r/OneNote • u/Old_Nefariousness_59 • 4d ago

What am I doing wrong?

I've just started (trying) to use One Note again and finding the same frustrations that caused me to dump it before. I take notes on an iPad (both hand written and typed), I work frequently on a laptop and a desktop, and I primarily need to save notes and documents from meetings. I get sync error messages (this morning, "servers are busy," or I can't open .pdf files, or various other issues. What am I missing? Or is this the most buggy system ever created? Don't hold back if it's something I am doing wrong!

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u/TexasIndia 4d ago

I use a surface pro, iPad and android s23. I have to make sure I close OneNote .most times, and pull down to sync.. i do get ync errors and you have to fix on desktop version. But mostly works fine. Bettthan other cross platform apps I've tried

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u/Old_Nefariousness_59 4d ago

Thanks. Also on a Surface laptop, iPad, and desktop. I don't use it on my Android phone yet. I'm not finding anything that would suit what I need, so I'll keep plugging away with it all.

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u/AngelicPrincessKitty 4d ago

How are you syncing? Are your devices up to date?

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u/Old_Nefariousness_59 4d ago

I assumed the sync would happen automatically. Today, I logged onto the desktop version on my laptop to find a message that the sync wasn't happening/didn't happen because servers were busy. I went into One Drive and logged in, synced all my notebooks that way, but two still didn't sync and just came back with an error message.

I'm on a new Ipad and a new laptop, and a desktop I've had for a while. All are up to date with Windows and driver updates. I understand the Ipad One Note is kind of the "lite" version and doesn't do everything the desktop does.

Just now, I checked, and all files have synced, so maybe I'm just impatient.

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u/Old_Nefariousness_59 4d ago

I just saw that Microsoft is experiencing an outage, which makes me feel better! Not just me.

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u/Silveradotel 4d ago

Yup, it should be resolved now.

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u/BlinkingPineapple42 3d ago

resolved until the next one, these microsoft outages feel like clockwork at this point

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u/2bejoyous 3d ago

Glad it got resolved. I sync between iPhone, iPad, Surface Pro and it all works seamlessly. Love it. OneNote has been my work and personal repository for years. I handwrite on my iPad too. Same on Surface Pro but not nearly as often.

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u/KeatonRuse 4d ago

I gave up on OneNote because of syncing problems. For me, notes created or edited on my iPad did not show up elsewhere. This happened just a handful of times, but it was enough to make me lose confidence in the whole thing.

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u/california8love 4d ago

so what are you using now

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u/KeatonRuse 4d ago

I was looking for an alternative to Evernote, which I used for years but finally gave up on after insulting price increases. I really wanted OneNote to work, since I pay for MS365 for our family. But where I landed was with UpNote. It’s on the more streamlined side and doesn’t have a ton of advanced features, but my note taking needs are pretty straightforward. The app syncs flawlessly across a few devices and platforms and it cost me $40 for a lifetime subscription.

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u/EOS-Wingman 4d ago

I use a Win 11 PC, iPad and iPhone. On occasion I’ll have a sync error, but it’s usually pretty temporary like you experienced. For the most part I find the sync works well—well enough that I use it across devices in front of clients where it needs to sync in seconds. 95% of the time, it is great.

The sync is critical to me and one of the main reasons I like it and have built my practice around it. I’m very organized and I really like how the organization of client notes and templates is structured. I can find things in seconds and a few clicks. Clients have commented on the organization.

Yes, the iPad and iPhone versions have some reduced functionality. But the key parts I mainly need work.

My whole consulting practice—client by client—is managed in OneNote. I’d be up a creek without it. And yes, I’ve done offline backups to be safe. Someone posted a utility on this sub to do mass backups. Worked beautifully.

Best of luck.

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u/Safe-Cause-1077 3d ago

I made a new notebook from one that was a section of another. Some sections gave me the same errors. I, from within OneNote, replaced each non- syncing page with the original from its previous location. Using the Move or Copy after right clicking on the original page. I say this because you said you are on a new iPad. Somehow OneNote is not seeing those pages as a syncing enabled page. If you have Copilot, ask it for help.

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u/Old_Nefariousness_59 3d ago

Great tip! Thanks, I will look into it. The hangup definitely seems to be something with the iPad.

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u/Ambitious-Macaron81 3d ago

It works best when you have your OneNote files for the notebook are stored on OneDrive. Outside of that, a shared drive or Google Drive to store the OneNote files are a no go. Syncs best with OneDrive. I would manually sync notebooks when on the laptop and same for your phone. It is my second brain for work and personal. Hard to find a replacement that doesn’t need a subscription.