Office 2016 suddenly prompting to ''Activate''. The Office 365 user is licensed but it never works.

Iron Contributor

Hi, this is the 3rd time this year I have experienced this issue for different users in our organization. Here is my last post on the same issue: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365/Office-2016-is-connected-with-my-Office-365-creden...

 

Office 2016 will randomly deactivate itself and once that happens there seems to be no other solution than to create a brand new Windows user account on the local machine. The user is licensed and signed in but Office 2016 believes that the product is not activated. Here are a few screenshots (sorry for the french):

 

Screenshot 1.pngScreenshot 2.png

 

This is incredibly frustrating and I have no idea what causes this issue. I had to create a brand new Windows user to fix this issue. This is a very cumbersome workaround. Microsoft has no explanation other than ''it is a corrupt Windows profile''. 

 

I am not on a domain

I have tried clearing the credentials

I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling

I have tried using SARA

 

Has anyone else experience this issue? Thanks.

 

6 Replies
It’s nothing with registering more than 5 devices?

There is only 1 Office installation under that Office 365 user. It has been working fine since January and it just deactivated itself this morning. 

There's an extensive guide on how to troubleshoot issues with activations here: https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/odsupport/2015/05/01/how-to-reset-an-office-365-install-to-the-i...

 

In general, you should open a support case and work with the engineers to properly troubleshoot this.

Thanks @Vasil Michev for the link, I will give that a try. The reason I didn't open a support case is because last time they just made me uninstall and reinstall and other basic troubleshooting steps that I had already done. 

I have run into this issue many times and honestly, I can't say what the issue is.  I have tried all the troubleshooting methods you mentioned also with no luck, some seems to have "fix" itself and other times I have found no solution to the issue.