Forum Discussion
Excel desktop sharepoint online file mismatch "Refresh recommended" cant discard changes
Hi,
In our environment a specific excel file gets created and saved automaticaly to a sharepoint page by pressing a button that runs an power automate flow. The file will have a certain name. The excel filers will always be opened in the desktop app(configured as default for this sharepoint library) For wathever reason some user want to start over with one of these files. They delete the excel file from sharepoint and run the power automate flow. A new file will be created but this will have the same name as the deleted excel file. When opening this file in excel it says:
https://i.imgur.com/PqCC8tv.png
REFRESH RECOMMENDED A newer version of this file is abailable on the server. (option too choose:) Save a copy, Discard changes
When choosing Discard changes it just says: Cant discrad changes.
Saving a copy of the file works but since we are using the naming scheme this is not a good option for us. We can resolve the issue by deleting the OfflineFileCache associated with the file(or just the whole folder) but i would like to know if we can prevent the issue happening in the first place.
This can be easily replicated by doing the following:
create excel file on c:\temp or wathever
copy the file to sharepoint
open the file in desktop app
make a chance
close desktop app
delete file from sharepoint
copy the file from c:\temp to sharepoint again
open the file in desktop app
Tested on multiple sites and computers.
Any help or advice is appreciated.
3 Replies
marinuspietersimon Hey, i'm a bit late since this is from 2022 but I might have found an easy fix that will help since this subject has had many views and none of the replies in other forums seem to have an easy solution to this.
I ran into the exact same problem at work and I fixed it by doing this :
Go into the Excel app => file => Options => Save => tick "Delete files from the Office Document Cache when they are closed".
Many replies to other threads suggest to delete Excel's cache and since this checkbox makes it so It's deleted every time you close Excel it should resolve the issue. I've tested it and now the "REFRESH RECOMMENDED" message does not appear anymore. You may need to discard changes one last time on the document you opened just before using this fix tho.
Hope this helps,
Louis
Louis_BRN Thanks so much, your fix is the only one I found that worked.
- Cheers, this worked perfectly!
