SOLVED

Excel AutoSave turned off

Copper Contributor

My organization has a Windows 10 Excel 365 spreadsheet synced with OneDrive that we use for coordinating projects. One of our users cannot use autosave on his computer because it always asks him to save the document in another place. Even when we save it there, autosave still turns itself off. As far as I can tell, Excel has a default installation with no additional add-ons, compatibility settings, macros, etc. The issue even persists after an online repair install. This keeps him from collaborating as effectively with our other users in another state. Do you have any idea of what the cause might be?

 

Excel version 2110 build 14527.20276 Click-to-Run

OneDrive 2021 build 21.220.1024.0005 64-bit

7 Replies

Hi @bmwever 

 

it sounds to me like an authorization issue. Has that specific user read/write authorization to the OneDrive folder?

@Martin_Weiss, that's a good idea, but we were able to copy the sheet manually (Ctrl+C-->Ctrl+V) to the folder where autosave fails.

@bmwever ,

 

I read somewhere that there is a relation between AutoSave and AutoRecover, but I'm not sure.

 

Could you check in the Excel options, if the AutoRecover settings have been switched on for this user?

And that the "Disable AutoRecover for this workbook only" is switched off?

DTE_1-1637738890775.png

 

@Martin_Weiss, all of those are configured as you suggested.

I work using Excel sheets a lot, so most times i run into problems like this. In situations like this i try to

  • Ensure that the Auto-save feature is enabled
  • Re-save Office Temp files
  • I try to see if they are any corrupted files
  • You may also encounter problems like this, when dealing with older formats that are not supported.

If your colleague goes through the bullet points, and still gets the error, then i suggest your read here to get more solutions to your problem.

@rob_tito, thank you for the suggestions.

  1. Ensure that the Auto-save feature is enabled: As I mentioned to @Martin_Weiss, the settings are already configured correctly in Excel's options fields. Also, the switch at Excel's top-left corner keeps turning itself off automatically whenever we try to turn it on (this is the whole problem I'm trying to solve).
  2. Older format: The document already is an XSLX file, which we're accessing from OneDrive, which therefore ensures that we're all using the same document.
  3. Fix corrupted file: See the second part of #2. Other people can accesss it as expected at the same time, just not this one user.
  4. Resave the temp files: Wouldn't this be done as part of #5? If not, feel free to correct my understanding.
  5. Repair/reinstall Office: I already attempted this, but the problem persists.
best response confirmed by bmwever (Copper Contributor)
Solution
While I was reviewing Office's and OneDrive's configurations yesterday, I noticed that Windows still has two OneDrive folders with the blue cloud inside the File Explorer icon. This seemed strange because we had already signed out of the unnecessary OneDrive and Office accounts. Once we created a new Windows profile, Excel's AutoSave feature began working correctly again as we wanted.
1 best response

Accepted Solutions
best response confirmed by bmwever (Copper Contributor)
Solution
While I was reviewing Office's and OneDrive's configurations yesterday, I noticed that Windows still has two OneDrive folders with the blue cloud inside the File Explorer icon. This seemed strange because we had already signed out of the unnecessary OneDrive and Office accounts. Once we created a new Windows profile, Excel's AutoSave feature began working correctly again as we wanted.

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