Office iPad and OneDrive Issues - Missing Folders

Anonymous
2014-03-30T04:09:46+00:00

After trying out Office Word, Excel and Powerpoint on my iPad it seems to me that OneDrive integration is broken.

The main problem is that various folders do not show up in the Office Apps on the iPad. These missing folders though do show up in the OneDrive app for iPad.

I've also had the Office Apps lock up when trying to refresh a folder. Either the program locks up and I have to restart it or, the refresh icon just spins forever.

To troubleshoot the issue I've removed the Word app, reinstalled and reconnected my OneDrive account. I've done this a couple of times and each time when I try to view one of my folders, the app hangs. After restarting the app the folder I was trying to view has missing subfolders.

If I add a subfolder after I've viewed the folder in Word (for example) the new folder shows up. However, none of the folders that are missing will ever appear, no matter how many times I try to refresh the folder.

Oddly enough the missing folders are different between Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

My "Mac Docs" folder should have 25 folders. Word shows 16 folders, Excel shows 9 and PowerPoint shows all 25. However, PowerPoint also has trouble refreshing the folder, and after I've removed some folders, its still displaying the removed folders.

Office on iPad has great potential for me, especially with OneDrive integration, however, at this stage it appears to be quite buggy.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | iOS

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2014-12-17T18:21:52+00:00

Today we shipped an update to Office for iOS which should fully solve the problem of folders/files taking a long time to show up (or never show up).  I apologize that it took a while to get this fix to everyone, but we had to be certain to not cause new issues in the process.  

Please retest the issue and let me know if our update fixed your issues and if it didn't then please provide details so that we can investigate.

Thank you for the patience!

Derek

Was this answer helpful?

1 person found this answer helpful.
0 comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2014-05-13T04:33:54+00:00

I am not sure if this helps you, but it has fixed the problem for me.  I found that the folder types in my OneDrive were set to Picture folders, not Document folders.

By selecting the folder in Onedrive web application, the properties have a "Folder Type" when you click on the change hyperlink it gives you the ability to chnage the type from Pictures to Documents via radio button.

Once I performed this task all of my folders appeared. in the iOS Office Apps.

Seems that OneDrive determines the Folder type, from the content placed into the folder.

Was this answer helpful?

1 person found this answer helpful.
0 comments

50 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2014-11-11T16:47:48+00:00

    Thank you for the follow up John; it is unfortunate that you are still having issues.  The calls to get the OneDrive and Dropbox folders/files are indeed different.  

    Over the next couple of weeks my team is going to spend additional time improving the performance of the OneDrive calls and in this work it may help your situation.   I will follow up with you once we have shipped the changes so that you can retest it.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2014-11-11T13:32:42+00:00

    I also did not find the new programs or the process describe completely solve my problems. These problems exist for me in all of the office applications when I select Open and look at folders that have many subfolders and branching.

    1. I have no problem visualizing and accessing any of the folders from OneDrive on my iPad
    2. Prior to this latest release when I selected a complex folder hierarchy the system would spin for a minute or two and give me a 'Cannot Connect to Server' error. This no longer happens
    3. When I select the complex folders I do get some of them showing up but not the entire tree regardless of how long I wait. On occasion new branches do show up but there does not seem to be a way to get the entire tree structure of folders visible in the Open dialog
    4. The same problem exists in all of the apps, however, each shows different levels of the tree structure so it is not consistent
    5. Follow the process of recreating the cache by deleting the existing cache as outlined above does not solve the issue

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2014-11-11T06:42:43+00:00

    Derek,

    You asked, "Did this solve your issue?" Unfortunately no!

    Thank you for your quick response to my latest cry for help. I did what was indicated but the bug remains.

    Folder Bug. A slightly different version of the bug presentation is given but it is essentially the same as before. Here is a simple storage layout:

          Documents

                  /\

    Mydocs    Mydocs 2

         |               |

    Just1        Just2      

        |                |

    Just1doc  Just2doc

    Then for data stored in Dropbox storage Word displays the above layout (great) but for data stored in OneDrive storage Word (wrongly) displays:

          Documents

                  /\

    Just1   Mydocs    Mydocs 2

       |                             |

    Just1doc               Just2      

                                     |

                                 Just2doc

    Just try this for yourself as the bug may be a result of my real data which even though I have reset Word may have associated aspects that give rise to the problem reported here. I have different storage layouts for Dropbox and OneDrive and this could be a reason for the difference. Or, maybe your software uses different routines for the different cloud storage systems?

    Bear in mind that although the example given here is reduced to the bear bones, in practice the problem can create a disaster. When I first tried Office on the iPad, because of extensive historic data, I had so many loose folders and files that it was impossible to proceed without application of the idea expounded here. I’m glad I found a workaround for the problem as application of this idea has given me almost the equivalent of PC access to great Office software on the iPad which otherwise could easily have been labelled as unusable. (I have a snuggly-fitting bluetooth connected keyboard which in a limited sense makes the iPad a PC.)

    ‘Mydocs’ is contained in the name ‘Mydocs 2’. Renaming ‘Mydocs’ to ‘Mydocs 1’ using the OneDrive App is found to restore Word’s version of the layout to what should be expected. (This required a few minutes of syncing by sweeping down on Word’s display showing the layout of the folders illustrated here.)

    I hope this helps with the next step to overcome the problem.

    JohnPercy

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments