Microsoft Word attempts to save to Sharepoint instead of local drive

Hi Remboy,

About the problem you've met, we'd like to confirm some information to better understand your situation.

1. You mentioned that even if you create the Word document on your local drive, the file will still upload to the cloud, so we’d like to confirm where do you store or create the file, in SharePoint synced folder or OneDrive synced folder? If so, then it is the expected behavior when you save the file. If not, would you tell us where do you create the file and how the file be uploaded.
2. Please provide the screenshot of the icon of the document.

Regards,

Tisky

Hi,

Thank you for your response.

Indeed, I forgot to mention the important information that this bug happens exclusively in my OneDrive folder. The file will not upload to the cloud if I open documents say on my desktop or outside of my OneDrive folder. I don't have a SharePoint sync folder though, only OneDrive.

I still don't understand why it is expected behaviour if I have unchecked "Use Office 2016 to sync Office files that I open" box in OneDrive options. I want OneDrive to update based on my pc documents, NOT the other way around (i.e., that my local pc files update based on the online versions), because that creates tons of syncing problems with different versions and conflicting files, as well as other corruption errors. Especially since sometimes the file can take an eternity to finish loading (could be slow internet... but same file sometimes load in 1 sec and sometimes never finishes), which means I can never access the actual local file and which means if I lose internet I lose access to that file completely.

Regards

Hi Ramboy,

If you don't want to automactically upload the file to cloud or you want to edit the file while you don't have Internet access, we suggest you create the file in your local drive or copy the synced file to the local drive. When you have access to Internet, you can then upload the file to OneDrive or SharePoint Online.

Regards,

Tisky

Dear Tisky,

Thank you for your response.

I work directly from my OneDrive folder in order to make automatic online backups of all my working documents. You say: "If you don't want to automatically upload the file to cloud or you want to edit the file while you don't have Internet access, we suggest you create the file in your local drive or copy the synced file to the local drive."

Let me be clear. First, I DO WANT to automatically upload the file to the cloud (that's the POINT of using OneDrive). Second, you are saying that if I want to work on a document without internet access I can't work from any file under my OneDrive folder? Are you serious? This is complete nonsense.

I think the problem is due to a new update to OneDrive, as I didn't experience this problem until very recently. Now, when I work on a file, it KEEPS―every. single. time.―creating a copy of the file I am working on, with that message popping up: "we couldn't merge changes to file XXX, so you now have two copies of file XXX.".

Look: I double-click on a word file on my OneDrive folder. I change a word. Then, I get the "couldn't merge the changes" pop-up and a copy of the file, that I need to keep deleting, and I can never know which one has the right version of the file. You tell me that this is expected behaviour?

Imagine, if I work with +50 files per day, that's at least 50 copies to delete manually and much, much useless confusion, and lost or corrupted files.

It is impossible this is a desired feature. It is a bug. Dropbox doesn't do that, and OneDrive didn't do that until recently.

Before, when a file was still syncing but I opened it, it would wait until I close the file before syncing the new version. NOT ANYMORE! Now it directly opens the online (not in browser, still in Microsoft Word), sharepoint version.

Not the only one with a similar issue, look at: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/onedrive/forum/odwork-odedit/file-changes-couldnt-be-merged/99efc208-885f-4df7-af2d-529d9a34af6e. However, I followed their solution (clear cache and attempt office 365 repair), but that did not work.

Please look into this more seriously. I can readily provide more information if needed.

Thanks,