Unable to open files from OneDrive personal vault

Anonymous
2024-09-01T20:54:29+00:00

I'm no longer able to open any Office 365 file (pdf files, for example) on Android, *if they are located in the Personal Vault*. Any such attempt fails with a pop up message stating that "We can't open this file. <fileName> might have been moved or deleted, or you might not have permission to edit it".

Here are some of my observations:

  1. That happens despite being already fully authenticated - otherwise we won't even been able to even make the file selection.
  2. My default app in charge to open that file type is part of Microsoft's own and properly installed Office 365 suite. Therefore, it was *supposed* to have been installed with the right permissions already set up for all use cases, including the OneDrive Personal Vault.
  3. I am the administrator on my Android phone. I can open update, delete or read any of my own 365 office files including any of the ones residing in OneDrive - not just on any of my phone's folders, but none that is part of my Personal Vault. By contrast, I don't have such an issue on any of my Widows systems. On Mac, the Personal Drive is not yet supported at all - fair enough. However, on Android, something has changed and it has changed lately.
  4. Never had any problems before, until about a month ago when I have accepted a new 365 Office official update/release from Microsoft. Ever since, this critical issue remained consistent no mater what I 've tried
  5. I have exactly the same issue on Android when trying to use the web app from any browser. Again, this did not happen before that bogus update.

I suspect a fundamental security/permission handling bug introduced in that bogus update pushed out lately.

As a side note, please stop suggesting us to copy of move the files out of the Personal Vault in order to open them. That is *not* an acceptable work around - it simply defies the entire PV purpose, Honestly admitting that the Personal Vault is "Temporary Out of Order" would be a much more desirable approach. That would buy MS some time to meanwhile find a fix to this critical issue. A lot of people that I know are already so upset, that they threat mass quitting OneDrive *just for this particular reason*. That would be such a shame, and a big loss, considering what an outstanding product OneDrive actually is.

Petre Suprovici,

A retired software architect and a Microsoft friend, not a hater

Microsoft 365 and Office | OneDrive | For home | Android

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  1. Anonymous
    2025-04-10T14:57:58+00:00

    I have the same issue on Samsung s21. Can't open vault and files are not uploading to specified folder either now!

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  2. Anonymous
    2025-04-10T11:20:53+00:00

    MS support responded to me with a load of questions. I’ve sent the answers and a video of the screen behaviour on the phone.

    I too had problems with Win11 laptop showing the Vault icon. After a couple of hours it reappeared and I can access the vault files on the laptop now. It was doing a sync of thousands of files - that happens occasionally for no reason. Maybe it reappeared after the sync finished.

    The one anomaly is that a couple of the files in the vault seem to have been renamed, with the Computer Name appended to the original filename. That’s very worrying. I will back up all the files elsewhere, securely.

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  3. Anonymous
    2025-04-10T10:34:43+00:00

    Same problem here, seems a major bug in Personal Vault. I'm also still having trouble opening the personal vault through file explorer on my Windows PC. At this point I can only access it via the OneDrive website. Very frustrating.

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  4. Anonymous
    2025-04-09T18:29:25+00:00

    I’ve tried the same things as you but they haven’t fixed it.

    I logged a support request with MS but no response so far.

    They did respond when I had a similar problem a couple of weeks ago, but I had already “fixed” it myself by signing out and in. It didn’t work this time.

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  5. Anonymous
    2025-04-08T22:37:10+00:00

    I have the same issue.
    On Android phone (S10+) and the files in the Personal Vault only are not able to be opened. everything else in OneDrive seems to be fine.
    The PV gives the same message when you try to open anything - "either the file has been moved or I dont have the permission to view them". Sometimes the pdf opens (so it can open it) and is then covered by the error message and immediately closes.
    This didnt happen before and happened around the time of my subscription renewal this year. In addition, the OneDrive on my laptop needed reinstalling - after which it stopped reading the thumbnails on my music files. I have had to find separate software to 'fix' this very slowly one file at a time.
    What changed in OneDrive and can I roll it back to when it worked?

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