Issues with NGSC Takeover Process

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Andy Baerst wrote:

 

A consistently reproducible situation is,

1. Run %localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\OneDrive.exe /takeover. Sometimes nothing happens, sometimes the one or two existing library syncs will migrate meaning that they are now represented under the new [Company Name] node and also under the old SharePoint node, but not as an active sync. The migration will stop in that condition and both [Company Name] and SharePoint remain.
2. Running the OneDrive.exe /takeover command a second time will result in another library being migrated, but most likely not more than one. I have had to run OneDrive.exe /takeover repeatedly (the number of times equal to the number of existing groove.exe sync'd libraries).
3. What is also counter to documented behavior is that, when a takeover does occur, I see all documents in the library scrolling through the NGSC Notification Center dialog being shown as downloading. I haven't actually sniffed the wire to watch the transfer occur, but it certainly looks like it's downloading the entire library again which is counter to the documented statement that files won't be re-downloaded.

I can confirm numbers 1 and 3 in your list.

We encountered three states:

1. Everything is working. Old libraries were moved to NGSC. Very little network traffic.
2. Some libraries got stuck.
3. Many conflicts in a number of libraries (see below).

I never used the /takeover command a second time and thus cannot confirm your number 2.

Fortunately my colleagues don't have such a large number of synchronized libraries as you have. But still, we encountered all kinds of problems like file conflicts that were not visible before. In one case we had around 400 files that had the name of the computer appended to their file names because they "were conflicting files" (they weren't). It seems that Groove was not able to set some meta-data for those files on SharePoint and thinks they are in conflict. The contents of the files were identical. Their "new versions" were downloaded and thus generated network traffic. I could not check for sure if some libraries were fully downloaded but it seems the number of files downloaded was less than the files in the library on SharePoint.

Just for completeness, below is my personal experience how to handle the transition in the most hassle free way.

This is not an automatic process and cannot be rolled out to customers!

In my opinion the most hassle free way to make the transition is:

• Update your software (Windows, Office). OneDrive should be at 17.3.6743.1212 (it comes with Windows). Office 365 should be at 16.0.7162.2xxx or higher.
• Adjust the setting of your SharePoint to only use the new client. See the bottom most section in https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Enable-users-to-sync-SharePoint-files-with-the-new-OneDrive-sync-client-22e1f635-fb89-49e0-a176-edab26f69614?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
• Just un-sync every library that was synced through Groove.
• Move the SharePoint folder from %userprofile% somewhere else as a precaution if your Groove client secretly messed up behind your back without you knowing and prevented some files from getting uploaded to the server while showing "green checkmarks" everywhere.
• Reboot
• Sync everything you like from SharePoint. Your browser will (should) open the new client automatically.
• Compare the new directories with the old versions you moved away before (I use WinMerge). Ignore the files that differ (they are not, it's just their meta-data) but check for missing files.