Urgent: Files Reverting to Older Versions on OneDrive

I've had the same problem this week - first time it has happened to me. Files which I work on daily suddenly reverted to saves done five weeks ago. Because I work on them daily I did spot what had happened, but I am left wondering if there is anything else I may have changed where that change is now lost. Not impressed.

What happens in my case is if you have a second device for example a laptop as well as a desktop both using the one account cloud to synchronise between the devices One of which you may not use quite so often and it would appear in my case that my laptop used less frequently which instead when opening up and updating your latest data from the most updated desktop data, it went into reverse in which the less frequent device over writes with the data a few days old or even longer in my case 4 months

This was the only assumption that I could come up with why it happened to me, …and this also happened during the autumn …and it would appear from the posts I have read since that Microsoft have not taken any steps to clear this mess up.

They are quite happy to keep reminding you about taking up their subscriptions and not doing a thing to give the safest best protection to its customers data,

For an organisation as big as this, it’s really quite a disgusting attitude.

I now use a different backup programme altogether certainly not Microsoft to back up on a hard disk once a week to safeguard any other disasters

I just had this problem happen.

My Environment:

1. I occasionally use a computer in my Work Van, turning it on every few days as needed. I don't leave it on all the time. It has OneDrive sync.
2. I have other computers on all the time in my business. They use the same One Drive account sync.

Oh No:

Today, I turned on my Work Van computer and it started the usual OneDrive sync. But at the end of the sync, it UPLOADED an old version of a spreadsheet I knew I was updating later in the office! Oh no!

Survival:

Fortunately, I found a backup of the newer file version on my NAS in the office. My NAS performs nightly PC backups that include OneDrive files physically on my hard drive (not the OneDrive cloud files that have not been downloaded).

My Process Improvement:

1. I will continue to back up my computers daily so that the "state" of OneDrive files on each computer is preserved.
2. I will ensure my Van computer OneDrive files are synced (uploaded) before I turn the Van computer off. Hopefully, this will ensure old files are NOT uploaded when I turn the computer back on, particularly for the files I have edited in my office.
3. I will carefully monitor what the Van computer does when I turn it on. If it does bad things, I should cancel the OneDrive sync immediately. I should turn the Van Computer on every few days to get the latest OneDrive sync.
4. I should bring the Van computer into the office for an overnight backup to the NAS at least once per week, which also does a OneDrive sync and I can ensure all is working properly, including backups.

Other people:

Others may have laptops or computers they turned off for weeks or months. I have a few of those too. When they are turned on again with OneDrive auto-sync, there could be catastrophic syncing!! I'd watch carefully and have my other computer backups ready!

Rogue One (drive):

If I get a rogue OneDrive auto-sync, I can probably quickly repair my files, even if I notice the problem after a few days. I use my backups or dig through One Drive version control one file at a time.

Sleeping Better at Night:

I feel more comfortable with reliable, nightly NAS computer backups that include recently edited OneDrive files.

Whew!

You have clearly done the right thing here and I have been doing the same thing, most importantly make sure you’ve done a backup on and then external hard drive before switching on a laptop or something that hasn’t been used much, to prevent that machine overriding the current data

Microsoft are really kicking this can down the road and seem complacent in not doing a single thing to rectify this very big problem, I think it needs more awareness by other means to make sure everyone who has a one drive account, they are at serious risk of losing much of their data unless they are keeping everything backed up well away from any Microsoft product,

I really hope this very poor situation of losing data makes the much bigger awareness nationally by the more powerful means of publicity as this seems to be hiding behind Microsoft smoke screen

Dear Microsoft Support,

I am reopening this question because I am having the same issue at the moment. All of my Excel-documents that I have saved in OneDrive are now set to an older version somewhere around June 2024. This is absolutely terrible because those Excel-sheets were huge and I used them on a daily basis. It is almost impossible to start from scratch.

Please let me know if there are any issues around OneDrive and let me know if you can restore all of the Excel files,

This is a very big break of trust in OneDrive.

Thank you in advance.

Regards,

Rick