Problems with Microsoft Office Setup Assistant

Question

Hello,

I have been using Microsoft Office 2011/365 for Mac on a mid-2010 MacBook Pro running OS X Yosemite without issue. I recently upgraded to a new MacBook Pro, also running Yosemite (10.10.3), and migrated my content over from a Time Machine backup.

Since I moved to my new computer, I have been completely unable to open any Microsoft Office application or content because I have been unable to sign in with my existing MS Office 365 subscription. When I try to "sign in with existing Office 365 subscription" from the setup window of any of the applications (like Word or Excel) all I get is a screen with a white rounded square and the application crashes/becomes unresponsive (I have to force quit the application to close it). When I try to "sign in with existing Office 365 subscription" from the Microsoft Setup Assistant I get a message stating that the application is experiencing temporary server issues and to try again shortly. This message has persisted for a few days, and while I've found many people around the web who have encountered the same problem over the last couple of years, I have been unable to find any solutions that I can try on my computer to fix the 'server issue' or get past the white square.

I can still successfully use MS Office on my other computer, login to the website online, and login to applications on my iPad, so I know that it is not a problem with my account.

I have tried restarting my computer

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling the software

I have tried setting up the software while my computer is in SafeBoot mode

I have tried setting the software up on a different/new user account on my computer

None of these potential solutions have worked.

Does anybody know how to get past this problem?

Answer 1

So after some tinkering I have finally managed to figure out what was wrong. I'm posting the steps I took to fix this issue in case they help anyone else out in the future.

1: When logged into my online Microsoft 365 account, I followed the steps to set up an application password.

2: I closed out all Microsoft Office applications on my computer. I opened Word and selected the "Use Office to view your files for free" option. This let me open files without editing them, but more importantly, after a couple of tries* it opened an alert informing me that there was a problem with the MS Office database, typically related to having restored from a Time Machine backup.

*(at first, strangely, it alerted me that there wasn't enough disk space to run MS Word, even though I have 8GB of RAM and 75GB of free space on the HD)

3: I followed the prompt of that alert, which took me to the Office Database Utility and allowed me to rebuild the database from the restored backup version. After taking this step, I closed out the applications and opened the Microsoft Office Setup Assistant (trying to activate the application within Word or Excel still froze the application).

4: I selected the "Sign into an existing Office 365 subscription" option. It still gave me the 'temporary server issue' error message, but this time the "Try again" button was responsive. I clicked that a few times (it may take you several clicks to get through) until it took me to an email entry field. I entered my email. I couldn't click the interface's button to enter, but hitting the enter/return key on my keyboard worked.

5: When prompted for a login password, I entered the application password I'd set up earlier. Again hitting the enter key was more effective than trying to click the button.

6: I closed MS Office Setup Assistant and opened up Word to find that everything was set up successfully and working fine.

So in summary, the reason for my problem was the fact that I had restored my computer from a Time Machine backup, and the basic solution for my problem was rebuilding the software database using the database utility. The reason this was so hard to figure out was a) the error message I received about 'server issues' did not even hint at the problem that was actually going on, and b) getting the helpful prompt about database issues required somehow getting past the login/setup screen to the actual application, which seemed impossible at first with the login issue I was experiencing. I'm not sure if setting up the application password was necessary to resolving the issue, or if it only required that password over my normal account password because I'd set it up, but since it was a part of the overall series of steps I followed to resolve the issue, I included it in the instructions above.

I really hope this helps anyone who finds themselves in a similar predicament in the future. This was a tricky issue to resolve, and the lack of clear-cut answers online on forums or from customer support was frustrating.

Answer 2

Hi David,

Thank you so much for for quick response.

If ever I will do Plan A which requires to uninstall Office 365 in my mac, do you think I still would be able to restore and access my outlook mails on it? I have all my work emails in there so I am not too sure if it will still remain without lossing any single mails after I do the factory reset and reinstalling again?

Please clarify my doubts 😊

thank you

Answer 3

DavidDanneker

My friend I salute you - you are a genius.  I tried the open files for free, opened the first Word file which then asked me to activate Office on a different screen.  When I entered my account name and password it worked.

I am now back using what I paid for after 4 weeks of trying.

First time using this forum and really appreciate the help.

Peter

Answer 4

Hi Arshad',

Thank you for the tip! This in and of itself did not solve the problem, but I actually just resolved it myself and this step was a part of figuring it out, so thank you for the tip!

Answer 5

Try creating an app password for the ms account, you have for the subscription and then use the app password to sign in.

See if that helps.