Automated upload competing with users who have a file open in Co-authoring mode

This behavior began approximately mid-December. An automated process uploading/overwriting a file located in SharePoint online was constantly receiving errors when executing. We ran through several scenarios for troubleshooting but in the end, we had found that a user would open the file and leave it open in the background through the working day. This behavior produced some co-authoring lock on the file where people could get in and work on the file at the same time but locked out the automated process that would upload a new version of the file regularly.

We fixed the behavior after consulting with the people who were referencing the file, they were gathering data from it and were not updating it in any way. So, we broke the permission inheritance for this file and set it up to be read-only for all users but the process that was uploading the file. This allowed the people to reference the file and undid the locking behavior that we had observed.

Now, before the middle of December, this locking mechanism didn't exist. Users could have the file open in edit mode and our automated process to update the file was able to upload and overwrite at the same time without issues. Has anyone else observed this behavior within the last few months? We didn't open up a ticket with Microsoft to get an official answer if something new was perhaps implemented and we're curious if anyone has opened a ticket regarding this behavior. Also, I briefly look through the message center and couldn't find any changes in there that seemed to be related to this change by their titles.

The error that was seen from the automated process was:
The remote server returned an error: (423) Locked.

Any input appreciated - I am definitely curious to hear if others are observing this as well.