Microsoft Office apps stuck in 'Processing...' crashes

Question

I recently installed Office 365 on my new Laptop and having issues when opening and saving documents in most apps particularly Word and PowerPoint.

Whenever I try and open an existing Word document it gets stuck at 'Processing..' and either opens 3- 5 minutes later or crashes completely, most often crashes. Similar happens with PowerPoint. I have not tested Excel. Outlook seems to be working fine. 

I can open a blank document in Word and PowerPoint, the issues occur when trying to save or open an existing document. 

I've tried the repair options and even uninstalling Office 365 and reinstalling. Issues still occur. 

Is there a solution to this? Very frustrating as I work remotely and require Office. 

Thanks

Josh

Answer 1

This is the only option that I have found that works. Which is not beneficial for our system since we have several teams that utilize collaborative documents to update and share data.

Currently, I have reinstalled Windows on two devices which did remedy the issue. I have tried uninstalling suspect updates, online/offline repairs of Office, reinstalling OneDrive, etc., to no avail.

That was Friday and now that it is Monday there were calls first thing with the same issue. I have surveyed some details of the systems that are effected, and compiled the data in Excel in order to draw a conclusion or at least give me a lead as to what update/software version is the culprit.

So far, there are no leads with the Office Updates or OS Versions/Arch. This issue effects OS Versions 1909 to 20H2, Office Build Version 13127.21348 and 13127.21216, Excel version 16.0.13127.21336 and 16.0.13127.21210, 32-bit and 64-bit.

However, the Windows Updates that are installed show that KB4601554/4601556 might be the culprit. It is the Cumulative Update Preview for .NET Framework for Windows 10 Versions 2004/20H2 and 1909, respectively. Depending on the OS Version, the update is installed on the PCs that have the issue. The systems that do not, are the ones that do not have the issue.

I am going to try to uninstall these updates and report the findings. ****EDIT: This did not fix the issue****

**** EDIT

As discussed in a later post, I ended up with a solution that I will paste here for others:

1. Turned on option to allow Office to sync files.
2. Deleted "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\OfficeFileCache" folder
3. "%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset"
4. "%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe"

****

I attached the data discussed below. Green rows are the systems that are working.

Answer 2

Hi Josh_324,

I'm very sorry for the trouble this issue has caused. Please let me do my best to assist you fix it.

Based on your description, issue only happen when you open file located on OneDrive desktop sync folder. However, when you open

existing document from locally and it work fine.

Since, issue happen to files/documents opening from OneDrive sync client folder, I suggest please try to Reset OneDrive and see the outcomes.

Also, try open documents from OneDrive online and then click on “Open in app” to open file in desktop client app and check if the documents can be opened by Office client.

Meanwhile, could you please confirm are you using OneDrive personal or OneDrive for business on your machine.

I appreciate your patience and understanding.

Best Regards

Waqas Muhammad

Answer 3

To this day , I have not seen this issue reappear.

Even with the devices that have the update installed, after the steps were taken to delete the cache, the issue has not reappeared. I have not installed the Cumulative Updates for .NET Framework, KB4601554/4601556 (depending on 1909/20H2) on any further devices.

I still believe that these two updates corrupt something in the OneDrive cache in local app data that stops it from syncing properly and even a reinstall of OneDrive does not help.

These updates are optional and have to be installed by the user, GPO, or other policy control. They will not, by default, install automatically.

As you stated, deleting the user's profile will result in deleting this folder since it resides in the user's profile folder. The reappearance of the issue would be hard to determine: I can't see the update reinstalling itself, or corrupting the cache again , since I do not witness this happening with the devices that I have.

But I would block Optional Updates from installing, or just these updates, etc., via your MDM, GPO, or other policy control that you employ.

Answer 4

Fixed, thank you very much.

1. Deleted all the files in "%localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\16.0\OfficeFileCache" folder,
2. "%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe /reset"
3. "%localappdata%\Microsoft\OneDrive\onedrive.exe"

Answer 5

We are seeing this across 10+ machines.

Opening documents stored in locations serviced by OneDrive for Business have the issue.

* Opening documents inside office applications, you get the "processing" dialog box, pressing the Esc key opens the document.

* Opening documents from File Explorer hangs on "processing" and the application (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) eventually crash.

Documents stored locations not managed by OneDrive work as normal.

Disabling KFM appears to help for files stored in the Desktop, Documents, Pictures folders in most cases.

So far the only way to fix this has been to re-install the operating system, which is not desirable and very disruptive to the end user and time consuming.