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Slick369's avatar
Slick369
Copper Contributor
Oct 08, 2021

My excel document properties keep reverting when I save the file

I am experience a strange issue. Am on Sharepoint online and I have a Sharepoint library with several columns to that I update the document metadata/properties (manually or by a power automate flow).

 

However from today for some reason, after I have updated the document metadata/properties, if i open the file and let it auto-save or even if I do change something in it and save it, all the recent metadata/properties gets wiped and those that remain get overwritten with the default values.

 

Through investigating this, am pretty sure it isn't being caused by a rouge power automate flow as I turned them all off and it still did it. I think it has retained a value on the actual excel file property and this is what overwrites what's been updated on the column on the Sharepoint library. This happens immediately after saving.

 

Any help to resolve this? As I need the updated columns to remain as they are unless changed either manually or by a flow.

  • Slick369's avatar
    Slick369
    Copper Contributor

    So following discussions with several tech help all the way to Microsoft, we have found how this is happening but still not sure why and 2 work arounds for until Microsoft resolve what it is.

     

    So we found that for some reason if you edit the properties/metadata then open the file, it seems to open the version which is sitting in your cache which is not necessarily the current version and therefore when you update things on it and save, it overrides the metadata to whatever is in the version you opened. With the Microsoft tech, we checked and could not find a reason why if you open a file directly to the app, it doesn't use the latest version of the file (although the content within it are up to date). This may be due to the change Microsoft is currently doing with removing/retiring Upload Centre but we aren't sure.

     

    The work arounds we found that worked were:

     

    1. Open in browser mode only as this seems to retain the latest metadata 

    2. Open the file on the App, don save, simply close it again. Then re-open and this seems to then pull through the latest metadata too.

     

    So still no fix but hopefully this saves someone some time. (If I made any sense at all).

    • Dharam1's avatar
      Dharam1
      Copper Contributor

      Slick369 I am facing same issue. The document properties are getting reverted to previous values.

    • RKusaf's avatar
      RKusaf
      Copper Contributor

      Slick369 

      2 years later and still unchanged for this recurring issue between Excel and SharePoint. (Not sure about the other office programs but I did see one about PowerPoint doing same with SharePoint.) My issue, specifically, is due to file naming. Simply adding a hyphen (-) to file name tells SharePoint it's a new file and it works fine but taking the - out and it thinks it's the old file once again. (I've already deleted the file from the SharePoint document library AND the SharePoint Recycle Bin too yet still SharePoint opens old file simply due to somehow remembering file data, that was deleted completely, from the file name itself.)

       

      It is extremely frustrating... and counterintuitive for this seemingly simple fix to be an issue 2 years after first reported (on here at least).

       

      Lastly, please stop using "So" to start your paragraphs/sentences, it's lazy at best, patronizing at worst to the reader.

  • I am getting a similar issue with some excel and powerpoint files but only a certain value will not update, the rest of the values remain as I set them and do not revert. I have tried all the suggestions found in the community: remove the custom xml, dump the cache, delete and reload the file. Nothing works. However, I found that the missing sharepoint data is there and can viewed in the file properties within the app, it is just not showing in the metadata column in the sharepoint library and I am not rebuilding that column with 1000s of documents to redo.

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