How to Fix OneNote Notes Displaying as a Red X or Failing to Render
Question details
Users experience an issue where OneNote notes fail to render properly, displaying a box with a red X instead of the actual content, often temporarily appearing only during scrolling.
- Product
- Microsoft OneNote
- Device & OS
- not provided
- Scenario
- Viewing, scrolling through, or synchronizing notes in a OneNote notebook.
- Observed behavior
- Note content is replaced by a box containing a red X, or it completely disappears from the screen when the user stops scrolling.
Before troubleshooting, ensure your device has a stable internet connection and verify that your cloud storage has enough free space to allow any pending notebook synchronizations to complete.
Update OneNote and Free Up Local Storage Space
Upgrading to the latest version of OneNote for Microsoft 365 and clearing disk space is the most effective way to resolve rendering failures.
Rendering issues are often tied to an outdated rendering engine or insufficient local storage space preventing OneNote from properly loading cached assets.
Open OneNote, navigate to File > Account, click on Update Options, and select Update Now to ensure you are running the latest version of the application.
Open your system's storage settings or use the Disk Cleanup utility to remove temporary files and ensure you have sufficient local storage for OneNote to render cache data.
Close OneNote completely, ensure it is not running in the background via the Task Manager, and relaunch the application to apply the updates and refresh the rendering engine.
Clear the OneNote Cache Data
Corrupted local cache files can prevent notes from displaying properly. Clearing the cache forces OneNote to rebuild the notebook rendering.
Verify Notebook Integrity Across Devices
Check if the rendering issue is specific to your current device installation or if the notebook file itself is corrupted.
Looking for a Lightweight, Lag-Free Office Suite?
If upgrading OneNote and Microsoft 365 is causing severe lag on your system, consider switching to WPS Office. It is highly optimized, takes up significantly less disk space, and provides a smooth experience for document creation, spreadsheets, and presentations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do my OneNote notes or images show up as a red X?
This typically happens when OneNote fails to sync properly, runs out of local cache storage to render the media, or experiences a rendering glitch due to an outdated application version.
How do I fix lag in OneNote after updating to Microsoft 365?
To fix post-update lag, free up space on your hard drive, close resource-heavy background applications, and leave OneNote open for a while so it can fully finish synchronizing all your notebooks in the background.
Will clearing the OneNote cache delete my un-synced notes?
Yes, clearing the cache can permanently delete note changes that have not yet been synchronized to the cloud. Always ensure your recent notes are backed up or successfully synced online (by checking OneNote for Web) before deleting local cache files.
