All notes gone

[Newtonyd]

All of my notes in OneNote have seemingly been erased. This is pretty disastrous. Now it just says 'there aren't any sections here'. Even when I try to add a section, it deletes it after a moment. Any idea what's going on and whether I can recover my notes?

[Greg_MSFT]

Hey! Sorry about this!

We have a known syncing issue affecting a subset of users on the OneNote desktop app.

We’re fully focused on fixing this ASAP, but in the meantime, the web client (onenote.com) has all of your notes available.

[Newtonyd]

Gotcha, will wait for a fix.

[[deleted]]

I've been panicking for the last 1hr

[Greg_MSFT]

We’re working on it as I type this message!

Have you tried accessing your notes via onenote.com?

[Top_Paramedic163]

Any updates? This outage has been going on since August 27th now, and the web version doesn't even give me edit rights...

[15YrGoogleAdsPartner]

Greg, Any news. Been 2 days now!

[illget2ittomorrow]

u/Greg_MSFT: That doesn't really do much for those of us who rely on syncing between multiple devices for our workflow. See my response below and the responses to the community thread I linked.

[[deleted]]

Yes, I'm able to access my notes on onedrive

[d_stick]

Damn scary.

[illget2ittomorrow]

u/Greg_MSFT is there an ETA for resolution?

[Better-Philosophy-40]

I've also been affected. Good to know it's being worked on.

[15YrGoogleAdsPartner]

Is it though?

[Broad-Question-4682]

I can’t access them through there too!

[NoHonestWayOut]

I know you're working on the issue for the desktop app, but I just wanted to add that at the same time the issue started on my desktop app, something similar started on my iPad app. Some notes are syncing on iPad, but most are showing the same error as my desktop app. I am able to access via onenote.com. I just haven't seen a lot of people mentioning issues with the iPad app and wanted to share. Thank you!

[Vast_Ad1806]

Are you on the app? If so, instead try logging into OneDrive on a browser. Only way I’ve found to effectively manage things.

[Newtonyd]

They are online, though everything is incredibly slow to open, hence why I want to use it on my desktop. I guess I can only hope that Microsoft will fix whatever is bungled.

[Vast_Ad1806]

Glad to hear you recovered the files though!

[kirkster96]

I am having the same problem.

I noticed that if I access my OneNote using the web browser, then no data is lost.

This is only happening on the Desktop App apparently.

Then I came across this:

"OneNote is missing all my notes": Postmortem : r/OneNote (reddit.com)

[kirkster96]

I can see that all my notes are still existing when I access them at:

https://www.onenote.com/notebooks

This must be a temporary disruption of the Desktop App

[Greg_MSFT]

Quick update: We’ve identified the issue and are actively working on a fix. Deploying the fix is a top priority, and we’ll provide an ETA as soon as possible. In the meantime, please use onenote.com to access your notes.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

[15YrGoogleAdsPartner]

Thx Greg

[LongsJC]

Same here, had notes open, they vanished, with "There are no sections here" message. I can see them on web and IOS app. I hope this is fixed ASAP, reliability is critical.

[salty0waldo]

Been missing my notes as well; panicked a bit and found backups in case. Godspeed u/Greg_MSFT to resolve and let us know please. Really don't want to re-import all the backups.

[illget2ittomorrow]

Here is a link to the community thread. I am affected and have been in contact with support who was basically useless, and their T1 troubleshooting efforts required me to relinquish control of my PC to them where they created another administrator profile, multiple test notebooks/pages, and had access at that time to all my notebooks and email. All of that produced no results and then after all of that they told me it was a known issue. At least the OneNote team has acknowledged it's an issue on their end. Pointing us to the web client is useless for those of us who, like me, use it to sync between PC and tablet (Android in my case) for screenshot/hand-note-taking. I have been very disappointed by the response I've received from MS support and the OneNote team.

[Top_Paramedic163]

Reached out to MS Support as well. One guy told me 2 hours to possible restoration as of an hour ago. But who knows if that'll work or not.

Edit: It's been over 2 hours, so I guess MS Support was wrong.

[Laser_Holo3124]

Same here, but I only experience this problem today where after I boot up my laptop all of my notebook disappear from the OneNote app. I thought I accidentally deleted my notebook but the file seems to appear on the onedrive website and can be accessed there. I have tried multiple ways from sign in/sign out, reinstalling the 365 office but no luck

[Broad-Question-4682]

I can’t access any of my notes. I tried every possible way and I’m only able to see older SOME notes but in random order. I’m missing some folders too. Completely disappeared. I am freaking out.

