Microsoft OneNote Mobile Sync Error

My first PDA was a Palm III in 2000. I liked the way I could use it to keep my life (relatively) straight. One of the things I came to rely on was the Notes feature. I used it along with Outlook Notes to sync miscellaneous data back and forth. I kept a list of movies, books, CDs, and other information of varying importance. I stayed with the Palm platform until I started at my current company and got a Windows Mobile phone. One thing I quickly learned was that many Windows Mobile devices did not have the Notes application (including of course, my phone). I then discovered that OneNote Mobile allowed for the same functionality. I used it heavily, and grew to love it. The Palm notes app didn’t allow me to take a photo and add it to a note.

Then my OneNote bliss was shattered. In the middle of a meeting in March, I lost my OneNote Mobile notebook in the OneNote Windows Vista Application. I still had the old notes on the phone, but my ability to add and edit notes and transfer them to my phone was lost. This issue was the proverbial cobbler’s shoes. I worked on it when I had time, which has been little. Plus I never seemed to get any good information.

I have always hated the troubleshooting issues on mobile platforms because the solutions were always guessing. Delete partnerships, reset factory settings, basically starting from scratch. The proposed solutions here were no different. I finally fixed it, so I will share it with you. I’ll tell you the two errors and what I did.

I run Vista so ActiveSync is now Windows Mobile Device Center. I also run Windows Mobile 6 on a BlackJack. The two errors were found in Sync Manager.

The first was a “Sync Failed” message. Even if I took OneNote out of the equation, I was still getting this message.

Once I fixed error #1, error #2 appeared: “Microsoft Office OneNote: Attention Required”

First, I’ll tell you what I did that didn’t fix it:

• Deleted and recreated the partnership between Windows Mobile Device Center (WDMC) in vista and the phone
• Reset the phone to factory defaults
• Uninstall/reinstall OneNote on the mobile phone.
• Recreate the Windows Mobile OneNote notebook.

Now onto the solutions:

Error #1: “Sync Failed” in WMDC

Fix #1: Uninstall the phone in Device Manager and remove/reload the driver. (All apologies to whoever posted this solution – I’d link to you if I could find the post again.)

Error #2: “Microsoft Office OneNote: Attention Required”

    Fix #2: Run a repair of Office 2007 Enterprise. (If you have OneNote installed separately, repair OneNote.) When I ran this, the problem immediately was fixed. Based on this fix, I have to assume that some file in OneNote 2007 got corrupted when the OneNote Windows app hung. In recalling how I got to this broken state, it made sense. I suppose that’s the hazard of constantly fixing stuff. Sometimes your own problems get lost in the shuffle.

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• OneNote Mobile – Gotta love it