SharePoint Online - Excel File locked by User

George Thomas T P 1 Reputation point
2020-11-16T15:37:35.753+00:00

We have a excel file in SP Online for which Co-authoring is enabled.

But very often the file gets locked that too with a particular user account.

The user (on whose name it displays as locked), he himself is not able to edit. But after sometime, it gets unlocked.

On googling, I found that this is a common issue many are facing with SP Online but couldn't find the root cause of the issue or how to fix it(unless the document unlocks itself).

Is it still the same? or there has been any progress on this issue with regards to the root cause and how to fix this permanently?

Microsoft 365 and Office Excel For business Windows
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  1. Emily Hua-MSFT 27,796 Reputation points
    2020-11-17T06:25:24.747+00:00

    @George Thomas T P ,

    There are maybe many factors that cause this issue, such as the network, the cache, the unsupported feature from shared files and etc.

    Let me see if I understand correctly, this issue occures with a specific file and a particular user account very often.
    But I am wondering whether the user opens the file via Excel for web or via Excel clients. Do other Office files be locked by this user?

    As threads with tag "office-excel-itpro" focus more on Excel clients, my suggestions more from the viewpoint of Excel.

    • Please make suer this user uses a version of Excel that supports co-authoring, such as Excel for Microsoft 365. Or check whether this version of Excel is different with others who do not encounter this issue.
    • Then please search "Office Upload Center" and open it > Settings > Check the box of "Delete files from the Office document cache when they are closed" > Delete cached files.
    • Besides, open this file via Excel clients > Click Info > Manage Document > Click Check out then Check In, save this file to have a look.
    • If nothings helps, please create a new local administrator account to check this issue, this behavior would create a new user profile.

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    1 person found this answer helpful.

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