This issue occurs on both my M4 iPad Pro + Apple Pencil Pro and iPad Mini 6 + Apple Pencil 2nd Gen.
Problems started after Intune was installed, hence suspicion was Intune interference with OneNote on iPad.
Double tapping on Apple Pencil (or Pro) is normally supposed to toggle between ink and eraser when only using Draw Mode in OneNote.
However, upon switching to Scribble mode or Text mode, and back to ink/eraser, this toggling between ink and eraser becomes broken.
In the broken state, writing with a selected ink works initially, but when toggling to eraser, OneNote will suddenly toggle back to the Text/Scribble mode.
Any subsequent attempt to select ink or eraser will not work, and will persistently be stuck in Scribble mode.
Things I've tried, with failed / partial results:
- Toggling "Apple Pencil only Draws Ink" option in OneNote. No change to the bug whether on or off.
- Turning off "Scribble Mode" in iPad Settings. This will improve the bug slightly but will still jump back to Text mode repeatedly. At least ink / eraser is only partially broken and can be used, but the jumping back to text mode severely affects the workflow. This also affects other apps because only Scribble mode is broken in OneNote but I will still want to use Scribble in other apps, hence this is a non-solution.
- Restarting OneNote i.e. close app completely, then reopening OneNote. This will stop the bug when ONLY using Draw Mode. However, upon selecting text mode, the bug will start again, and will break Draw mode.
- Restarting iPad i.e. powering off, then turning on iPad. Similar to Restarting OneNote, this will stop the bug temporarily if text mode is not selected. Again, upon selecting text mode, the bug will start again.
- Removing multiple accounts from OneNote. I have multiple accounts open in OneNote, hence I tried removing the other accounts to only have my primary account, but the bug still persists.
- Removing "Microsoft Intune / Company Portal" management of OneNote i.e. via signing out of the corporate account only on OneNote. I initially surmised that the "Microsoft Intune / Company Portal" management of OneNote introduces this bug, because the bug was not present before I added the corporate management software. However, even after signing out of the account, the bug again still persists. I have yet to try removing Microsoft Intune / company portal completely, but this would be a non-solution as I need to use my corporate account on the iPad.
- Reinstalling OneNote, i.e. Deleting app completely, then reinstalling through App Store. Bug still present even after toggling to text mode.
- Other forms of troubleshooting that I ensured before trying the above, proving that this is not an Apple software or hardware issue: (a) Ensuring full battery for iPad and Apple Pencil (b) Turning off and on bluetooth to reset Apple Pencil connection (c) unpairing and repairing Apple Pencil (d) trying on a different iPad (e) Ensuring devices are up to date to latest OS. (f) Ensuring latest versions of all apps are installed.
Summary of troubleshooting results:
- Turning off Scribble mode in iPad settings partially improves the bug, but is still disruptive to workflow, so considered a non-solution.
- Removing Microsoft InTune / Company Portal management may remove the bug — this is the only thing I haven't tried, but if it works, it is still a non-solution for me because I need to use my corporate account.
- The only way to avoid this problem is to never toggle to text mode if writing with ink / eraser, and restart the app every time the bug occurs. However, this makes inserting images unnecessarily laborious, which essentially breaks the OneNote functionality.
I am now stuck after trying all of the steps above. OneNote is basically broken and cannot be used in my current workflow.
I tried raising this to the onenote team but seem to get ignored. Was subsequently directed to post this here to see if anyone can help.