OneNote cannot merge changes

Question

I'm new to OneNote.  Using OneNote 2016 from Office 365.

I have some pages in a OneNote section with opposing red arrows inside yellow diamonds and a warning at the top "We couldn't merge some changes.  Click here to see page version with ..."  When I click there, it says, "Conflicting changes are highlighted in red.  You can copy and paste them into the main page.  when you're done, delete the conflict page...."

Except that doesn't help.  Yes, I can cut and paste the subpage to the highest level in the section.  And I can delete the original page.  But the yellow diamond and the error message just go with the page to the new location.

Obviously, I don't understand the instructions.  There must be some alternate interpretation of the instructions that is obvious to everyone but me.

So I'll appreciate it if someone can rephrase the instructions.  Maybe I'll understand them then.

Answer 1

Hello Jay,

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

To resolve this issue we need some information. Let us know the following.

1. Where are your OneNote notebooks/data saved to?
2. Are you syncing your OneNote Notebooks online to some location – like OneDrive? Where are you syncing your information?

This is an error which occurs when you are not able to sync your OneNote notebooks or sections/part of the notebooks to OneDrive or any other location online.

To resolve the issue create a new OneNote section. Copy and paste the contents from the section which does not sync and gives this error. Paste the contents copied to the new section. Then delete the section which is not syncing and giving the error and finally rename the newly created section. Check if this step resolves the issue.

You may also refer to the following Microsoft Article for additional reference about OneNote sync and issues with OneNote syncing:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Fix-issues-when-you-can-t-sync-OneNote-299495ef-66d1-448f-90c1-b785a6968d45

Let us know if you need any other information.

Thank you.