Using Office 2016 Offline

Question

We have a user that is having issues with using Office 2016 offline when One Note is logged in for his notes to sync. If he's in the office where he has Internet, it works fine; however, if he travels and doesn't have internet, Word, Excel, etc just hangs and shows not responding. The only fix is to open One Note and to log it out and then the other Office programs work fine. Why do they require One Note to be logged out to be able to open normally? It just makes no sense.

To reiterate, anytime this user takes his laptop offline (removes the laptop from his dock and travels) and opens Word, Excel, etc without access to the Internet, those programs don't work right. They lock up and say not responding. They never will work correctly. If he opens One Note and tells that program to log out of the user it's logged into, then the other Office programs work fine. It's as though, due to One Note being logged in when he disconnects, the other Office Programs are requiring an Internet Connection or they don't know how to work properly. Upon logging out of One Note, it's like the Office Programs know to work offline.

It sure seems like Office would not care one way or the other though and, if no connection is found, the entire suite would simply ignore any one program being logged in and just allow local access. That said, this is not what we're finding or experiencing. Is there any fix to this so he can remain logged in all the time and not have to log out, log back in, log out, log back in, etc as he goes back and forth from being remote to working online, etc.? Maybe a registry hack or something? I'm pulling my hair out here... Thanks in advance!

Moved from: Office OneNote  / Windows 10  / Office 2016

Answer 1

Hi Daniel,

It’s possible that other Office applications try to sync with the account that’s already signed into the device that’s currently offline and could be the reason why it hangs or doesn’t respond.

Can you confirm which version of Office is being used? Is it an Office 365 subscription or Office Professional Plus 2016 provided by your organization? Does he use a work account? Does the laptop he uses configured by IT or is it a personal device?

We’ll be waiting for your response.

Answer 2

Hi Daniel, 

How is your issue now? Have you checked my reply? Please feel free to come back f you need further assistance. 

Regards,

Ivy

Answer 3

Yes Office 2016 is supposed to work without an internet connection.

Please confirm which OneNote is being used. Just recently MS "(dis)improve d" OneNote out of Office and in to Windows. They uninstalled OneNote Office and installed OneNote windows. The important difference between them is that OneNote Windows only saves it's note files in OneDrive.

If the files you are using have links between OneDrive Windows and Word / Excel that could cause a problem.

I don't recall seeing this specific problem before so I have not seen a fix for it.

If you don't get a fix in the next day or so, you should submit a "Feedback" to MS. Feedback is setup specifically to receive "bug reports" (like this) and new feature requests.

**********************

Send Feedback to MS Developers ****Launch Feedback Hub via  <WIN><F>

“Official” MS does not pay much attention to this forum. However, you now can send your complaints and feature requests directly to MS developers and managers using one of the 4 possible “Feedback” mechanisms described in this link:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/send-feedback-to-ms-developers/506e7654-8ced-405b-911e-c58d8f253069

Please post a share link to your feedback, back here, so other people who find your question will be able to vote for it and add their comments to it.

Collection of MS “UserVoice” web links:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows\_10-desktop/ms-suggestion-box-sites-at-usdervoicecom/7397119c-6d48-49e6-8d94-7bd0a50d214f

Answer 4

To be specific, for Excel, it's 2016 MSO (16.0.4849.1000) 64-bit.  Any thoughts?

Answer 5

The user is running OneDrive Version 2019 Build 19.086.0502.0006 in addition to Office Suite 2016.  So when OneDrive is logged into his account where syncing is possible, again, other 2016 Office applications (Word, Excel, etc) won't open fully and just say not responding.  It's not until OneDrive is opened and logged out of that the Office applications work.  This is of course ONLY when off line with no Internet connection.  If the user has an Internet connection, all programs work fine.