OneNote Web Clipper for Edge no longer working on sites it used to do

[sandro]

I am really fond of OneNote Web Clipper. It is *the* extension I can not live with! Strangely enough, many sites where "article" mode used to work perfectly - such as news at bbc.com - now it struggles for a long time and then reports that "something went wrong". Even "bookmark" mode fails the same way.

And no matter how hard I strive my best to try again and again, no luck, it rarely changes the "Sorry Dave, I can not do that!" answer. Interesting enough, I noticed when I open the desktop app (OneNote for Windows 10) many of the so-called failures are stored there - perhaps missing one or other picture.

Clue: I have recently upgraded to the so-called new Edge - so this is not exactly the very same extension I used to have. I did try on different computers with my MS account with the same results.

Any ideas?

[#2]

@sandro 

Presume you are using this?
https://www.onenote.com/clipper

[#3]

Yes, this is correct.

[#4]

I have just tried with a brand-new OneNote notebook and it works perfectly for the same sites I was facing problems. It seems to me I have reached some sort of upper limit. See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/archive/blogs/onenotedev/onenote-api-calls-fail-with-a-large-number... .

Nevertheless, I firmly believe that a dedicated error message could have been used to guide user through the solution.
Thanks for reading.

[#5]

@sandro 

Unless you are storing your OneNote notebooks from a SharePoint server, the article you linked to is not the cause of your issue. In a past life, I designed and managed large SharePoint document libraries in a corporate environment. In your post, you didn't mention the environment you were in. I am presuming that your OneNote notebook is that of an individual and not part of a large SharePoint document library.

[#6]

Hi @TrafGib ,

You are totally right! The link I have mentioned is indeed a limit from SharePoint itself. Thanks for bringing that to my attention! 

My environment? Two computers running Windows 10 Pro + OneNote for Windows 10 - in addition to online access. And although  I have already used OneNote for iOS (iPad and iPhone), I am no longer using them. As you may guess, no SharePoint neither Teams.

Some sizing information:

1. OneNote database size (as seen on OneDrive online\Documents folder): 2.87 GB.
2. OneNote Uploads folder: 593 MB.
3. Number of Sections: 35

Some estimations: 

1. Largest section: 25 pages shown at once X 23 scroll down = 575 pages (hehehe!)
2. (Remaining sections) X (Estimated amount of pages per section) = (35 - 1) X (20% of largest section) = 34 X (20% x 575)  = 3910
3. Total number of pages (estimated) = 575 + 3910 = 4485 pages.

Other info:

1. Number of Sections on To Be (automatically) Deleted: 53 (some really quite old)
2. Number of Pages on To Be (automatically) Deleted: 25 pages shown at once X 34 page down = 850 (indeed, some pages from Gutenberg printing era!) 

If these were info from a single Word document, yes, it would be problematic file. But, for a database-centric solution, it seems not large enough to be a problem. Nevertheless, a brand-new Notebook is fine. This one, is slower and slower - and failing.

I reset the OneNote for Windows 10 on both computers yesterday and "forced" syncing. It has been more than 12 hours and it has not finished yet!

[#7]

@sandro 

Any reason that you have chosen to store so much in a single notebook rather than divide information across several? I keep a library of multiple notebooks, divided by content, but none of them are terribly large so I can't relate to the problem you have encountered.

[#8]

Hi @TrafGib,

Thanks for your attention.

Honestly, I was considering OneNote as a database-centric tool - something like a front-end to an Access database or MS SQL server. However much it handles BLOBs of unconstrainted, unformatted data, I never thought it should be a problem. At least to the amount of data I have. The division into sections was enough to me.

I must say that I was a MCP on Microsoft Access a long time ago. Perhaps my vision was biased. I shall reconsider that.

I will take into account your advise. I will divide my OneNote notebook like pizza i.e., into smaller slices. If you consider my experiment with a brand-new OneNote notebook I am quite sure it will solve my problem.

If you do not mind, I would like you to share (if you can!) some best practices on OneNote with me. And, if you know, some way to backup notebooks (either on OneDrive itself or even best to my hard disk). I have some documents there that I would like to keep. OneNote attachments is quite good but the link is quite weak  - at least from my experience.

Thanks again!

[#9 · Accepted solution]

Some personal conclusions:

1. What really matters is the size of each section  and not the overall size of the notebook. As a remainder, a notebook is divided in sections and each section holds many pages. In my case, the problem was with the amount of pages/figures inside a given section. Creating a new section inside the very same notebook solved my problem with OneNote Web Clipper.

2. For backup, there is a way (now ?) to do that: OneNote Web Exporter / Importer: 

Export and import OneNote notebooks . And yes, this is for OneNote for Windows 10 - not the late OneNote 2016.