Forum Discussion
SharePoint OneDrive file sync issues when users open the same file
Hi
We've been experiencing issues with files in OneDrive/SharePoint.
A colleague will open a file (e.g. a word document), which is stored in SharePoint and synced to their OneDrive folder, and will start making edits, in the desktop app.
Another colleague also has the same file open, but the system isn't alerting either user that someone else has the file open.
When one user saves their changes, the system creates a separate file, with a suffix in the filename (the user's PC name). Now we have two versions of the file, and the changes haven't been merged.
Is there something we're doing wrong? And is there a way to prevent this?
One of our main reasons for adopting SharePoint was to avoid multiple versions of the same document having to be created.
Hi,
Im having this issue can you help me out please?
Thanks
Ian
I'm still looking for an answer myself!
The issue seems that you/we are using local copies of the documents. If two people open the same document at the same time, then make changes there will be a conflict. We too are struggling with this as we have over 100 people using Sharepoint and syncing via OneDrive. I know you can go online to the portal and "check out" a document but that doesn't fly with our setup. End users want to use the local versions of Office and not the web client.
On top of all that, changes are only synced when you CLOSE the document and not just save. You will get a sync error saying the file is in use. These two issues are seriously making us think about going back to a server share vs using Sharepoint. What else can we change or try?
We have all PCs updated to Windows 10 Fall creators update so we can use "Files on demand" since we do not have enough HD space to store them all.
- Hi,
Please note that if the documents are synced with onedrive you wont get any notification that another user is editing since this is happening on a local file until the file is synced.
Regarding the sync issues make sure you are both running the new onedrive sync. It may sound like one of you are using the old sync. Check your processes on task manager. You should be running OneDrive.exe and not GROOVE.exeWe had a similar issue. Updating to the most recent version of OneDrive sync helped since locally synched files now open the server copy instead of a local copy and then, synching changes.
Also, in the User's OneDrive settings, make sure that the following are the selected options in the Office tab.
You'll see two options regarding how conflicts are handled, you want to select the option Let me choose to merge changes or keep both copies.
Note: This screenshot is from my Mac but the PC client has similar options.
Thank you.
I believe we are all using the latest version of sync, and have checked the box to 'Let us choose to merge...' where possible, however on a couple of PC's this option appears greyed out!
We are currently looking at upgrading all office software on all machines, so hopefully that will help to at least reduce the number of issues.
- Sounds like whoever is editing the files doesn't have a good connection or isn't online at the time of editing, when you reconnect it will prompt you to keep the file and overwrite or create a new version.
Basically anytime you edit a file in onedrive/sharepoint sync from your machine, it will connect online first, if that's not available it will work from local cache. There are always prompts if a file is locked for editing by an older client that doesn't support co-auth, or they turn "auto save" feature off, but the users have to pay attention or else you end up with duplicated files. Lots of variables at play, specially when using sync client with larger groups of people or on documents that are high traffic.
