OneNote: We need the password to sync this notebook (Error code: 0xE4010643)

It happen to me once and it happen to me twice, and it happen again this morning.

When I saw this message, I knew no mater how many times I hit the "Sync All" it will never goes through (but I did it anyway).

I found these happen to me if I leave OneNote open, and put the computer to hibernate / sleep mode. Somehow when the computer awake from sleep, OneNote will failed to sync due to the credentials is out of sync. 

To avoid this I always close OneNote before putting the computer to sleep and often I simple shutdown the computer.

The fix to this is simply delete the cached credential used by OneNote to connect to server for synchronization, and re-login.


To do this, follow the following steps (Make sure you close OneNote before you proceed):

1. Go to "Control Panel" > "User Accounts and Family Safety"
2. Click "Credential Manager"
3. Click "Manage Windows Credentials"
4. Look for "MicrosoftOffice15_Data:live:cid=xxxxxxxxx"
5. Expand the row and click "Remove" and click "Yes" when prompt to confirm.
6. Don't start OneNote first, but instead, sign-out from Windows and sign-in again.
7. Start OneNote and key in the credential when prompt. (sometime it doesn't prompt but it fixes the problem)

Update if removing item in step #4 doesn't work. Try removing the following

• "MicrosoftAccount" - the credential you use to login to Windows
• "OneDrive Cached Credential"