There are few things that truly scare me in this life; deep sea squid, a monkey with a score to settle, the possibility of geese developing opposable thumbs, but the thing that truly spikes my blood pressure is having worked on a document for several hours, only to lose my work a week later when I realize that my files were not syncing properly from SharePoint. Why does this (and other OneDrive errors) happen, and how can we stop it?
While we may never be able to stop the endless plodding of evolution, and ensure our fowl enemies never develop the ability to operate heavy machinery, we can solve our OneDrive issues. Here are some possible OneDrive errors and how to solve them:
1. File paths exceeding 251 characters
This is the most frustrating cause of sync errors, mostly because it can be hard to discover. SharePoint Online now accepts a path limitation of 400 characters in the browser, which is great….except for when you go to sync that file. Unfortunately Windows Operating System still has a hard exception of 251 characters. Sync that library and you will run into errors all over the place, even in other (non-offending) files! And now try to unsync the library – good luck! You probably need to uninstall and re-install OneDrive to actually remove the files. Cleaning up your folder structure is always the best way to solve this issue, but there are some other helpful steps you can take as well, like quick tricks via PowerShell to reduce your path length by a third!
2. Syncing too much, too often
Much like a primate with a long-standing grudge, computers can get tunnel vision. With OneDrive that tunnel vision can translate to “sync, sync, sync, gotta sync”. If you’re reading this article, chances are you’ve already enabled Files on Demand, but if not, this article is the first step to solving your problems. If you’ve already tried FoD, here is another trick: Storage Sense. Enabling Storage Sense to aggressively free up local disk space has allowed my users to sync VERY large libraries with far fewer issues.
3. Files Disappeared
Not unlike deep-sea squid, synced files can at times be mysterious, or even disappear completely. I am including this “issue” because although it is technically a user error, in my opinion it is a design flaw on the part of Microsoft that causes this user error. It is not at all obvious at first glance how to stop syncing a folder or library. Common sense would have us believe that simply “removing” the file should do the trick. Let’s select the library and click “delete”.
Well, that pop-up seems pretty reassuring, doesn’t it? Looks like I can go ahead and click “Yes”. What I’ve just done sends ALL of my SharePoint files to the recycle bin in the SharePoint site, effectively deleting them for all users. And if anyone has ever tried to restore hundreds (thousands? Hundreds of thousands??) of files from a SharePoint recycle bin, you are probably having PTSD flashbacks right now. Unfortunately in this scenario, your only option is to be reactionary, however there are some good PowerShell scripts you can use to properly restore files when this inevitably happens.
There are a few other issues I’ve come across in OneDrive sync less frequently – excel files that don’t allow co-authoring in the desktop application, for example, conflicts resulting in duplicated files, files reverting to old versions when a particular user re-syncs a library – but overall it is an extremely useful tool, especially in settings where the connectivity and Wi-Fi infrastructure just isn’t amenable to remote working.
If you’re interested in how IMBII can help you cope with strange sync issues, or the very real threat of disgruntled apes, drop me a line and get in touch. And remember – geese are NOT our friends.
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