Microsoft AutoUpdate Not Working?

Anonymous
2021-03-18T10:48:49+00:00

Over the past few days, I kept receiving the notification from Word that it needs updating, however, when I go to update it, I get the message

'Update error...Updates are temporarily unavailable, please try again in a few minutes.

Shortly after, this is followed by another pop-up that states 'There was a problem with the Microsoft Update Assistant and your recent work might be lost. We apologise for the inconvenience.' 

It gives me the option to restart the update assistant, which I have done a number of times, however, I just get exactly the same problem over and over again. Is there anything I can do to fix this?

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2021-03-20T00:29:39+00:00

Did you use a tool like CleanMyMac the remove "universal Binaries"?

I had that a couple of days ago, downloading and re-install it from the Microsoft AutoUpdate Release history page: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/release-history-microsoft-autoupdate

Good luck!

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  1. Anonymous
    2021-03-25T11:33:33+00:00

    Yes, your first reply was useful, but CleanMyMac appears to have nothing to do with it.

    I have also seen the same problem in the last couple of days and fixed it by re-installing the package from the URL you supplied (thank you):

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdates/release-history-microsoft-autoupdate

    I've never run CleanMyMac and I'm sure nothing had touched my auto-update Mac app so I think it's safe to conclude that it somehow manages to break all by itself and then gives a badly misleading error message. My guess is that re-installing is more than is really necessary, but in this case the  installer is small and fast so that's a fine solution.

    There's good reason to suppose that the real problem is a bug introduced by Microsoft so let's hope they fix it soon or, if they can't figure it out, put in better handling of the error that AutoUpdate detected - really we shouldn't even notice when it happens.

    Cheers

    Greg

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  2. Anonymous
    2021-03-25T11:01:50+00:00

    Hi Hans,

    interesting! I had that issue after thinking the Updater with CleanUpMac X, but Sind a couple of days more and more users that doesn't use any tooling like this report issues.

    Glad that it solved your problem! But it makes me wonder if there was something wrong with the latest update.

    Have a great day and stay safe!

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  3. Anonymous
    2021-03-25T10:52:08+00:00

    Hello Josh,

    No, i don't use a cleaning tool.  

    I downloaded and installed the latest MAU and it works again.

    Thanks for the tip !

    best regards,

    Hans

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  4. Anonymous
    2021-03-18T11:26:07+00:00

    Hi poppysflowers27, hope you're doing well. I’m Ian, an Independent Advisor and Microsoft user like you.

    I'm sorry to hear about this issue.

    Please make sure you have an available disk space to that the update would continue.

    If problem persist, please do Office repair.

    https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/repa...

    This is a user-to-user support forum and I am a fellow user.

    I hope this helps, but please let me know if you need anything else.

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