Permission & Access Issues

How to Fix OneNote Section Missing for Newly Added Employees

Amos Gikunda Sep 30, 2026 869 views

Question details

Newly added employees are unable to view a specific section of a shared OneNote notebook, despite older employees having full access.

How to Fix OneNote Section Missing for Newly Added Employees

Product: Microsoft OneNote
Device & OS: not provided
Scenario: Sharing a notebook with new team members and ensuring they have complete access to all sections.
Observed behavior: The missing section is unavailable in both the desktop and web versions of OneNote exclusively for recently added users.

Before you start

Ensure you have administrative or owner rights to the shared OneNote notebook and that the affected users have logged in with their correct company credentials.

Solution 1Recommended

Verify and Re-add Section-Level Permissions

Permissions may not inherit correctly for specific sections. Removing and re-adding access can force the system to grant proper visibility.

In some cases, specific sections within a OneNote notebook may have unique sharing settings or broken inheritance, preventing new users from seeing them even if they have access to the parent notebook.

Access Notebook Location

Go to the SharePoint or OneDrive location where the shared notebook is hosted.

Check Section Settings

Verify the specific section's sharing settings to ensure it isn't restricted to specific individuals or password-protected.

Re-add Access

Remove the new employee's access from the notebook, wait a few minutes, and re-share the notebook with them.

Reopen OneNote

Have the affected user close and reopen the notebook on their device to trigger a fresh sync.

Verify and Re-add Section-Level Permissions

Permission Refreshed: Re-adding the user often resolves background caching issues in Azure AD or SharePoint.

Solution 2

Force a Manual Synchronization

If permissions are correct, the notebook might be failing to sync the latest structural changes to the new users' devices.

Solution 3

Review Tenant-Level Logs with an Administrator

If the issue exclusively affects recent hires, there may be a deeper Microsoft 365 group policy causing the synchronization failure.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why does a OneNote section disappear for only some users?

This usually happens due to broken permission inheritance in SharePoint or OneDrive, or because the specific section was inadvertently restricted or password-protected after older employees had already synced it.

How do I know if a OneNote section is corrupted?

If a section is corrupted, even users who previously had access might start seeing error codes like 0xE000005E, or the section might appear as a generic folder icon that cannot be loaded in OneNote for Web.

Can a password-protected section cause syncing issues for new users?

Yes. If a section is password-protected, its contents and sometimes its visibility cannot be synced properly for users who have not unlocked it. Removing the password temporarily can help determine if this is the cause.

Document & File Issues