OneNote on 950 XL - What A WASTE!

[Narun]

Good for you. Glad you haven't affected by the problem. My issues specifically are with notebooks with lots of photos (I usually wrote things down and took pictures of my notes and saved it on OneNote), and the 950 series (mine is 950XL).

This problem could be easily solved by deleting and reinstalling the app. I seriously don't get why we are not allowed to that! It's not like the Office suit (OneNote included) is crucial to the running of the OS. Seriously, MSFT's great hardware is constantly being let down by its failing software. Irony right?

I tweeted Panos, OneNote team, MSFT and pretty much every party involved to let them know of the issue. I can put up with losing some apps after I moved back to W10M (I lost Vivino and Delectable which I used every day) but I expected smooth experience of using MSFT apps on MSFT's ecosystem. That's not too much to ask right?

 

[mtf1380]

My notebook has multiple pages so any time I change a page in the notebook I make sure to go to another page before I close the app.
This seems to force the sync.

I don't believe there are any real issues for small Notebooks/Pages, I believe the problems lie with large Notebooks, and/or volume rich Pages. I, for instance, have over 20 Notebooks, with at least 25 Sections per Notebooks, and at least 50 pages per section.

I tried for a month straight to download one (1) volume rich Page, of one (1) Section, in one (1) Notebook, every couple of hours for over a MONTH, with NO success; it showed that it was syncing (circling dots) the whole time but... unable I was unable to open the page on my 950XL for over 45 days. MS's whole Onenote concept was to enter info once, have it on all qualified devices. The issue seems to be confined to Onenote for the most part, BECAUSE you can still download that same amount of content to the 950XL's SD card in SECONDS.

 

[daimv]

So how big are your OneNote pages? In MegaBytes for example? Also remember that internet service providers usually give you an upload speed that is much, much lower than your download speed. So if you have say a MAX speed of 20 Mbps (which would be like 2.5 MBps) then you probably have at most a MAX upload speed of 2 Mbps ( 0.25 MBps). i.e. usually your upload speed (necessary to upload your stuff from your phone to your OneDrive) will be at least 10 times slower than your download speed, but that is the ideal connection so it might be even slower. If you leave it a "long time" but not long enough and then you happened to interrupt the connection (even if it wasn't your fault), it might have a lot of trouble uploading your stuff.

Of course, I don't know the specifics about your connections, but it is a possible explanation to the problems you have described. There might be different problems, and maybe your uploads aren't thaaat big.
Some possible numbers:

Let's say you have a page with 20 pictures that are each 5 MB. (total 100 MB)

With a 20Mbps ( with upload speed of 0.25 MBps), your upload would take 6.666 minutes, which doesn't sound bad. Though in real conditions it would probably take longer... say 10-20 minutes which doesn't sound that bad really.

With a 10Mbps, we go to more or less 20-40 minutes.
Does OneNote need to stay open to sync? I guess I'll do some tests on my devices and see what happens.

 

[daimv]

Well I did make some tests... and with a note with about 10 images it seems OneNote seems to think the syncing is done when it is nowhere near done D: so maybe it stops updating...
Well damn. I guess we can at least report it.

I made the notes on my phone, and tried to access in my PC. PC shows that sync is done. Although the phone does keep showing a "syncing" icon.

Also I am using a 950, not XL, so the problem isn't exclusive to the XL.

 

[mtf1380]

Well I did make some tests... and with a note with about 10 images it seems OneNote seems to think the syncing is done when it is nowhere near done D: so maybe it stops updating...
Well damn. I guess we can at least report it.

I made the notes on my phone, and tried to access in my PC. PC shows that sync is done. Although the phone does keep showing a "syncing" icon.

Also I am using a 950, not XL, so the problem isn't exclusive to the XL.

daimv, that is why I feel the issue is mostly confined to Onenote, and on the 950XL specifically (I don't know about other models, I know I never had a problem with the L920 though). I ONLY try to sync while connected to my LAN, I have even tried to sync my while connected directly to my Desktop... no luck! I can send the same size information to Onedrive (no problem), Word (no problem), PowerPoint (no problem), Excel (no problem), Onenote...BIG PROBLEM!!!!

By the way, I have been reporting this issue for months. I have, for years, relied on Onedrive when I didn't have immediate access to a computer (to answer a question while having dinner with a client, out at a jobsite, standing in line for an airline ticket, waiting in the lobby for an appointment, to name a few instances), this is very disruptive to my productivity, for sure.

Yes, I understand there a workarounds (and of late, I have been utilizing them) but I shouldn't have too. This should be FIXED ASAP!!!, same with WIFI and Bluetooth dependability (IMHO)...PERIOD.

 

[Narun]

I've been talking to OneNote team on Twitter. They said they will pass along the grievances to the persons in charge. I would encourage those with the problems to try to get in touch with them over Twitter so they know the extent of this issue. They are very responsive over there.

Will report back if I have any more development.

 

[Narun]

Hi all,

I don't want to jinx this but for some reason, my OneNote app appears to sync large notebooks much faster. Now a notebook with 10 photos (around 5 mbs each) got synced in around 10 minutes. Previously, a notebook of that size would take days. Not sure if this is because of my nagging over on Twitter. But for whatever reasons, I'm much happier now. It should be said though that the situation is far from perfect. The lag is still noticeable - both between 950XL and the cloud as well as the cloud and SP3.