Urgent: Files Reverting to Older Versions on OneDrive

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

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!

Hi and thank you CraiglLong. My onedrive is open and i am signed in. When i delete the duplicate from my hard drive somehow it is downloaded again from the onedrive cloud service. I thought deleting it from my hard drive should delete it from the cloud as well, but its not happening. If i delete it from the onedrive cloud then the file from my hard drive is uploaded back up. It seems i have to delete from both locations at the exact same time which is now impossible because of the thousands of duplicates i have. ( my files went from 270gb to nearly 800gb) however I just now , before receiving your very kind reply, resolved the issue by deleting the files in onedrive folder and uninstalling onedrive altogether and have decided to no longer use it. Sadly , I've been trying to upload my files now for well over a year, but how much can one take. I never experienced this with any other online storage solution but sadly onedrive comes with an office 365 subscription……

I always click "Save" before I close an app, and then I go to the OneDrive cloud icon on the taskbar to make sure the changes are uploaded.