y'all know how to fix THAT one now, that'd be great! :-)

I just can't give up, so if you have some other ingenious idea, let me know! Kelly

Closing the notebook to force a sync only works if things are not syncing down onto the device, it is not recommended when there are things failing to sync out of your device. Sorry that you're hitting this. We hear you on the need to have more obvious indicators that your data is not safe in these cases.

Do you see a misplaced sections entry at the bottom of the list of notebooks? If your local copy can still find that info but doesn't know what notebook it belongs to it would put it in there.

Have the same exact problem with OneDrive restoration. It's stuck at 0% after a long time, and I only have about 20GB worth of data (which isn't a tiny amount, but it's a small fraction of the 1TB that is allowed). Would really like this to be solved.

Was it ever resolved for you?

Hi All. Thanks to all of you who pitched in ideas on how to rescue my lost OneNote notes. (And thanks to Analy Otero from MS pitching in too.)

At the end of the day, nothing I ever found worked (and trust me, it felt like I tried a thousand things). That said, I ended up being rescued by the grace of God Almighty when I happened to open an old laptop that I rarely ever use, and lo and behold, there was a complete set of my notes, correctly synchronized. I backed that puppy up sixteen ways from Sunday to make sure it didn't sync with the old notebook and somehow lose those notes again.

Then I never could get it to properly port over to my main computer desktop OneNote (which still would not sync my other notebooks in OneDrive), but I just created a new notebook, imported the old notebook's notes into it, and continued on my way with ALL my notes in my desktop OneNote as before. Everything is synching now as it should be. Why? Can't tell you.

I'm so sorry I don't have the miraculous thing I did that fixed this disaster, but I'm throwing it in here in case some other poor soul ends up in my shoes. If you have another computer with OneNote on it, check it just in case it isn't replicating the OneDrive or other problems you have on your main one.

I'll tell you, I'm going to take on some new paranoid habits to constantly check if my ON is connecting and synchronizing correctly. Should we have to do that? Do you do that with ANY other app you use???

And if that is just too big of a pain, I love OneNote, but I'll have to move to another app. I read these stories a LOT online -- PLEASE invest in making improvements to this product, Microsoft. I really prefer using the desktop app, but it looks like you're kind of squeezing everyone off it and forcing them to use the more limited cloud version. I know you can do better. :-( Kelly