Forum Discussion
User Microsoft 365 Apps Freeze when Trying to Save
Having a strange issue with one of our users when using Microsoft 365 Apps on a Windows 11 system. The original behavior reported was when he was trying to save a document to OneDrive. He gets a processing box but it never completes and the app freezes. Then he noticed if you just did a Save As from any of the Office Apps you get the blank page and the app freezes. Sometimes a reboot resolves the issue but only for a short time.
Here are some items we have tried to this point:
Have tried pausing synching in OneDrive
repairing office 365
Reinstalling office 365
Saved to downloads > Can reopen document but when trying to save as again the page is blank. Will either have to force close in task manager or let it sit until "waiting for another application to complete an OLE action" then closing
Pausing auto save to cloud in word/outlook/excel
Disconnecting the OneDrive sync and re-connecting seem to work at first but after an hour or so we saw the same behavior.
We decided to set him up on a brand new system and after we set things up the issue followed. We are seeing the same behavior on the new system.
One item of note is we have a third laptop which has an old version of Office using the ODT installer which is working fine with his account. The other two laptops that are failing have the latest Office 365 software downloaded from the portal.
Not sure if this is an issue on the backend with his account or some other type of issue. Just wanted to see if anyone has ran into this issue before.
Thanks.
To isolate the culprit, try doing these in controlled steps. Document which step “breaks” or “works”.
Test
Purpose
What to Observe / What Next
Open Office in Safe Mode (hold Ctrl while launching Word/Excel)
To disable all add-ins / customizations
If saving works (no freeze), it strongly implicates add-ins or extensions. Microsoft Learn+2Microsoft Learn+2
Disable all COM / VSTO / Excel / Word add-ins
Even if Safe Mode helps, you’ll need to find the offender
Under File → Options → Add-ins, disable COM add-ins first, then Excel/Word add-ins. Test Save / Save As. Microsoft Learn+2SoftwareKeep+2
Perform a Clean Boot / minimal startup
Removes interference from third-party services or shell extensions
If freezing goes away, you can re-enable services incrementally to find the culprit Microsoft Learn
Test saving to a completely local folder (not OneDrive-synced folder)
To see if the cloud / sync side is involved
If Save works locally but not in OneDrive, that local vs cloud boundary is critical
Use a different user profile on the same machine
To isolate whether it’s user-specific settings
If a freshly created user account does not have the issue, then the old profile has something problematic (e.g. registry settings, Office config)
Disable AV / security real-time scanning temporarily
To test whether the antivirus is interfering with file operations
If the freeze disappears when AV is off, this is a major clue
Use ProcMon / File Monitor / Process Explorer
To see what process is hanging or blocking the save
E.g. capture events during Save/Save As and see which DLLs or hooks are involved
Capture Office / Fiddler / diagnostic logs
Microsoft support often asks for logs when Office freezing / stuck on OLE / Save issues
Use Office’s diagnostic logging and Fiddler (if saving to cloud endpoints) to see where the delay stalls
My answers are voluntary and without guarantee!
Hope this will help you.
2 Replies
Thank you. We have tried the majority of these items but will try the rest on another system. For now we were able to install the LTSC version of Office 2024 and that has been stable for the user. We will probably keep them on this for now and troubleshoot the issue on another system. Thanks.
To isolate the culprit, try doing these in controlled steps. Document which step “breaks” or “works”.
Test
Purpose
What to Observe / What Next
Open Office in Safe Mode (hold Ctrl while launching Word/Excel)
To disable all add-ins / customizations
If saving works (no freeze), it strongly implicates add-ins or extensions. Microsoft Learn+2Microsoft Learn+2
Disable all COM / VSTO / Excel / Word add-ins
Even if Safe Mode helps, you’ll need to find the offender
Under File → Options → Add-ins, disable COM add-ins first, then Excel/Word add-ins. Test Save / Save As. Microsoft Learn+2SoftwareKeep+2
Perform a Clean Boot / minimal startup
Removes interference from third-party services or shell extensions
If freezing goes away, you can re-enable services incrementally to find the culprit Microsoft Learn
Test saving to a completely local folder (not OneDrive-synced folder)
To see if the cloud / sync side is involved
If Save works locally but not in OneDrive, that local vs cloud boundary is critical
Use a different user profile on the same machine
To isolate whether it’s user-specific settings
If a freshly created user account does not have the issue, then the old profile has something problematic (e.g. registry settings, Office config)
Disable AV / security real-time scanning temporarily
To test whether the antivirus is interfering with file operations
If the freeze disappears when AV is off, this is a major clue
Use ProcMon / File Monitor / Process Explorer
To see what process is hanging or blocking the save
E.g. capture events during Save/Save As and see which DLLs or hooks are involved
Capture Office / Fiddler / diagnostic logs
Microsoft support often asks for logs when Office freezing / stuck on OLE / Save issues
Use Office’s diagnostic logging and Fiddler (if saving to cloud endpoints) to see where the delay stalls
My answers are voluntary and without guarantee!
Hope this will help you.
