SharePoint Doc Library issues with newest OneDrive NGSC

[Christine Stack]

Below is from a high end user of mine.  This user has been an early adopter of all 0365 technologies.  Please read and help if you can (I added notes of mine in italics)

It happened again!  I clicked in File Explorer (synced SharePoint site document library using newest OneDrive client) to open a document stored in SharePoint .  It disappeared with a message that the file had been deleted or moved.  I located it in the recycle bin (SharePoint Online recycle bin) with a date stamp of that exact time it disappeared L  I restored it to it’s prior location, opened from the browser and selected edit in full Word on my tablet.  Now it won’t let me edit or save changes it because it is locked “by another user” who is me!!!!!  See screen shot attached.

This is really frustrating.  I can of course do a file save as to a new file name and proceed, but really, this is a crazy!  I hope you can figure out what in my settings is causing this repeating issue.

I have no clue what could be causing this issue.  The user is openning the files from file explorer on her Windows 10 Surface Pro 4.  Has anyone seen this behavior? 

[#2]

Hi @Christine Stack - that's really strange.  You said the user has the latest bits - I assume it is 17.3.6743.1212? The fact that the recycle bin time/date stamp for the deletion is the same time she tried to retrieve the file suggests it is either a user action (mistake or otherwise) or client related. Fortunately, OneDrive NGSC has a set of log files that you might be able to dig in to - but you may need an MS engineer to decipher them.

[#3]

Clifford Kennedy I appreciate the quick response.  I am trying to replicate the problem on my own surface.  I typically do not open files from file explorer but I will do so for a few days.  I will have the user verify her build and look into the log files suggestion that you had.  I will post if I find out anything.

[#4]

Go the the compliance and security center and check the audit ligand his onedrive. It might give you a clue as to what happened. Beware of time stamps the might be in UTC.

[#5]

Yes we've seen a couple of instances where the files have unexpectedly vanished, only to appear in the recycle bin in the manner you describe. We've not been able to pin down the cause yet. I'd like to get to the bottom of this quickly as it is causing confidence to wobble. Is there a way to enable device level logs?

[#6]

Finally returning to this conversation.  The compliance and security shows that the user deleted the file.  It also show that 3 users were syncing the file all around the same time that the user was trying to open it and found it was deleted.  I am not sure what this tells us except it still seems to be a sync issue.

[#7]

Simon,

I wish Microsoft would chime in on this.  We are trying to get everything in the cloud but we need to be very confident that we can sync sharepoint document libraries without these issues.  Our West coast office IT meets with Finance next week about this.  Finance is fighting back and does not want their shared drive in SharePoint.   I will look into device level logs.

Christine

[#8]

@Simon Denton

In my experience that behavior has always been due to human errors, usually on shared files maintained in ODFB (hence contrarily to best practices...) and synced on multiple clients.

Have you carefully verified who is reported in the recycle bin to delete the file(s)?

Probably he/she is indeed the culprit. :)

Just my 2 cents...

[#9]

Alas not human error this time. It's OneDrive but I need to find a way to make it log its activities so I can prove it.

[#10]

Simon,

Please post if you figure it out.

Christine

[#11]

Salvatore,

Can you tell me why you wrote this "(hence contrarily to best practices...)".  Is Microsoft discouraging use of a feature they built in?  SharePoint sync is very useful especially now with the selective folder option.

Christine

[#12]

Hi Christine.

I was speaking about ODFB.

ODFB is meant to store personal business documents: therefore such files are expected to be shared sparingly and temporarily by the owner.

All the documents heavily accessed by multiple users should instead be stored in classic team sites or in Groups.

Hence to keep indefinitely heavily shared documents in ODFB is contrary to best practice.

Give a look to this (a little) old but still perfectly valid article: https://en.share-gate.com/blog/onedrive-for-business-vs-sharepoint-team-site-infographic

[#13]

Totally agree with Salvatore's comments here!

[#14]

I tend disagree with your point of view here. Your POV was right before they introduced sync for SharePoint sites. They are also positioning OneDrive as the workhorse for mobile working with SharePoint. Therefore sync will be subjected to heavy workloads.

[#15]

@Simon Denton

Hi Simon, glad to hear from you.

I think there are two different subjects here:

1. Correct usage of ODFB. ODFB is meant to store personal business documents, hence normally accessed only by a single person, i.e. the owner. Of course sharing temporarily ODFB documents is perfectly OK, but keeping permanently workgroup documents in ODFB is not a good practice. I think we can easily agree on this.
2. Correct usage of sync. Here things tend to be a little more complicated, because IMHO there is a strong mismatch between technical and marketing reasons. I worked as a researcher for an academic institution, and at that time my area of interest was concurrency control. Hence I know exactly how difficult is to maintain coherency of a resource which is concurrently accessed by multiple users. Now, with sync we have not only concurrent accesses to data but even local copies potentially misaligned: a nightmare from a technical standpoint! (I must admit that I am surprised that it works... ;) ) Microsoft is doing everything that is technically possible to give to people a feature that the marketing loudly requires, but IMHO such feature simply can't work reliably all the times. In conclusion, I think that syncing locally simultaneously accessed resources is a dangerous proposition from a data integrity point of view (as all complaints in this community demonstrate everyday...) and it should be done only when it is really indispensable (coauthoring etc.) and not, for example, only because people likes more the File Explorer UI instead of the ODFB Web UI. Just my opinion, of course...

[#16]

All,
I really appreciate all the responses and will share them with our team. The younger generation is all cloud and don't feel the need to sync but many execs are old school. We just had a major internet issue for days at our we west coast office. There was a backup ISP but at a slower speed. This has created more distrust of SharePoint online "only" as our file storage solution. We are trying to move everything possible to the cloud and are having much success but giving up on-prem shared drives is being challenged. We thought explaining the SharePoint selective sync features would alleviate these worries.

Again thank you for posting and let's keep this conversation going.

Christine

[#17]

Sure 1 I agree on.
2. They are committed to using ODfB as the workhorse for SharePoint so they need to get it right. Complicated or not, it has to work 100% of the time or they'll risk shedding customers.