Urgent: Files Reverting to Older Versions on OneDrive

Anonymous
2024-05-25T06:34:20+00:00

Dear Microsoft Support,

I am experiencing an issue where many of my recently used files on OneDrive have reverted to older versions over the past few months. It is only today that I have discovered this issue. I access OneDrive on two PCs, my phone, and frequently online at work.

Typically, I notice a file has been overwritten with an older version when I check the version history and see two entries with the exact same date and time. Often, the overwritten version’s file size matches that of an older version from a few entries back on the list. There is no consistency in the dates and times when this issue occurs. It seems to be happening randomly. I've found that this has occurred with hundred's of my files.

This problem has been very frustrating and has significantly undermined my confidence in OneDrive. Could you please advise me if you're aware of any such issues and if you're working to resolve them. Also, can you please advise me as to how I can prevent this from happening in the future?

Thank you for your assistance.

Regards,

Michael

Edit: Further to the above, I've also discovered that OneDrive doesn't sync automatically between my PC and Laptop when I make changes to files. I have to quit and then re-start OneDrive on the other computer in order for it to sync and receive the updated file. It also doesn't automatically sync when I attempt to restore to a previous version. In order for it to update the file back to the pervious version I have to quit and re-start OneDrive (or possibly just pause and resume syncing, which I never tried).

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-12-11T08:51:52+00:00

    Thanks Craig. Is this is a sync issue? In the two cases I had, the last round of changes (from several weeks before) had been lost. When I looked at the file history the two most recent versions had identical timestamps, the current version had lost the changes, the previous version (same timestamp) had the changes I'd made. I only have one laptop connecting to the OneDrive. What do you think might have happened? Does this fit with your proposed workaround?

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  2. Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points
    2024-12-11T09:02:32+00:00

    Thanks Craig. Is this is a sync issue? In the two cases I had, the last round of changes (from several weeks before) had been lost. When I looked at the file history the two most recent versions had identical timestamps, the current version had lost the changes, the previous version (same timestamp) had the changes I'd made. I only have one laptop connecting to the OneDrive. What do you think might have happened? Does this fit with your proposed workaround?

    I have no way of knowing what happened. All I can say is always check to make sure you see a green sync icon on the file after you close it. Then open it again and see if the changes have stuck.

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-12-11T21:45:08+00:00

    I have no way of knowing what happened. All I can say is always check to make sure you see a green sync icon on the file after you close it. Then open it again and see if the changes have stuck.

    Unfortunately, this isn't a sync issue. It would probably be much easier to debug if it was.

    The symptom as I observed is that a file which had correctly synced (visible in online version history) randomly reverted to a revision several weeks older. This revert was again visible in the version history (there was a new revision which was identical to an outdated one). This seems to have happened purely "in the cloud", since according to the timestamps in the version history, it happened at a time where none of my devices were even online.

    This didn't *technically* lead to data loss, since the newer revision could be restored from the history. But for that, you'd have to notice that the file has reverted, which is difficult if it happens without even having to interact with the file. In my case, I only noticed it because it affected a file which I use as "append-only", i.e. I just add new lines to the end. I opened the file and got suspicious that the newest entry seemed to be a lot older than it should be.

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  4. Craig Long 18,630 Reputation points
    2024-12-12T02:41:12+00:00

    Are you sure you didn't turn on a device that had older versions that synced to OneDrive?

    I'm not a firm believer in leaving old versions of files in OneDrive. I don't want old versions left on any device if I can help it. I would use the free up space feature **** as much as possible.

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  5. Anonymous
    2024-12-12T20:16:23+00:00

    Are you sure you didn't turn on a device that had older versions that synced to OneDrive?

    Quite sure – the timestamp showed that the reversion happened in the middle of the night. But either way, OneDrive should be smart enough to not replace a file modified a few days ago with one last modified 3 weeks earlier.

    I only have two devices syncing with my OneDrive, and I only work on this particular file on one of them. I just checked: it actually isn't synced on my other device. So it's even more clear that this bug happened without any interference from a client sync. OneDrive servers did this on their own. Which I find quite worrisome because it makes me wonder which other files I didn't even interact with might have been reverted.

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