OneNote Class Notebook Folder Naming and Synchronisation Issues

[JonnyAlpha]

Hi,

 

Odd issue came up today, I have created new Teams for all of our Year groups (as I have done every year for the past 5 or so years).

All of the relavant staff have been added as Owners. Along with this I have created thier Teams Class Notebooks.

In our Mixed Year 3 / 4 Team (3 classes) we have around 5 teachers and 5 TAs. Today all of the Teachers were in working on this years planning and all had OneNote open in some form (Teams, Web, Desktop).

One user was moving pages from an old Team, 2023-24, using the Desktop app move / copy pages function when she encountered an error.

 

Apparently whenever she tried to copy the relevant pages into a specific Section / Folder in the Teacher Only Section, it would not copy them and dropped them straight in a Missplaced Section, which has now caused the OneNote to stop synchronising.

 

On looking at the OneNote on her device, all of the curriculum folders (Science / PSHE etc) which were created when I setup the new Class Notebook using a pre made template, her folders had all been renamed with the suffix '2', e.g. 'SCIENCE 2', whereas the original was simply 'SCIENCE'.

 

When looking at the Team on my Laptop (Teams and Desktop) they were still called SCIENCE without the suffix, probably because it had not sychronised.

 

Eventually other teachers versions started to show the suffix.

 

My thoughts are that between the member of staff copying the OneNote Pages, something has automatically changed the name of all of the sections and when OneNote attempted to paste the new pages, it could not (because the name had changed) and it dumped them into a Missplaced section.

 

I tried renaming the folders, but it automatically changed the name back to the folder name with the 2 suffix.

 

What on Earth caused this and how should we go about fixing it.

 

How do you deal with missplaced pages?

 

Many thanks for any expert help

  

[simpsonj]

Just to bump this thread a little as I'm having similar issues with Class Notebooks and Teams. Ours are synced directly from Bromcom, but this year it's been an absolute mess. 

 

I wonder whether this script would help (it has been mentioned a few times on Edugeek):

 

MS Teams - Cant Create Class Notebook "Something Went Wrong" | Cloud Services

 

But I don't really know what I'm doing to use that script effectively!

 

But, like the OP, lots of my staff now have hundreds of Misplaced Sections, and I don't know how to get rid of these in bulk. 

[simpsonj]

To answer my own question, the best way to clear the Misplaced Section that I've found is to move the OneNote Cache:

 

Important note - This will wipe all local versions of the OneNotes stored on the laptop so ensure all OneNotes are synced beforehand. I also recommend backking up the Notebooks as well

 

Open Onenote - File - Options

Save & Backup

- Optional click Back Up All Notebooks Now

Cache file location - Modify

Create a new folder on the C:\ Drive "OneNoteCache" or similar

Select - OK - Restart Onenote

 

 

 

[JonnyAlpha]

Do you mean you are creating Teams automatically using Bromcom? Are you using an intermediate piece of software such as Salamander?

 

I have now been told by our off site IT Sp that the OneNote issue is a new problem that Microsoft are aware of and they have a ticket open. Not heard back yet and its been two weeks - getting some frustrated teachers 😞

 

[Cardinal98]

Just bumping this thread as we are also experiencing a myriad of problems with OneNote this term too!

 

Initially we had problems with Teams not generating notebooks on creation. I'd say this affected around 75% of the auto-generated Teams (we also use Salamander). This problem I believe has been rectified for most staff, although did flood our Helpdesk at the beginning of September.

 

Since then, we've had problems with some staff not being able to distribute pages, some students not receiving the distributed work, staff not being able to mark students work as the changes don't sync correctly and then the pages they have marked get placed in the 'misplaced sections' section...

 

It's really been relentless this year - worse than any year we've had before anyhow. It'd be helpful if Microsoft had a more concrete timeline that we could communicate to staff, although I appreciate that's not how these things tend to work. Frustrating regardless! 😬

[simpsonj]

It's been an utter pain. 

 

Another workaround that might help is to use the old ClassNotebook plugin for Onenote. Staff may need to recreate their sections to be able to distribute properly, but I have found this method to be far more reliable:

 

1. Close all open instances of OneNote
2. Navigate to OneNote Class Notebook 
3. Click Download the Class Notebook Add-In
4. Once downloaded, run the ClassNotebook.Setup.exe file
5. Tick to agree the Terms and Conditions and click install
6. Open OneNote - File - Options
7. Under General, Untick 'Enable Class Notebook'
8. Click OK then close OneNote
9. Reopen OneNote and distribute a page as normal
   1. You may need to recreate your sections if the add-in doesn't recognise the existing ones
10. Please note using the old add-in will add all distributed pages as 'Open Pages' at the bottom of your OneNotes. These are safe to delete once the page has been distributed

[simpsonj]

12 hours ago, JonnyAlpha said:

Do you mean you are creating Teams automatically using Bromcom? Are you using an intermediate piece of software such as Salamander?

 

Direct from Bromcom, no intermediate software required.

[Cardinal98]

5 minutes ago, simpsonj said:

It's been an utter pain. 

 

Another workaround that might help is to use the old ClassNotebook plugin for Onenote. Staff may need to recreate their sections to be able to distribute properly, but I have found this method to be far more reliable:

 

1. Close all open instances of OneNote
2. Navigate to OneNote Class Notebook 
3. Click Download the Class Notebook Add-In
4. Once downloaded, run the ClassNotebook.Setup.exe file
5. Tick to agree the Terms and Conditions and click install
6. Open OneNote - File - Options
7. Under General, Untick 'Enable Class Notebook'
8. Click OK then close OneNote
9. Reopen OneNote and distribute a page as normal
   1. You may need to recreate your sections if the add-in doesn't recognise the existing ones
10. Please note using the old add-in will add all distributed pages as 'Open Pages' at the bottom of your OneNotes. These are safe to delete once the page has been distributed

Thanks for this! - I will give it a go.

[simpsonj]

Oh, and another weird work around.

 

If staff open up their Team, and click on Class Notebook and it says 'We're still setting up your class. Please check back soon' Click on General under Main Channels - then click on Files - wait for a minute or two, then click on Class Notebook again and it should work.