clicking to open Recent Folders in Word Open Dialogue does nothing

[McBobb]

Starting about 2 weeks ago, whenever I try to click to open any of the Recent or Pinned folders in the Word 365 Backstage Open Dialogue, nothing happens. Nothing happens at all, forcing me to have to use the Browse to access my most commonly used folders.

I've tried removing all my plugins, removing all my folder pins and totally clearing the folder list and creating it again from scratch, tried using the built-in Office Quick-Repair and the Online Full Repair, scanning my system for malware of any kind with both Windows 10 Security as well as with 3 other malware canners and removers (Avast, Malwarebytes and Trend Micro) and found nothing.

I've used file cleanup and restarted multiple times as well, but nothing fixes this. I was hoping to avoid uninstalling Office 365 entirely and clearing all the left over files and folders and reinstalling from scratch, so I'm wondering if anyone else has encoutered this problem and possibly knows a fix for it. It's only the Open Recent/Pinned Folders list that is totally unresponsive, not Open Recent/Pinned Files.

I'm using Office 365 Family on a Windows 10 Home system.

[#2]

Anyone? Even uninstalling Office 365 completely and reinstalling it after restarting did nothing but mess up by OneDrive. This issue continues.

Currently, I can open folders by clicking on them in the Open dialogue at first, but after Word has been running for about a minute or two, the issue with clicking folders in the Open Dialogue returns until I shut down Word entirely and relaunch it. But even then, the issue reappears after a couple of minutes.

This has SERIOUSLY impacted my productivity!

[#3]

@McBobb 

Same here.  Even through Office 365 renewals/updates and using a new computer since your post-- it still doesn't work for me on the first go.  Now, the small improvement over my old computer is that it will work on the second attempt.  Every time I want to choose a Recent/Pinned folder, I have to try twice.  The first try never works.  I click the folder and it does nothing.  I back out of that, go back to my document, and then I immediately try again.  Suddenly I can click the folder that's listed in Recent/Pinned and it registers that I clicked it.  Two tries, every time.  This is not a fix!  Is it connecting to the MS server every time?  Am I waiting for a ping to come back from MS giving me permission to access my own folders?  Is MS is committed to increasing the number of clicks, drags, and gestures it takes to do everything we used to be able to do with fewer hand movements before?  Unresolved.