All Recent & Pinned File Links Lost

The Recent list in Word and Excel are again being populated (7:33 pm EST 3/22/24) BUT the files included seem random and date as far back as 2017. One current dated Word file that I just opened is also included in the Recent list. The Pinned list is still empty. Since I didn't do anything other than open Word and Excel, I can only assume Microsoft is turning some attention to the problem.

On March 21, the same problem occurred for my Office Home and Student  standalone app. I stopped my subscription to MS 365 in 2021 and installed this app.

On File -> Open,,there are no longer any pinned documents and my "Recent" documents are from 2021. The “Account” information shows connected services as “OneDrive -  Personal,” which fI do not use.

I rebooted my PC today after a Windows update and afterwards in Word, Excel and PowerPoint my Recent Files list and Pinned Files List are all empty. And when I open an existing document, it does not show up in the Recent file list like it used to.

How do I fix both of these issues?

Just FYI I do not run Office 365 but use stand alone MS Office 2021 Pro. Same issue with recent and pinned files no longer showing. Recently opened files do not show. My two systems are new (a few months) and run Win 11. On both computers I deleted OneDrive very soon after setup. Like all others issue just started (I assume March 20, 2024). Issue might be related to OneDrive but who knows. It isn't limited to Office 365 though.

Oddly, my second computer does show 3 "recent" files: all three of them a few years old???

Not holding my breath until this is fixed. Good to see some things never change. Microsoft still using customers to debug stuff.

This hit or organization this week. MS adds a feature, users then use it & rely on it for years, and then...POOF. Is this what they call Artificial Intelligence? The user community is quite furious, lighting the torches and grabbing the pitchforks.