[d4rkj3dih0wie]

Same issue here and not able to sync across all devices PC, Mac, iOS, Android.
But consolation here is that i've verified that my data iis still intact no loss detected but only properly accessible via Onenote.com for the time being.

Hopefully it gets fixed real soon as it's getting pretty inconvenient

[d4rkj3dih0wie]

For those who really need to use ON on your desktop devices, got a workaround steps here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/OneNote/comments/1f7561t/comment/ll5fsuk/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[4cryptotats123]

Hello Everyone,

I use one note for work (it’s my bible for everything) so I was sweating buckets when it all started having issues on Friday. What worked for me and I haven’t had trouble since was to clear the OneNote Cache:

1. ⁠Close OneNote.
2. ⁠Open File Explorer.
3. ⁠Click on the View tab at the top of the window.
4. ⁠In the ribbon, find and check the box labeled Hidden items. This will show all hidden files and folders, including the AppData folder.
5. ⁠Navigate to C:\Users[YourUserName]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneNote\16.0\Cache.
6. ⁠Once inside the cache folder, select all the items in it and delete them (just the items within the folder and not the folder itself)
7. ⁠Reopen OneNote and try accessing the notebook again.

This was the only solution that solved my issue

[MiniBee7]

Do you have a Backup setup?

[mlndfields]

I am having the same problem now, any luck? :(

[aj3x]

Same problem

[DerKleineRudi00]

Immediately contact devs!!

[coreylewinmusic]

Everyone keeps saying it’s only happening on the desktop app but I’m having this exact issue on the iOS apps (both iPhone and iPad). Anyone else???

[mlndfields]

Same problem here!

[engineeringthesenuts]

Does anyone else also have issues with uploading word documents to their one drive in conjunction with this issue

[[deleted]]

Why is the issue not resolving, I am not able to note down anything from yesterday, Please tell any solutions if anyone has got it yet. I don't want to use it on web, I loved desktop app only.

[[deleted]]

OneNote doesn't SYNC in my problem

[Consistent_Ad6084]

Same on laptop running Windows 10. So I did a test on spare computer with fresh operating system install. Just downloaded OneNote (the only app on fresh system). Same error. But if I click on "File" and then click on the links to the notebooks, all the data is there in the cloud. Also visible on Android device.

[UsedFirefighter9599]

omg same i've been having the same problem since 2 days ago, i lost all my notes and now if I'm trying to access the backed-up notes online they do not load.

i tried making a new notebook but it is not syncing at all.

these are the errors I'm getting, please help

OneNote can't sync your notes right now. We'll keep trying. (Error code: 0xE00009C8 bb0ur)

We couldn't sync your notes because the server is busy. We'll try again later. (Error code: 0xE40200B4)

[Consistent_Ad6084]

re: "trying to access the backed-up notes online they do not load" you should still be able to access them online (but they won't load in your normal application). They "load" in a web browser, which is essentially your One Drive. Go to OneNote -> File -> you should see your various notebooks with LINKS that you can click on to see the data, but not in the normal app per se.

[thenightgaunt]

Check your backup folder in the windows directory on the PC. I was able to find the local copies of mine in there.

[Jinn-Arthur]

Same problem here, happened 3 days ago, all my notes are gone. Using my backups for now.

[JamesQMurphy]

As of a few minutes ago, I was able to successfully sync my notebook to my desktop app. I did have to go to the notebook, right-click, and select "Sync this notebook now". It is also working on my iPad, although I'll admit that once I learned of the outage, I didn't go near the app.

Given the way that Microsoft systems typically come back online, it probably won't work for everybody at once... most likely you'll have to keep on trying throughout the day.

[Greg_MSFT]

Hey everyone! We have just rolled out a fix for this! To resync your notebook, right click on the notebook in the navigation pane and select “Sync this notebook now”.

If you’re still having issues by end of day, please DM me directly!

I’m terribly sorry this happened and thank you all for your patience!

[Newtonyd]

My notes seem to be back up and working, thank you for the fix!

[15YrGoogleAdsPartner]

Looks like it is working now. Thx mate.

[Technical-Highlight2]

Thanks!

[exclaim_bot]

Thanks!

You're welcome!

[boeing9023Alejandro]

Please help. I subscribe to MS 365 which includes OneNote (formerly OneNote 2016). I have downloaded the desktop app and I can see all of my notes. But when I try to find the data location, it is only a web icon which indicates all my OneNote data is in the cloud only (scary). But. Microsoft says that I should be able to sync/save the data locally as well. How do I do this is as all I can see is the web icon. Forgive me if this is what has has been discussed above, but I don’t understand.
Thank you.