Microsoft Word attempts to save to Sharepoint instead of local drive

Just to confirm, at the time of posting:

Regardless of Office Sync opt-out settings, all Office 2016 applications are exhibiting one of two opposite behaviours when opening and saving files directly from / to a local instance of a OneDrive folder, depending on whether the file is created inside or outside of that OneDrive folder:

Steps to reproduce:

Case 1: Office file is created outside of the local instance of a OneDrive folder and moved into it.

   1.) Create and save an Office document in any local folder outside of the local instance of a OneDrive folder.

   2.) Using Windows Explorer, move the file into the local instance of a OneDrive folder.

   3.) Open the file <- Only the local instance is accessed, not the online instance.

   4.) Save the file <- Only the local instance is accessed, not the online instance.

This is the expected behaviour: all syncing is performed as a background task by OneDrive.exe, not the Office application.

Case 2: Office file is created within the local instance of a OneDrive folder.

   1.) Create and save an Office document directly within the local instance of a OneDrive folder.

   2.) Close the file.

   3.) Open the file <- Only the online instance is accessed, not the local instance.

   4.) Save the file <- Only the online instance is accessed, not the local instance.

This is completely undesired behaviour. Office Sync opt-out settings are being ignored and all syncing is being performed at the time of opening and saving by the Office application, not OneDrive.exe.

OMG thank you so much Alec for posting here. FINALLY somebody else that confirms I'm not crazy. Like I don't know what's up with these Microsoft agents first they tell you it's a by-design, built-in feature, then they try to tell you what your problem is and provide you with solutions that obviously don't work.

Hi Remboy and others,

We also have this problem with duplicate files.  The OneDrive client works perfectly with other application using the local sync folder directly. It's just the Office Upload center causing problems with Office Applications even though we have Office Sync disabled in the OneDrive settings. Two months back Office was working fine, just recently for us it started failing and causing the duplicate files.

Bob

This has been happening to me for a while and is seriously frustrating.

Please just explain how to stop the Office Upload Center from running or how to remove it completely. I just want to work off of my local PC with OneDrive syncing my files.

Some older forum posts give registry hacks and Windows selective startup options but these don't seem to be available anymore. I manually ended the Upload Center processes in the task manager but it starts itself up again.

OMG thank you so much Alec for posting here. FINALLY somebody else that confirms I'm not crazy. Like I don't know what's up with these Microsoft agents first they tell you it's a by-design, built-in feature, then they try to tell you what your problem is and provide you with solutions that obviously don't work.

Tisky: before going forward I would like you to have a look at Ticket #3XXX9-1XXX1 with OneDrive for Business Microsoft Engineer Nxxxn Kxxxe. We've been working on this issue for more than 2 weeks and the only thing we were able to do is break my computer so I had to do a system restore... great job. Even now, the issue is not fixed and it's no surprise since from the beginning he told me it's a by-design, built-in feature. Additional evidence that many users have this problem: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/msoffice\_excel-mso\_win10-mso\_2016/how-to-stop-the-uploading-to-sharepoint-dialog/1d22bbb2-4163-4cee-b0d1-a5fbbe3208a6?messageId=c9f3c276-830a-4b8b-8b6f-b7b765659dd0. <-- This is exactly my problem

Like I open a local file located on my OneDrive folder on my D drive.  AS SOON as I save once, with CTRL+S or F12, the little save icon changes to online syncing and there you go it swapped to the sharepoint version. What the hell? I have "Use Office 2016 to sync Office files that I open" D-I-S-A-B-L-E-D. SO WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO FORCE THIS ON ME?

Here's why I don't want this (if it wasn't clear):

In addition to the file merging problems, when I click save a document on a slow internet connection or a big file it takes AGES before it finishes uploading online and during this time I cannot work on this document or use Word at ALL. Furthermore, the local copy of the file I have on my computer is therefore NOT the most recent file version, and it thus take AGES again(!) to re-download to my computer. Why this useless duplication?

Let me give you another example of why this is problematic: yesterday I had been working on a document for hours, but of course it had been saving on the cloud despite my will. So I closed it but then because of a snowstorm we lost electricity, and the internet. Therefore, it hadn't had time to download to my desktop, so I only had access to the old version and could not continue working on my file for more than 12 hours when this was urgent!!! Can you see why it is problematic?

Just tell me how I can disable this automatic Microsoft Upload Center thing on the registry or anything.

So to answer your questions:

(1) OF COURSE I disabled the auto-save feature and it didn't worked. Otherwise I would not have posted here right?

(2) "Gone through your replies again, we found that the main problem is about this error message:

"we couldn't merge changes to file XXX, so you now have two copies of file XXX.".

So we will focus on this problem." Stop. Just stop. This is NOT my main problem. My main problem is Office tries to save on sharepoint. How many times do I have to repeat myself?

(3) "Regarding the problem, we suggest you try unlink all the accounts in your OneDrive. Exit OneDrive reset it: Open Run window and enter: %localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset"

What do you think. I already did all these steps and many more with Engineer Nagsen. Didn't work. Example of one failed debugging session together:

Key Points:

1. We reset the OneDrive sync client.
2. We checked by login into your PC with a local machine account.
3. We cleared office cache.
4. We cleared Office Credentials from Credential Manager in Control Panel.
5. We unlinked the PC and used selective sync in a different location, sync worked fine.
6. Problem started again on the original sync location.

I have also tried: 1) Restarting my computer, 2) Repairing/reinstalling/resetting OneDrive, 3) Deleting Upload Center Cache files, 4) Repairing/reinstalling Office completely. Nothing works. Look Tisky, I am not the only one Alec Webster also has a client at stakes with the same behaviour.

(4)  

PLEASE, JUST TELL ME HOW TO MODIFY THIS BEHAVIOUR IN THE REGISTRY OR ANYWHERE. 

PS: I sent you the reproduce video in private message.