Onedrive "disappears" from my computer regularly

[Ingeborg Hawighorst]

Hello,

every few days, I haven't quite identified the pattern, OneDrive stops working. It cannot be found by opening the start menu and typing OneDrive. The start menu icon has disappeared. The icons in the system tray have disappeared, the folder icons in Windows Explorer change from a cloud to something rectangular with a grid. 

I have previouslsy tried to download the OneDriveSetup.exe, but these always tell me that a newer version of OneDrive is installed on my computer. I cannot uninstall it, even though it appears in the Control Panel > Programmes and Features. 

The only thing that brings it back is to go to 

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive\Update

where I find from the date stamp that the file OneDriveSetup.exe has recently been updated. Overnight, or sometimes even during the day, while I am actively using my computer.

When I run this setup file, it comes up with the installer "Preparing OneDrive for first use" and after a few minutes OneDrive has been repaired and is working again. 

The last time this happened was this morning. I woke up my computer shortly after 8 am and you can see the time stamp at 8:14 am.

I have several 365 accounts and sync from different tenants and from my personal OneDrive to my local drive and while Onedrive is "unavailable" without me noticing immediately, it is very confusing if I don't see the files I expect to see because the sync is not working. 

This repeats at least once a week.

What do I need to do to end this disruptive behaviour? This is costing me too much time.

Any advice welcome.

[#2]

I've seen discussions elsewhere that OneDrive.exe disappears while Windows 10 updates are installing, and then is replaced when the updates complete. I haven't seen that personally though as I don't use Windows 10 as my primary computer right now.

Perhaps check your update history to see whether your PC is repeatedly trying and failing to install some updates.

[#3]

Thanks for your reply. I checked the Update history and it is a string of "Successfully installed". Nothing failed, nothing is waiting to be installed. 

BTW, this morning, OneDrive is gone again, and the time stamp of the OneDriveSetup.exe is from this morning, around the time I woke my computer.

There must be something to stop this behaviour.

[#4]

Does the frequency of this issue align with the OneDrive release dates? (keeping in mind that a rollout can take a couple of weeks to reach you)

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/new-onedrive-sync-client-release-notes-845dcf18-f921-435e-b...

[#5]

Are you running MalwareBytes? Some have suggested creating an exception for the C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\OneDrive directory if you are.

[#6]

Hi Paul, the frequency of this issue seems to correlate with the frequency of the OneDriveSetup.exe being updated on my machine, which appears to be every few days, not weeks.

[#7]

Yes, I do run Malwarebytes. This is the first suggestion with a concrete approach. I'll try that and report back.

I just noticed that my Surface also suffered from a OneDrive disappearance and the Surface also has Malwarebytes installed, so there's a common denominator.