OneNote Android can't open notebook that works fine on web

Question

Notebook opens and syncs correctly on OneNote for the web (onenote.com) — confirmed on both PC and phone browsers. However, the same notebook fails to open on OneNote native app on multiple different Android devices (fresh installs, different accounts tested unaffected), with error "Sorry, we couldn't open the notes that you were looking for." Cleared cache/data, reinstalled, checked account type, checked folder naming/location — none of these apply. Attempted to re-add the notebook via "More Notebooks" on Android; content appears fine there, but the notebook subsequently disappeared from OneNote on Windows desktop (Win10 app) and could not be re-added via File > Open Notebook. Notebook data confirmed intact and accessible via web. Need help identifying whether this is a sync-state corruption on the server side.

Answer 1

Hello Trung Hoàng

Thank you for providing the detailed troubleshooting information.

Since the notebook opens correctly in OneNote for the web with its latest content, your data appears to remain available in the cloud. However, because this particular notebook fails in the Android app on multiple devices and has also disappeared from the Windows notebook list, this is unlikely to be a normal cache or installation issue.

Please avoid reinstalling the app or moving or renaming the notebook again for now. In OneNote for Android, open More Notebooks > View Sync Errors and check whether a complete error code is displayed.

As one final isolation test, you can create a temporary notebook in OneNote for the web and copy one section from the affected notebook into it. If the temporary notebook opens correctly on Android, the issue is likely limited to the original notebook’s synchronization or notebook-discovery state.

Feel free reply back to this post and update me on this issue, I'll be happy to help.