Word 2016 error 0xCAA70004 when attempting to sign in

Question

I have an Office 365 ProPlus licence provided by my university, and whenever I try to sign in to any of the Office 2016 products associated with this, I'm faced with error message 0xCAA70004, "You'll need the Internet for this", regardless of my connection status.

My very first thought was that I may need to use my university's VPN for the initial authentication (as the detailed error message talks about connecting to the required services), however this proved fruitless.

I then briefly searched online and begrudgingly accepted that reinstalling might resolve the issue, so I uninstalled, cleaned up any leftover registry entries (as I had read these could be a potential cause) using CCleaner, then reinstalled Office from my Office365 account online. The issue persisted.

My OneDrive account, however, is happily signed in and functioning. None of the Office apps will recognise that it's there, but it is signed in and I can use it from File Explorer.

I then found an article talking about using the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant for Office 365, which I downloaded and signed in to. This declared that I wasn't signed in to OneDrive for Business, so i followed the on-screen prompts and tried to sign in (bearing in mind that I was already signed in). The sign-in failed, and the tool exited.

When I look at my Office365 account online, it registers the install on my laptop and shows the install date as date of my reinstall a few days ago, and I have no sign-in issues at all online.

I then thought it could be my Bitdefender security software causing an issue, so I temporarily disabled the firewall on it and tried, which also failed.

I'm at a loss on what else to try, and I can't find any reports of it in anything other than Outlook 2013 with the same error code. Can anyone suggest a fix?

Specs:

Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus 16.0.8431.2215

Windows 10 Home, Version 1709, Build 16299.125

Answer 1

Hi GEbb4,

To better understand the situation, I'd like to confirm the following things:

1. Is this the first time you install Office 365 ProPlus and want to sign in for activating it?
2. Open one of the Office application>File>Account>capture a screenshot of all info under Product Information.
3. Is this your personal computer at home? Do other students in your school encounter the same issue with their personal computer.
4. Your OneDrive account (which can be signed in and works well) and Office 365 account. Meanwhile, capture a screenshot for "it registers the install on my laptop and shows the install date".

To protect your privacy, I have sent you a private message to collect screenshots and account info mentioned above.

Best regards,

Tim

Answer 2

Hi GEbb4,

As you mentioned there are two accounts, I want to confirm some further things:

1. Check if you could access this page with both of them. If yes, capture two screenshots for their licenses. Or they are the same account, one is just an alias and cannot be used for signing in?

Note: Use private window to open another one.

2. If it's possible, capture a screenshot for the yellow warning message. Let us know which account you are signed in when getting the yellow warning.
3. Share with us your OneDrive URL or the OneDrive file URL. And then capture a screenshot for "a banner warning appeared in red beneath the ribbon talking about signing in". Let us know which account is signed in at this time.
4. Do you sign out and re-sign in with the same account?

You could share with us this info in the private message.

Regards,

Tim

Answer 3

Hi Tim,

1. I tried signing into the page, and both accounts redirect me to my university's sign-in page for the same account.
2. I can't recreate the yellow triangle as I would have to be signed in to do so. It was a yellow warning triangle with an exclamation mark in it, to the left of my name in any Office product when I was signed in (to the left of the minimise, maximise and close buttons).
3. I'm not sure what you mean by OneDrive URL, the URL to my OneDrive if I sign in online is https://l**t-my.sharepoint.com/personal/<my email address>/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx. I also cannot recreate the red banner without being signed in as Word will not allow me to use OneDrive files using the option from the Open menu, I have to choose "Browse" then navigate to my synced OneDrive folder location. The banner came up under the ribbon, and from what I remember talked about file access. Looking online, it had the same styling as a "product deactivated" banner, but with different text obviously.
4. I signed out of one account, and have tried signing in with either email address, both yield the same error screen "You'll need the internet for this." (Error 0xCAA70004)

Thanks,

GEbb4

Answer 4

Hi GEbb4,

Sorry I'm a few confused with the situation. I checked two accounts mentioned in your private message.

t**e@l**k is the account with Office 365 for Business license. Your "OneDrive" is related to this account.

g.*6@s**k seems to be an alias for t**e account which is used for email services. There is no license under this account.

Based on my understanding, you should only can use t**e account to sign into Office portal. Please help me confirm this part. If you can use both of them to accessing https://portal.office.com. This step can also let us know if your account has some issue as you mentioned there is a yellow warning before. The yellow warning means something may need to be fixed for the account. If you cannot sign into Office portal, the issue might be more related to your account.

On the other hand, try the following steps for clearing Office credential. Let's check if the issue is related incorrect Office credential.

1. Quit Office apps.
2. Open Control Panel find Credential Manager>remove all Microsoft related credentials in both Web Credential and Windows Credential.
3. Restart your computer. Check if you can sign in with t**e account (based on my understanding, to access services in your tenant, you should use the t**e account as it has related licenses).

Best regards,

Tim

Answer 5

Hi Tim,

I can put either email address into portal.office.com, and will be redirected to my organisation's sign-in page regardless. I then use my university credentials to sign in.

I deleted credentials and restarted, when my laptop came back on OneDrive asked me to sign in, which I did and it worked fine. I then opened Word and tried to do the same, and got the same error again.

The interesting thing here is that Word has access to the internet, as I can search for Office Online templates without issue.

Thanks,

GEbb4