Can't sign in to Office 365 Personal: Mac, new installation

Anonymous
2019-03-08T23:31:53+00:00

Problem: When I try to sign in, I get a spinner forever saying "Loading..."

Details: I installed Office 365 Personal on a Mac. When I start Word, it asks for my email, which I entered successfully. But then the window shows just the spinner and "Loading..." and never asks for the password. I tried rebooting. I tried Word and Excel. I can log in successfully with this id on office.com on the same computer, so the network and account work. I tried Ethernet (which is very slow) and WiFi. No error messages show up, just the spinner for minutes. The only unusual factor I can think of is the Mac previously had Office 2004 installed.

Any suggestions? I'm kind of stuck. I searched the web for solutions but didn't come across anything that helped.

Thanks.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Subscription, account, billing | For home | Windows

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 No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2019-04-11T10:29:07+00:00

Hi All,

I did some further testing with this and was able refine the process. I was able to sign out and back in half a dozen times. Each time when I signed out and then signed backed, the “loading” window would still appear, so this doesn't fix that error.

[Note1] Turn off Two-step verification if it is enabled. In a browser go to your Microsoft account, and then to the security menu to disable it.

Steps are as follows:

  1. Open Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.
  2. Select the Sign in or Activate button.
  3. Enter info in "Sign In" field [Email, phone, or Skype] if not already populated.
  4. Press 'Return' Key or 'Next' Button. The loading window will then appear with the spinner.

5. Click the mouse in the windo~~~~w. I found this step was unnecessary.

  1. Just type your password, followed by pressing the 'Return' Key. After a few seconds, your office should be activated or signed-in.

[Note2] Turn off Two-step verification back on if desired. In a browser go to your Microsoft account, and then to the security menu to enable it.

I hope these instructions are clear enough to follow.

-Mike-

Was this answer helpful?

200+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2019-03-09T07:49:21+00:00

Hi All,

Sorry for the inconvenience the issue causes. And we really appreciate all your effort and time for reporting this issue. We are aware of the issue now. Here we'd like to share a summary for the issue here which will benefit other community members.

We have been receiving multiple threads having similar issues caused by sign in issue on Office for Mac.

Users may not be able to sign in to Office applications, or meet error message when you want to save changes for files stored in OneDrive for SharePoint Online locations within from Office apps.

The possible scenarios:

 You may see a spinner forever saying “loading” when you try to sign in.

Issue Environment:

The issue happens to any latest OS version 10.12.6/10.13.6/10.14.3  

The issue happens to both the latest 16.16.8 and 16.23.

Workaround:

Thanks for Mike's reply and other community members confirming that the issue should be caused by the stuck sign in window not showing page content well. If you type password when you see the loading window then press enter, and wait for a little, then you should be able to sign in well. For detailed information, please check Mike's reply as another mark answer post.

Assessment:

Thanks for all your effort and time on this issue. Several customers have confirmed that updating to the latest 16.24 version can fix this issue. In the meantime, I am informed from the related team that the latest 16.25 insider version should fix the issue.

Please aware that the insider version is best for Insiders who want to use the very earliest builds to identify issues and provide feedback about new features still in development. Insider is ideal for those who don't mind the bit of risk involved in using unsupported builds. 

If you don’t mind, you can go to Help > Check for updates > tick the join the insider version option and update to 16.25 to see the result.

Any updates will be appreciated. Sorry for the inconvenience the issue causes again.

Thanks,

Rena

[Updated by Rena Yu MSFT, 21:33 May 2, 2019(UTC)]

Was this answer helpful?

30+ people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

239 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
  1. Anonymous
    2019-06-30T15:29:22+00:00

    Hi All,

    I did some further testing with this and was able refine the process. I was able to sign out and back in half a dozen times. Each time when I signed out and then signed backed, the “loading” window would still appear, so this doesn't fix that error.

    [Note1] Turn off Two-step verification if it is enabled. In a browser go to your Microsoft account, and then to the security menu to disable it.

    Steps are as follows:

    1. Open Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.
    2. Select the Sign in or Activate button.
    3. Enter info in "Sign In" field [Email, phone, or Skype] if not already populated.
    4. Press 'Return' Key or 'Next' Button. The loading window will then appear with the spinner.

    5. Click the mouse in the windo~~~~w. I found this step was unnecessary.

    1. Just type your password, followed by pressing the 'Return' Key. After a few seconds, your office should be activated or signed-in.

    [Note2] Turn off Two-step verification back on if desired. In a browser go to your Microsoft account, and then to the security menu to enable it.

    I hope these instructions are clear enough to follow.

    -Mike-

    Hi, I can confirm that typing the password and enter when "Loading..." message is on screen would work in order to sign in and activate Office 16.16.9 apps on Mac OS X El Capitan.

    It was a long time investigating and finally get a solution.

    Thanks Michael.

    Alberto. MX.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2019-06-30T06:23:48+00:00

    Yes, and another thing: The workaround with downloading earlier versions of Word worked fine. What also works is signing out of Onedrive, and never having Onedrive open at the same time as Word. I sign out of Onedrive, write my Word-file. Save the Word-file to the OneDrive-folder (who is not connected to the cloud), quits Word. Then I connect OneDrive to the cloud again (by starting the Onedrive app/program again) - and it uploads everything that I have done. No problems with that. 

    It's a temporary fix, anyway.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2019-06-30T06:06:53+00:00

    Hi, I have had this problem for three months now, I started a thread back then, which was merged into this one, and I am quite upset that Microsoft still hasn't figured out the solutions with the recent updates.

    I have finally found which steps creates the issue, maybe this will help you:

    (I have a MacBook Pro, latest version, iOSX latest version, Office 365- subscription and Onedrive).

    Here is the image of what happens - suddenly it says that my cached info has expired. 

    What created this issue is was these steps: 

    I reinstalled everything from scratch, because I bought a new computer. Everything worked fine for a week. Then things went bad - again.

    This is what happened: I had a Word document open. It was repeatedly saved in Onedrive, without problems. Then I did "Save as" and gave it another name name and saved it in OneDrive. Suddenly the "Save automatically" was turned on and when it tried to save I was - again blocked.

    My guess is that you need to take a look at what happens when you clone a document and save it to OneDrive. It would seem that there isn't an original file created, but some overlap which could mess up permissions - perhaps. Or that the two files saving at the same time - the new file with "save automatically" and the old which is still open. Or maybe it is something with the "Save automatically" that creates problems. Hopes one of these leads gets you forward. 

    Good luck and fix this plz.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments