Next Generation Sync Client (NGSC) for OneDrive - Systemic problem with the initial setup

Copper Contributor

Next Generation Sync Client (NGSC) for OneDrive - Systemic problem with the initial setup of the has been identified and a workaround is available.


===Symptoms===
After upgrade to the Office 2016 C2R, users who used OneDrive for storing and modifying documents are unable to complete the initial setup for the Next Generation Sync Client (NGSC) . NGSC fails to complete the initial setup and connect to OneDrive in O365. During the setup:
1) Step for account authentication gets completed
2) Step for selecting local folder gets completed
2) Fails : Step to retrieve list of folders. NGSC times out with various errors (e.g. “authentication failed”, “ server not available”, etc.). 

===Cause===
Bug in the NGSC. It cannot handle initial setup if documents with versions exist in OneDrive. Versioning is enabled by default on OneDrive library. So any user who had documents and modified them (i.e. created document versions) prior to upgrade would be affected. 

===Resolution===
MS Premier Support has confirmed that this is a bug. MS will be working on a permanent fix. In a mean time the workaround we came up with :
1) Disable versioning for the OneDrive document library. Please note that user will lose all previous versions of documents (i.e. the latest version becomes THE document). So far, no user indicated that this is an area of concern. 
2) Complete the initial setup of the NGSC.
3) Enable versioning.
4) This needs to be done only one time on one machine. For additional machines ( for example if user has more than one PCs) setup will complete correctly 

Note:
The problem seems widespread based on our experience within Lubrizol and based on threads on the net:
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that users report the problem using various descriptions (e.g. "unable to login to OneDrive", "server is unavailable", "folder list timed out") - depending on when they decided to abandon the setup. This seems prevent support people to connect the dots and treat it as one systemic problem. 

I've reported the problem through MS Premier Support and worked with them to help identify the problem and the resolution. I.e. MS is now aware of the problem. Hopefully systemic solution is coming soon, but for now - the resolution above seems provides quick and acceptable workaround.

0 Replies