OneNote issues

[HCHTech]

It was bound to happen eventually, I found the one person that has loved and used OneNote since 2003.

This is a residential customer with a home-based business. I'm replacing her circa 2012 computer. She had Office 2010 (and 2003 on a previous computer). There are 1.5GB of OneNote files in hundreds of folders, organized under about 7 top-level folders.

So, I have multiple copies of the "live" OneNote files from the 2010 installation. The old computer still boots and runs fine, there is a local backup on an external hard drive, and an online backup on Backblaze. I also decided to make a backup from within the 2010 install of OneNote as that would probably be easier to restore into 2019.

Roadblock #1 - When trying to run a backup in OneNote 2010, "Some files were created in an older version of Onenote and cannot be backed up until converted". We won't tell you which ones they are, but if you open each folder individually, you'll get a prompt to upgrade. So, I grind through that job and get a set of 3 backup files, the file, a local cache and one other.

Roadblock #2 - OneNote 2019 will only use online files. There is no choice and the help file contains a link to a Microsoft note basically saying - "Tough luck - if this causes you to look for another solution, we understand." Ugh. I cannot find a way to restore the 2010 backup into 2019, but you can open a local file, which will give you an immediate prompt to upload it to OneDrive. So, make sure I'm logged into OneDrive with the same Microsoft Account used by OneNote 2019,I select the 7 top-level folders and agree to the upload. This takes you back to the main OneNote screen, and you can see the folders, but you can't view any content yet because it hasn't synced. Ok, time to wait.

Roadblock #3 - 2 hours later, none of the files are viewable yet, you just get the "hasn't synced yet" message in the window. No status bar, no percentage complete, just wait. 2 hours later, no change. If you look at the OneDrive folder, you can see 1kb shortcut files for the folders, and if you click on them, it opens a new tab in a browser to open the folder, but the message is "this file was created by another computer and hasn't finished syncing yet'. Four hours total and no evidence that there are any errors or any progress.

We have fast FIOS internet at the shop, so I don't think the problem is our internet connection - more likely a cap on how fast OneDrive will accept info - but I'm suspicious that it's not really working.

I'm close to installing OneNote 2010 on the damned computer and letting them continue to use it like before, but I know that's not the real solution.

Has anyone gone through a 2010 to 2019 conversion before that might have some guidance on the process?

 

[Markverhyden]

Hmmm.... Thinking about retirement moving in the next year or two? Then maybe installing 2010 is the route to go.....

Seriously though. I've found many of these cloud things to have very serious indigestion problems with huge quantities of files, both in quantity and size. I'd kill it and start all over again with creating the root folders in the cloud then very small batches slowly working my way up. Another thing I'd do, if this really was that complicated, would be to explain to the customer the problem and that for you to do it all would cost a lot more than them. Give them the clear steps. Also make sure that you have good backups.

 

[HCHTech]

I think the problem is there are two many notes that were "upgraded" from 2003 to 2010, and now 2019 format. Even manually uploading the notebooks to onedrive didn't help - The 2019 program doesn't give you the ability to browse to open a file, when you click on the "more notebooks" link, it give you a pre-populated list of notebooks it found that you can open, and if the one you want isn't on that list, there doesn't appear to be anything you can do about it.

I wasted a few more hours trying various things (the sync errors mostly boil down to "old format - no go"), and finally I found the "I give up, just give me OneNote 2016" link on the office.com site, downloaded it and it's mostly working. 2016 is the last version that will open a local file, so there we are. Even 2016 has problems with some of the older folders, but they haven't been edited since 2009, so fixing those is going to be homework for the owner.

I hope it's 15 more years before I find another OneNote devotee, what a mess.

 

[Markverhyden]

Good to hear you can hand if back now.

 

[HCHTech]

Just a postscript - This problem was kind of the perfect storm of incompatibilities. OneNote 2010, which was the current version when the computer that is now being replaced was purchased, did not require that you "upgrade" the old-format notes. It allowed you to open them, and displayed a banner across the top offering the upgrade of that particular note, but did not require it. This allowed notes that were created in OneNote 2003 and OneNote 2007 to stay in their old formats and still be used.

Also, the customer never upgraded Office during the lifetime of their computer (not unusual). Now, all these years later, problems had crept into the file that prevented those old notes from being upgraded (even when opened in OneNote 2010). This stopped the upload process (during which OneNote 2019 converts the notes to 2019 format), which effectively prevented the use of OneNote 2019. There was also no ability to identify the problem notes in any way other than manually opening them and trying the upgrade, so there was no way to efficiently address the problem.

Because there is no "repair" functionality or tool available, we were stuck. At least 2016 will open most of their notes - they have a lot of homework ahead of them, and, 6 years to find another product if they don't do that homework.

This education cost me several unbillable hours, but at least I know, now - I hope this saves someone else some time at least.

 

[fencepost]

The next question would be: once they're in 2016 and cleaned up, can they then be converted to online? And is the client OK with doing that?