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kathryndillonnewman's avatar
kathryndillonnewman
Brass Contributor
Aug 05, 2020
Solved

OneNote thinks my notes are by another person in my own notebook

Opened my own work notebook this morning (desktop version from a file on my OneDrive) and it showed the notes I made the other day as if they had been made by someone else in a shared notebook ie had KD (my initials) next to them.  When I hovered over the KD it showed the same username/email as I am logged in with.  I have checked and it is synced properly and opened the online version direct from OneDrive; I opened the "shadow" version on my C: in case it was due to a drop in connectivity, but no data is missing etc.

My notebook was shared with a colleague, but she hasn't updated anything in it.
Has anyone else had this?  Any ideas?

  • kathryndillonnewman's avatar
    kathryndillonnewman
    Aug 11, 2020

    I solved it by logging out of O365 and logged back in and that sorted it.  When I look at Authors it still shows the one with just my first name, but I hadn't done much under that.  Very weird, though.

  • Mark_Seagoe's avatar
    Mark_Seagoe
    Copper Contributor
    For me I started getting my own profile initials as author and tried the login/logout which didn't work. I hope this bug will get resolved at some point, but in the meantime, the "hide authors" option at least makes it invisible (thanks HidMov). Because I don't need to see that I edited my own unshared OneNote notebook. 🙄

    History > Authors > Hide Authors.
  • sepezha's avatar
    sepezha
    Copper Contributor
    Same here with OneNote 2016 on two machines.
    Notebook isn't shared with anyone.
    On first machine my username is shown as Name Lastname. On second machine it's just Name.
    Tried to relogin with no luck
  • roshsurveying's avatar
    roshsurveying
    Copper Contributor
    Having the same problem. I'm the admin for our business account. I was shocked to see that my notes were shown to be edited by another user of the business account. Did double check and it seems this user does not have access to my OneNote (not to mention, the notes were personally made by me). Tried signing off (as the OP) but when I log in the app and hover over the notes the same initials are shown (i.e. another user's).
  • HidMov's avatar
    HidMov
    Steel Contributor

    Hi kathryndillonnewman 

     

    I've seen this behaviour before in my own OneNote's (not shared with anyone) where I've been editing on one machine then view it on a different machine. Can you recall doing this?

    • kathryndillonnewman's avatar
      kathryndillonnewman
      Brass Contributor

      Hi HidMov I've not used a different machine for months.  I'm convinced it's something to do with a connectivity problem as my wi-fi isn't great at home.  At least I'm not the only one to have it.

       

      Thanks

      • HidMov's avatar
        HidMov
        Steel Contributor

        kathryndillonnewman Very odd. Most of the references I've seen and from my own experience have been because I've used another machine, or swapped between the desktop version/UWP version/web version on the same machine.

         

        https://www.reddit.com/r/OneNote/comments/bm751x/why_do_initials_show_in_a_notebook_not_shared/

         

        Not sure why this is showing when you haven't used another machine but I suspect you may be right about the connectivity - it might be syncing up under a different user session and thus thinking that it's been edited elsewhere. I used to turn on the "hide authors" option when I was working from 4 or 5 different machines because I found it visually annoying.

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