OneNote contents gone

I've been on chat iwth Microsoft about this and I've posted the problem before, but still no solution.
I log on to Windows One note as per normal. All seems OK; my notebook appears (Allan's Notebook) along with the contents, but only briefly and greyed out; then disappears. I have two stage log in enabled where the log in is enabled by Authy code (six number code). All appears normal, but it just will not load completely; just greyed out contents for a second and gone. There are files on there that I would relly like to get access to.
They are not in backup on One drive. They are obviously there, but won't stay visible.

Caledon Ken said:

Have you tried disabling two stage authentication?


Usually with two step verification you use an app password. Not sure about OneNote. Did MS discuss with you?

I did not try that and can't see how it would change anything as I am signed on, but it's worth a try; thank you. My chat with them didn't solve anything and she didn't suggest yours. I'l try it now.
I removed it; logged out and back in.
Nope didn't work; my notebook appears in greyed out mode for one second or so and disappears.
My two step verification with MS was covered by an app called authy which gave me a six digit code.

Caledon Ken said:

Do you have a second device you could use? (Isolate whether it is device or account specific).

Have any updates been recently applied to your Office products?

Yes I have a PC with W10 and linux Mint, plus a laptop with Linux Mint and Fedora and an Android phone. The Android has the One note app. Windows 10 of course has it. On the others it's a matter of logging in via the browser, which has always worked in the past. It still does; just doesn't hold on to the briefly displayed notebook. I'm not aware of updates. I don't use Windows very much; I'm 90% Linux.

Caledon Ken said:

Are you using an MS account to log into Windows?

If so is it verified? You can see if an MS account is verified by going into Account in settings. It will say verified as part of the page titled "Your info" very close to your MS id.

Click Start > Settings > Update and security > on right, view update history. Check each heading.



Then I would also ask is all the maintenance applied to Office. Start an Office app like Word, click on blank document, click File, click Account, on right Office updates. Update Now.

Thanks, I'll try all that later on; gotta head for the gym. Actually though I'm sure I'm logged into Windows account. I just re-installed same and signed in with my MS log in plus code..

I don't know if I am going to be able to help, as I don't normally use Onenote - I tried it some time ago, and got confused - I preferred Word. However, a while back there was some discussion (may have been in the old Windows Secrets forum) about where the on-line vn of Onenote stores its files, and how to back them up, so at the time I created an on-line file to test (can't recall what I found out about file locations!). My first thought was that you should try to get a local copy of your notebook (nb) as soon as possible, as it is possibly corrupted, and won't get better on its own, so...

Before I continue, I should point out that your photo shows you have OneDrive open, not OneNote as you wrote. Was that a typo? Assuming so, I logged on to OneDrive, and there is my single notebook file:

Aha! I can download it - but when I select it, the download option disappears:

I'm sure this makes sense to MS, but not me. I could not find any helpful rt-click options (move and copy only seem to work within on-line folders), nor was there any obvious option when I opened it (in OneNote online). So then I wondered if you had opened the file from OneNote (even if the photo suggested otherwise), so I logged in to that, from some link on the OneDrive page:

and there is my file:

and now a rt-click allows me to export the file - which appears as a .zip in my downloads folder. This may be of some use to you (and may not be news, of course). Note that in the course of doing this, another zip appeared in my downloads: documents.zip - which turned out to contain all the files in my OneDrive docs folder (all one of them, my nb). So it turns out the download button available in OneDrive before one selects a file can save all your docs at once.

You may wonder at the point of this, but it seems to me you have more chance of recovering the data in the file if you have a copy on your PC, and not just in the cloud. If you did have Office installed, then you could then try to open the file with OneNote-from-Office (that is an on-line rt-click option when OneNote is installed) - can you copy the file to a PC with Office, perhaps a friend's? There are also on-line recovery options (not free, of course), but you have to upload the file, so need your own copy to start.

PS Ignore this last pic - I risk losing any of the above if I try to delete it!