"OneNote needs a password to sync this notebook. Click here to enter your password"

Question

"OneNote needs a password to sync this notebook. Click here to enter your password"

I installed ONE NOTE yesterday and today it does not want to sync...

It is asking for a password, but it does not even display a window where to enter it....

I have been trying everything to address this problem, I am getting extremely frustrated and feeling like switching back to dropbox now...

Thierry

Answer 1

SOLVED!

here we go:

Microsoft creates a Cache user for your notebooks to be available in offline mode. 

This hoses your Onenote when opening the program again out of sleep mode.  

Onenote is looking to the Cached user for credentials and there are none. 

So when it tries to Authenticate and you keep clicking on enter password it will never sign in.  

Close Onenote and Go to

Control Panel

>User Accounts and Family Safety in Category view

(or Manage Accounts in Icon View)

>Credential Manager

>Windows Credentials

>There you will see the Cached users,

they are usually labeled as MicrosoftOffice15_Data:Live:cid=some set of numbers. 

Delete those users as for every cached notebook there will be a cached user. 

Once you have deleted those user open Onenote and enter the password for your live account. 

It will connect and you will be able to sync your notebooks again.

Answer 2

In case others have the issue I had:

I had this same symptom, only when I clicked the "Click here to enter your password" link, the link simply disappeared, without any login dialog appearing.

Here's how I resolved: I deleted the Office credentials in Credential Manager per the instructions above. Then, in order to log in again, I clicked on my login email address where it shows at top right in OneNote, then "Account Settings", then Sign out of OneNote. Once I was signed out, I could click Sign In to sign back in again, and at that point my notebooks synced correctly again. I'm in Windows 8.1 on Parallels Desktop on a Mac, with Office 2016.

Answer 3

I appreciate your response, and it does in fact correct the issue for me.  The problem is that the situation happens again several days later.  I haven't nailed down the specific conditions that cause the problem to recur, but it invariably does.

Have you seen similar behavior?

Answer 4

This is fix, but only temporary. I have to do this most days and have done for months. It's about time Microsoft addressed the underlying cause.

Answer 5

Glad to know you fixed the issue. Thank you for sharing the resolution, as this would help other members of the community facing the same issue.