Cannot access OneNote Notebooks

Question

Hello,

I have problems accessing at least 2 notebooks on OneNote. None of these are shared and I am the administrator.

All was fine until one day I started seeing 'This item might not exist or is no longer available'.

The corresponding OneDrive folder is also empty.

I can see the notebooks in the list but cannot access them or their contents.

Identical behavior on onenote.com as well as the application (Version 16.9 (180116)).

Thanks in anticipation!

Answer 1

Hi Manjusha,

That is part of my problem, how did the notebooks get deleted. Even if I accidentally deleted 2 notebooks, they should be in the recycle bin. It almost seems they completed disappeared. I am not sure how to get to the second recycle bin.

Could it have something to with that fact that some path names were changed sometime last year? A '^' was introduced or removed.

I lost access to not just one, but 2 notebooks with one year of content.

Thank you!

Nishant

Answer 2

Hi Rena,

Let me give you an example.

One of the notebooks I am trying to access is called 'Personal'

I see that in the Notebook list on OneNote Online

Clicking on 'Personal' gives me the following error

On OneDrive, the File > Documents folder does not contain 'Personal'

I see identical behavior on OneNote for Mac, except for the error message.

I can very well access notebooks created recently, 'Temp' for example.

Thanks!

Nishant

Answer 3

Hi Nishant,

I am from the OneNote team.

The notebooks that you are seeing may be from the "Recent" tab on the notebook list and have been deleted from your OneDrive. Unfortunately, the "Recent" documents is not refreshed very frequently. However, if you go to the Office 365 landing page, you will see those notebooks in Recent documents list. If you remove it from this list, you will not see them on our notebook list

Thanks and let me know!

Answer 4

Hi Nishant,

Have you tried any steps above?

Thanks,

Rena

Answer 5

Hi Nishant,

To narrow down the issue you have, please provide us the information below:

1. For “The corresponding OneDrive folder is also empty”, do you mean the “notebooks” folder? Does the empty folder issue only happen to this folder? What about other folders or items in your OneDrive for Business?
2. Is there any notebook you still can access but not existing in the empty folder?
3. For ”I can see the notebooks in the list”, which list do you refer to? Do you mean the list in OneNote for Mac desktop client when you try to open a notebook? Or do you mean the notebooks which you have opened before in your OneNote for Mac desktop client?
4. If the notebooks you have opened before in your OneNote for Mac desktop client, does the 'This item might not exist or is no longer available' appear here? Please provide us the screenshot about the error message.
5. Right click the notebook > Copy link to notebook > paste the link into browser to see if you can access the notebook with this URL directly.

In the meantime, please go to your OneDirve Online > recycle bin or second-stage recycle bin to see if there's any notebooks there.

Your admin also can use Search the audit log in the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center to check if there’s any strange actions in your OneDrive for Business site. This is also a troubleshooting step for this issue. As the error message and issue seems like the notebooks are not existing for some reason. When you use the Audit log, type your alias in the “File folder, or site” text box, for example: if the user account is ******@contoso.com, you can type user1 in the text box, this audit log system will automatically search actions from the user1’s OneDrive for Business site.

Thanks,

Rena