OneNote won’t sync

Question

“Please refresh this notebook to continue syncing” click “Refresh Now” and get never ending spinning wheel saying “closing notebook”. iPad. iOS 16.7.12

Glad to update OneNote but app store says I am up to date. Sync works on surface and iPhone.

Answer 1

Hey,

I get how annoying it can be when something just won’t sync, especially when it works fine everywhere else.

What’s happening here is that OneNote on your iPad is likely stuck trying to close or refresh a notebook that’s either too large, has a corrupted sync state, or hit a snag during a recent update.

Since your iPad’s running iOS 16.7.12 and the App Store says OneNote is up to date, the issue probably isn’t the app version itself.

First, try force quitting OneNote and restarting your iPad, sometimes that’s all it takes to clear a stuck process.

If that doesn’t help, sign out of your Microsoft account in OneNote, then sign back in to reset the sync connection.

If it still spins endlessly, you might need to delete and reinstall the app, but only if you’ve confirmed your notes are safe on your Surface or iPhone.

Just to narrow things down, is this happening with one specific notebook or all of them?

And do you recall if anything changed recently, like a big file added or a rename?

Let me know and I’ll help you dig deeper.

Regards, Aron

Answer 2

Thank you for the reply. I went a step further based on the confidence I had from your response and backed up everything to iCloud, did a factory reset and restored everything BUT One Note. I downloaded the app again, logged on to my OneDrive and everything was there and syncs with other devices. It took a bit of time (mostly hands off) but I am back up and running. I appreciate your knowledge