Upload failed - We cannot merge with changes made by someone else

Question

Recently we've uploaded our file server to SharePoint, however some of our users are facing this issue when they're editing some Excel files, it pops out an error message: Upload failed - We cannot merge with changes made by someone else. Do you have any idea if it's because of Office, or SharePoint, or OneDrive, or maybe because of network bandwidth?

Btw, another issue is the owner of one file will see the sync status is ok, however some other user cannot see that

• there is a red alert of sync status for that file.

Answer 1

Hi Daniel,

Thanks for your query and providing the screenshot in this community.

Based on your description, it seems you encounter the issue when you co-author an Excel workbook with others.   When we tested from our side we did not reproduce this problem.

So, I would like to ask if the file is password protected? If yes, I’d like let you know that we cannot co-author password protected workbook. Thanks for your understanding.

If it does not involve password protected workbook, you may try following suggestions:

1. Delete the Cache in Office Upload Center and check whether you can save or not.

Click on Windows key> Enter Office Upload Center> Click on it to Open> Settings> Delete cached file> Ok.

2.Please update your office to the latest version.

Firstly, to avoid data loss, I recommend you click Save a Copy to save your change. Then update Office via Open a spreadsheet > file > account > update options > update now. Then edit in the file and see if issue still happens.

In addition, the red sync status icon usually means the file has sync issue.

Hope this information will help you.

Best regards,

Tin

Answer 2

Hi Tin Zhang,

Thanks for your instruction. Our file is not password protected.

I'm following your guide to delete cached files in Office Upload Center. Let see how it goes. For updating to latest version, since it's be managed by our organization so we cannot do that.

Answer 3

Another issue is SharePoint overwrite the file. It happen with one of our users, yesterday she made some changes on one Excel sheet on her desktop, everything looks ok: the green tick icon on the status, on the title bar of Excel it also said "Saved".

However this morning when she opened that file on another notebook, the version that she updated yesterday was not there, there is a red sync status on the notebook. At that time she opened that Excel sheet on the desktop and it's still ok, however few mins later it become the same file as the one on the notebook and the sync status on both desktop and notebook are green. Is there any best practice for this?

We migrated all the files from legacy file share server to SharePoint Online since we see that there are plenty of advantage with SharePoint Online, however it seems that our end-users are facing so many issue with that.

Answer 4

Hi Truongpx309

Ever figured out how to solve this? We have exactly the same issue.

Kind regards,

Answer 5

Hi @Michel4545,

I actually revert some of the SharePoint site to legacy share drive, since I think that SharePoint Online is not yet optimized to replace legacy share drive. IMO, to store your data inside SharePoint Online is ok, however to collaborate with your teammate is not ideal solution.