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OneNote opens notebook, then after a short period forces read-only mode.

Anonymous
2022-01-11T17:56:16+00:00

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY. THIS IS NOT THE SAME PROBLEM I KEEP FINDING WHEN I SEARCH FOR IT.

I like to use OneNote for note taking. OneNote itself works fine, and I see no issues. I open a file and begin editing and initially there are no issues so far as I can tell. Maybe a bit slow, but I am using an under-powered laptop.

After a short period where I can add add section groups, sections, and pages just as normal, OneNote then decides to display the error on empty sections

Once this error is present, I can no longer create new subsections or subsection groups, but I can still take notes and add pages to existing sections and I can add new sections and section groups to the base of the notebook. I cannot add sections to to existing section groups. I cannot create new (sub-)section groups. I cannot rename existing section groups, subsection groups, and sections. I cannot rename existing section groups.** It is as though OneNote decides to partially lock the ability to edit certain aspects of a notebook. The notebook still syncs changes to the files as normal. OneNote still allows me to write and draw as normal.

If I try to move a section to one of these "read-only" groups, then I see this:

The only known fix:

THE ONLY FIX I HAVE FOUND IS TO CLOSE AND REOPEN THE NOTEBOOK. THIS WORKS FOR ~30 SECONDS BEFORE ONENOTE DECIDES THAT SUDDENLY I CAN'T USE ONENOTE.

A kinda fix:

I can open the file explorer and create the files and folders that I need. OneNote has no problem with this, but won't do it itself. (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

This all occurs

  • even if I restart
    • onenote
    • google drive (which is the file syncing program I am using to sync my notebook across devices)
    • my computer
  • even if I close google drive so that it's not active when I reopen the notebook
  • even if I change the file settings so that the files are not read-only
  • even if I uninstall and reinstall
  • even if I open OneNote as an admin
  • even if I open the notebook from a new location
  • even if I log into office from a different account.

PS - I can't get my surface to stop autorotating and disabling the keyboard when I pick up the surface to readjust myself or the computer.

EDIT: Upon further investigation it may be related to the fact that the notebook is currently stored on an external MicroSD card (which is for all intents and purposes superglued to my machine) instead of the local disk. Not sure how or why that would affect this.

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneNote | For education | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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  1. Anonymous
    2022-02-01T18:41:27+00:00

    I Should note that this applies to two devices, both concurrently and separately having the same issue. **THIS IS NOT AND NEVER WAS A DRIVER ISSUE, DEVICE ISSUE, OR PERMISSIONS ISSUE.**THIS IS A ONENOTE ISSUE.

    PLEASE ADVISE

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  2. Anonymous
    2022-01-11T18:20:33+00:00

    TO MAKE IT CLEAR

    THIS OCCURS even if I close Google Drive so that it's not active when I reopen the notebook OR when I disable Google Drive and restart so that Google Drive was never running to begin with.

    THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GOOGLE DRIVE.

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  3. Anonymous
    2022-01-12T20:12:52+00:00

    I put both the folder that the NoteBook was in in my internal documents on my device, uninstalled and reinstalled google drive, and ran OneNote with and without Google Drive running and the same issue occurs.

    Now there is no SD card involved in this. Aside from a slight increase in certain caching behavior, slightly speeding up my writing, I have not seen any change. I still must manually close and reopen the notebook to "fix" the problem.

    The problem still persists.

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  4. Anonymous
    2022-01-11T19:29:00+00:00

    This occurs even if google drive does not have concurrent access to the files. These files that need be sunk, are small and quickly read and transmitted. Even for the larger files that I have (a few megabytes), I am able to simultaneously create dozens of changes and OneNote has no problem syncing these changes to the file in use (EVEN IF GOOGLE DRIVE SUNK THE FILE SECONDS AGO). If I suddenly decide to move the same file to a new folder, 'suddenly' OneNote cares about read-only file permissions.

    saving=syncing

    OneNote likes to save any changes to a cache file, then wait a period and saves them to the true file. It operates extremely similarly to word in this regard.

    So OneNote cares, but only about something that has nothing to do with me.

    Also, Google Drive does not require permanent access to a given file, just long enough to read the file without having the file be corrupted by random changes the user made. This takes a mere moment to accomplish and does not permanently lock the files or folders as OneNote is essentially asserting.

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  5. Anonymous
    2022-01-11T18:13:18+00:00

    Short answer:

    Using another cloud than OneDrive is error prone and at your own risk.

    This is not a marketing driven statement (I'm not working for Microsoft), this is a technical statement, based on the fact that the sync procedures of Google Drive and OneNote are more or less incompatible depending on the way you use OneNote.

    You see the result.

    Suggestion: don't use Google Drive (or Dropbox or ....)

    Bernd

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