Can't Delete OneNote Section

Question

I'm somewhat more advanced that a Novice ... I think ... and I can't delete a certain single section of one of my Notebooks (note: I have Windows 10, Office 365, use OneNote 2016 on Desktop, and back up to OneDrive).

I can't get Notebook A to sych and I can't delete one of my sections to make things work / synch.

I've isolated the problem to one Section "Allen" in Notebook A. This "Allen" Section in Notebook A was password protected. I removed that password protection (which may or may not be relevant here). Then I tried to delete this Section Allen on my Desktop, which didn't work. I tried to delete it, then it disappears, and then it returns.

That Section is duplicated in Notebook B on the Desktop with the same "Allen" name / Section. In Notebook B the "Allen" section opens / works fine. So, I don't need the "Allen" Section in Notebook A, which is why I'm trying to get rid of it, along with the fact that it's causing a synch problems with OneDrive.

When I go to OneDrive and try to delete or open "Allen", I get the error message "we couldn't open this section"; so, I can't open, or move, or delete, or merge that "Allen" Section to anywhere else. So, I'm stuck. It seems (I'm guessing here) that when I try to delete Allen Section on my Desktop, it gets restored because it synchs with the OneDrive Allen Section (that I can't get rid of .... either). It almost seems as if I can't delete it on Desktop because it syching with OneDrive, and I can't delete on OneDrive because it's synching with Desktop ... I'm just not sure. It seems that maybe I need to break the synching lynch ... but I'm not sure how to do this.

I've gone to Explorer / Windows file manager to delete the .one file, and that didn't work either.

Any hints on how to solve this problem would be much appreciated. 

Thanks in advance.

***Changed Office Product by the moderator***

Answer 1

Hi,

Thank you for posting your query on Microsoft Office Community.

Let's try following steps and check if it helps.

1. Open OneNote and go to FILE>View Synch Status.
2. Select Sync Manually.
3. Now go delete the section which is causing issue. Then again go to FILE>View Synch Status and click on Sync Now button infront the Notebook A

Reply with the result and I'll be happy to help you further.

Thank you.

Answer 2

Hi Madeleine

I put each syncing notebook to manual sync. Individually deleted the section and emptied the recycle bin in each notebook, then let them sync. That removed the offending section permanently. 

Paul

Answer 3

I have the same problem and have been searching for an answer. I think I need to switch off then delete all the backups on each Synchronised PC. I then need to close all the notebooks all all pcs except one, delete the offending sections, sync, then shut the notebook down. Delete the cache on all the pcs and then reopen. 

Let me know your thoughts.

Answer 4

This worked but as soon as I re-synced it, the offending tab showed up again!

Answer 5

When I switched to synching manually,  I was able to delete the the "offending" section (which had been identified earlier as the problem).  That seems to be the key to solving the problem. At that point, though, I only had the one Notebook that wasn't synching. So, I thought my problem would be solved when I deleted the offending Section. Then I went back and manually re-synched all of my Notebooks. Then all Notebooks started showing the red "X". However, there are lots of pages, and it took a while to synch everything (after I had performed a lot of file maintenance, page and section merges, etc.;  bottom line, all my Notebooks are now synched, except for one Notebook, which is a very big Notebook. So, all is good, especially because this was a good learning experience. Thanks for your help.