OneNote on 950 XL - What A WASTE!

[Narun]

I've been a OneNote user for at least 5 years and I've no problem syncing my notebooks across between MacBook, Lumia 920, Surface Pro 3, or iPhone 6. But since I got my Lumia 950 XL, I have experienced gut wrenching problems syncing notebooks with photos (4-5 Mbs per photo) with my laptops and other devices.

I reinstalled the app - no luck. I turned off the auto sync - no luck. I closed all my notebooks - no luck.
I searched the Internet looking for answers - no luck.

I contacted Microsoft Support - who gave me a phone number and a website. The former turned out to be a support line for Office for MAC!!!!! The latter directed me to a third party customer care service provider. Microsoft doesn't even care about their phone users any more!!!!!!

I am content with 950 XL but the smooth OneNote syncing across all my devices is crucial to my workflow.

Any help would be highly appreciated!

 

[Rosebank]

Did you try the customer care, from feedback I have been reading on this forum they provide good support regardless of being 3rd party,
Regarding syncing, I use one note for lists and money management and my content syncs between all of my devices, when I say money management I mean balances and dates, and I input them to my onenote and they are synced.
With your photo attachments are you SURE you are giving them enough time to upload to ONENOTE? are they ready to be shared to ONENOTE? have they been processed and ready to be shared or shared too quickly? Giving you the impression the files have been sent when infact they have not, this sounds almost identical to a post I read about someone on here adding photos to be send as email attachments but they were "SHARING" them before the cpu had even finished processing the image.
Using your 950 make sure the uploaded photos have actually uploaded, this might take some time given you are using a mobile data connection and dependent on content size.

 

[Krystianpants]

Go to onenote.com
There may be something causing syncing issues. You could correct any issues you see there.

 

[Narun]

Appreciate both responses.

I left the syncing process ran for over an hour (tapping my screen every 5 minutes to prevent auto screen lock) to sync 5 photos. No luck.
There is no sync issue with my onenote online.

I have not tried the third party service provider yet. Not sure how much they can help but I'll give them a chance.

Thanks!

 

[pazces84]

What OS version are you running? App is upgraded to latest and greatest?

 

[Krystianpants]

It's funny I have been having an issue today as well. Took a picture and inserted it into onenote. I usually take receipts and insert them. It will not sync at all even though the desktop syncs it doesn't show it and on the 950xl it keeps showing syncing. It's like the file is too big or something.

It also keeps giving me a message that I can only open certain files on desktop version. I think it's because I have used the full office version as well as the UWP app.

Now i'm trying to get it to work too. Shrunk the file a bit hope that helps.

 

[mtf1380]

I've been a OneNote user for at least 5 years and I've no problem syncing my notebooks across between MacBook, Lumia 920, Surface Pro 3, or iPhone 6. But since I got my Lumia 950 XL, I have experienced gut wrenching problems syncing notebooks with photos (4-5 Mbs per photo) with my laptops and other devices.

I reinstalled the app - no luck. I turned off the auto sync - no luck. I closed all my notebooks - no luck.
I searched the Internet looking for answers - no luck.

I contacted Microsoft Support - who gave me a phone number and a website. The former turned out to be a support line for Office for MAC!!!!! The latter directed me to a third party customer care service provider. Microsoft doesn't even care about their phone users any more!!!!!!

I am content with 950 XL but the smooth OneNote syncing across all my devices is crucial to my workflow.

Any help would be highly appreciated!

Narun, You are not alone....I have the exact same issues as you, on most of the same devices (920, Surface pro 2 & 3, notebooks, ultrabook, desktop, etc.) Onenote has been my go to program for about the same time, and Onenote notebooks' total about 36GB for me. I have had better luck lately (last week or so) with the current Onenote updates, I can now download a page at a time, and have it at least populate after some time - time depends on the size of the page.

Before the updates, I tried to update the exact same page (having a number of pics on it, that I needed to have and review while doing an inspection some 50' in the air), I tried for a month to get it to download with NO LUCK - I finally put the pictures in files on the 950XL SD card, which got me through the inspection. I have, with the last updates, been able to download that page to Onenote, but it is a page, by page process. Nothing like what we have come to expect from Onenote. I am hopeful MS will quit ignoring their faithful, and fix our crap.

 

[BJlagypa]

Hi,
I've got pretty much the same problem and that makes me very angry. After many tries I found the right way - I've created a new book,
copied all the notes in it and deleted the old one. Then I opened the app on my 950XL phone and start the sync option and the sync was restored and now works without any problems. Originally I've got two books and this sync issue happened only with one of them - looks like the book file was corrupted on some of the devices that I'm using the OneNote and only deleting the book helps. The new book that I've created was with different name to exclude the collision.

 

[greedo_greedy]

Sounds like you need this feature, unfortunately it will only be available for Insiders until Redstone 2 is released next year.
'Reset App' option reportedly coming to Windows 10 Mobile in Creators Update | Windows Central

If you have syncing issues with OneNote, I found the best way is to always fix it through onenote.com

 

[Krystianpants]

It finally was able to sync after a really long time and cutting down the picture size. My guess is it's not an efficient process for large files and the lumia 950XL produces some large pics.

