Syncing issues with OneDrive shared folders

Microsoft’s sitting pretty. No real pressure, no real competition. That ‘bug’? It’s not getting fixed — not now, not ever. Why mess with the status quo when the cash keeps flowing? I hope I'm wrong.

“Like the great buffalo resting on open plains, Microsoft stands strong and unchallenged. So long as the wind does not stir the grass, it sees no need to move — nor to mend the broken arrow it never misses with.”

There is a message elsewhere from a Microsoft insider explaining that this problem has been caused by Microsoft migrating user data. Shared folders do not work if they are in a different location from the user they are being shared with. As the migration gradually completes, shared folders become available again. There seems to be no solution except waiting for the process to complete for your own and shared folders. This explains why different users are affected at different times and why problem resolution seems random. It's a plausible explanation, but it's still annoying.

Has Microsoft publicly communicated anything about this?

I've figured out a solution to this problem, it's a little hacky but it works. Steps:

1. Click on the link from the original "User A has shared a OneDrive folder with you" email you received, and open a document in that folder in the Desktop Office App (e.g. Word). From the OneDrive website, you can do this by clicking on the three dots next to the file in the browser window, and selecting Open->Open In App[If you have 2FA turned on, follow steps 2 and 3, otherwise skip to step 4]
2. In a browser where you're logged into your Microsooft account, visit https://account.live.com/APHelp
3. Click Create Password to create an app-specific password. You'll need this in step 7 instead of your usual Microsoft account password.
4. From the File->Recent view of files in the Office app, right click on the file you just opened and select Copy path to clipboard.
5. From Windows Explorer, right-click on This PC and click Add Network Location and then Choose a Custom Network Location. You can also Map a Network Drive if you prefer.
6. In the Internet or Network Address field, paste the path to the file above, but delete the filename, so it'll be something like: https://d.docs.live.net/CIDNUMBER/Folder where CIDNUMBER is a string of digits unique to the folder that was shared with you.
7. When prompted for credentials, use your Microsoft account and password unless you're using 2FA, in which case use the password from step 3 above.

This worked for me on 2 different PCs, one Windows 10 and one Windows 11.

I received the following update from another platform I'm on regarding this issue. I have not verified this information, but believe it to be true:

It has nearly been ten months with no fix in sight still for the issue. However, Microsoft finally has another update on it thanks to a response from the Microsoft OneDrive product group, and it is supposedly due to a backend migration issue that the tech giant is currently still performing.

 

However, it does not give any specific clue as to when this migration phase will be completed, though Microsoft is trying to "speed things up":

The message reads:

"This is related to a backend migration we are currently doing. Unfortunately, we do not fully support syncing shared folders when one user has migrated and the other has not . We are doing everything possible to speed things up so that the issue can be resolved as quickly as possible for users of the feature. When the accounts are migrated, there is an automatic logic that ensures that they return to a synced folder within a few days."

Well at least there is finally some type of answer. Microsoft should seriously be ashamed of a worldwide outage with very little information given as to a solution.

Same issue with shared folders. Used to work fine until a week ago and now I have only a shortcut through url to the shared folders. It is time consuming and not user friendly. It appears microsoft is not bothered and the issue appears to be there since June, 2024!!!