OneNote Windows 10 app sync issues and missing offline files

Question

I have been using OneNote since its inception, and it's an important part of my work life.  I'm trying to sync my offline notebook from the One Note app (Windows 10) and I was unable to sync to OneDrive. It looks like it has been months since my data synced to the cloud, but I didn't expect any issues. I was unable to get the sync initiated, so I tried several things to fix it, including signing out of my user profile and signing back in, this is where the real problems begin. 

When I signed back in to my user profile, all of my notebook sections were moved under "misplaced sections" and I was half way through moving them all back into the appropriate folder when the OneNote app crashed.  When I opened the app again, the misplaced notebooks were gone, and only the notebook containing the sections I was able to move before the crash were there.  I'm missing a significant portion of my data.  

I tried locating the cache files and moving them into the 2016 app, but the same problem exists.

Is there any way to recover the missing files? I tried checking in the deleted files in the app, and there is nothing there.

I tried the steps on the following threads:

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

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/find-my-lost-notes-32cb2bd7-afe7-44d2-a711-398a88421287#version=onenote_for_windows_10

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/where-are-the-onenote-app-local-files-stored-in/f1239934-eeaf-4465-ab4c-73e3ae42c743?page=1

https://support.office.com/en-ie/article/export-and-import-onenote-notebooks-a4b60da5-8f33-464e-b1ba-b95ce540f309

Is there a temporary file store somewhere that I could find the missing misplaced sections?

Answer 1

Hi DBDanielle,

Thanks for posting the question on our forum.

I am sorry about the issue caused the inconvenience for you, I could understand your feeling.

As the file stored on OneDrive, we only store the cache of notebook on computer, the cache can’t restore the notebook.

I would like to help you, but after you re-sign into you account, it will reopen the notebook, the editing wasn’t saved, we can’t restore it if the editing didn’t sync to notebook.

Besides, to prevent data losing, I suggest you sync notebook every time after you edit the notebook.

If meet the sync issue, backup the editing, then try narrowing down the issue.

Thanks for your understanding.

Qing

Answer 2

And this is why it's important to be able to have a local sync/backup. I changed account types and lost all access to my previous notebooks.

They show up as a notebook in the list of notebooks, just to taunt me I think.

Good luck, but I doubt you will ever recover them, like mine gone but not forgotten.

Gene