 

[anthonyng]

Interesting, I don't think I've come across this problem yet, I like using one note to track my receipts for work (office lens scans) and I put a lot of my goto recipes (pasted websites) into a one note page.

Can't say I use it daily but often enough that it's been there for me when I need it. I have a few different books though.

The file size issue is an interesting one to be mindful of perhaps!

 

[mtf1380]

In the past, all I had to do was to remember to sync a particular notebook prior to leaving for a trip, regardless of device. The 950XL is the first device, in years (and remains the only device), that has proven problematic - for me. Like I said in an earlier post, things are getting better - so apparently MS is working on the issue, but so far from, acceptable...and so NOT! the intended purpose of the program.

 

[Narun]

Out of desperation, I took up on the third party customer service (B2X) advice and hard-reset my phone. It's proven to be a USELESS tip. Nothing's changed. I came to the conclusion that this is a permanent bug of OneNote and 950XL in this current version (I have both my phone and OneNote on the latest public release software version).

Here is the summary of the situation for me.
- Syncing text-only pages works fine with no delay or interruption
- Syncing pages with up to 3 pictures take at least half an hour in a small notebook
- In larger photo-intensive notebooks, it is almost impossible to complete the sync process
- If you create a notebook or page on 950XL with photos, it's almost impossible to sync it up to the cloud.
- Between the cloud and my SP3, there is no problem with either small or large notebooks.

In all, I can see this in two ways - first, OneNote doesn't work for me at all, and I need a new cross-platform note taking app (Evernote?). Alternatively, 950XL doesn't work for me any more and I need a new phone ...

 

[TechFreak1]

If anything it sounds like a backend migration issue and should resolve itself however the best thing to do is keep providing feedback through the feedback app. As well through social media should you wish to shine more light on this issue as I imagine it is affecting certain regions only therefore a cluster of users are impacted.

Narun, as an alternative maybe try wunderlist?

 

[rollindice]

how much photos are they really in that particular note? i'm guessing it's pretty big, i'm wondering if you can resize it dropping the resolution whereby cutting down on on file size then adding to the notebook,i don't use much photos in my notes but the ones i've used i've had to resize, it's been a while since i've had to add pics so i'm trying to remember name of app that i used to resize, then i placed those specific files in a specific folder then added it.i'm awaitng my 950 XL since i've just purchased it from recent BOGO sale ,giving wife to be my 950, but i've done it on my 950 before.

 

[Narun]

Photos are around 4-5 mb each. Not unusually large in size. And if OneNote has a problem with uploading at all then something is wrong with it. We should not be forced to downsize our photos.

 

[anthonyng]

Shot in the dark... maybe because of the size it's timing out... I have no idea if it would help but since the onedrive app knows your recent documents, maybe it's used to help with syncing as well. Try to goto battery app and set One drive to Always allow in the background?

It would also be interesting to know if you never let the onenote app out of focus or screen to time out to see if it ever fully sync.

 

[mtf1380]

Here is the summary of the situation for me.
- Syncing text-only pages works fine with no delay or interruption
- Syncing pages with up to 3 pictures take at least half an hour in a small notebook
- In larger photo-intensive notebooks, it is almost impossible to complete the sync process
- If you create a notebook or page on 950XL with photos, it's almost impossible to sync it up to the cloud.
- Between the cloud and my SP3, there is no problem with either small or large notebooks.

In all, I can see this in two ways - first, OneNote doesn't work for me at all, and I need a new cross-platform note taking app (Evernote?). Alternatively, 950XL doesn't work for me any more and I need a new phone ...

Again, I have the exact same issues, and have had them for "months". I also agree that Onenote is not living up to its purpose...having your information on ALL your devices, at all times.

I have been SO embarrassed, on many occasions, not being able to answer a customers question immediately, because the information cannot not be synced to, nor accessed from, my 950XL...so, even though I have the information needed on Onenote, I cannot access it - I NEVER had a problem with my L920, go figure. Another gripe "that I have", is that I cannot move Onenote from the device - with limited storage - to my 200GB SD card. Very disappointing...for me, it is to the point where I don't use Onenote when travelling anymore.

I have been giving feed back for 2 months now on this issue, and the problem's still there still, after every update.

I would have bought the Surface Studio by now, but their is NO WAY I am going to spend 4K+ on another bug infested device, just no way!

 

[mtf1380]

This problem had been around for OVER 3 months!

http://forums.windowscentral.com/as...-notes-onenote-never-sync-up.html#post3553719

 

[TennisGuy45]

I'm using OneNote daily on my 640 running Win10 slow ring.

It is working wonderfully with no issues. I did notice one time it did not sync properly but I think I discovered a trick to get it to sync.

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.

Doing this has ensured a sync everytime.

My wife and I are sharing xmas lists across my win 10 phone, her android phone, the onenote web client, and onenote on my surface pro.
No issues whatsoever!