SharePoint files won't open in Desktop App

Question

We have an issue with one of our users. 

1. When they select a file from SharePoint Online to open in the desktop app, nothing happens. They are able to open in the online version and they can also download and open locally.
2. When they open a file from their outlook, they press File > Save As and save to sharepoint and it shuts all applications down on their PC. 

The work around at the moment is they save the file from outlook to their desktop, then drag into SharePoint.

Thank you

Answer 1

Hi SamMam,

Based on your description, we understand that some users cannot open the files in the desktop app from SharePoint Online and when they open the file from their outlook, they cannot save the files to SharePoint.

Will these users have the following pop-up window when they choose the desktop to open the file? You can try a different browser to see if this problem can be solved.‘

If the problem persists，please check if there are any updates of Office. You can update your Office applications in the following ways: Open Excel -> File -> Account ->Update Options ->Update Now.

If your Office has been updated to the latest version, you can also try the following methods:

1. Repairing Office from the Control Panel:

Go to Control Panel -> Programs -> right-click on Office applications’ icon -> Change -> Online Repair.

1. Opening Office apps in safe mode to check whether there is an add-in or extension that may be causing a problem on startup.
2. Performing a clean boot in Windows determine whether a background program is interfering with your Office application.

If none of the above methods can solve your problem, please provide the following information so that we can give further suggestions:

• Does the issue happen to all browsers?
• Screenshot of Office version (Open Excel > File > Account > Product information)
• Screenshot of the problem you are experiencing. Do you have any error message when app shuts down? If so, please share the screenshot with us.
• Does the issue happen to all Office files like Word documents, PowerPoint presentation, Excel workbook? Or only a specific type of file?
• Refer to Office URI Schemes, try to use URI link to see the result. For example: ms-excel:ofe|u|https://contoso.sharepoint.com/libraryname/filename.xls

Hope this will help you.

Tin

Answer 2

Hi SamMam,

May I know whether there are any updates to your question? If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.

Tin

Answer 3

Hi, We are also facing the same issue with our Windows 7 Users. They cant able to open the Excel, Word, Powerpoint files through 'Open in app'. It gives an error that ' Cannot download the information you requested'. And Onedrive App also not syncing. We signed out and tried to sign in again on Onedrive app, but it got failed. For windows 8 and windows 10 users are able to work properly, we are facing issues with Windows7.

Please note: We have updated the settings for TLS 1.2 in windows 7 systems, but problem still not resolved.

Answer 4

Just found a solution for an issue of mine that fits the description of your first issue. A user's machine was reinstalled yesterday but today the user informed me that they had answered an onscreen question for excel (not recorded) and subsequently no excel file would open in the client app if initiated using the sharepoint interface. The web interface could view them and files could be opened if downloaded.

I discovered that Word was unaffected and other machines were working normally, so clearly a local configuration issue.

After investigation, I determined that Office 2016 apps from the Microsoft store were somehow downloaded this morning leading to the Sharepoint interface querying the user to specify which excel client app to open so the user had picked one (which I think was the new installed app). These "new" Office apps were on the start menu but did not open and nor could I manually remove them using the Microsoft store interface. I opened the "Office" interface (also installed from the Store) and opened both word and then excel which opened the normal desktop apps.

This seemed to clear the issue as I can now open excel files from sharepoint into the client app again.

I looked back at the Microsoft store and the "Excel 2016" etc apps were gone as were their start menu icons.

Obviously, your symptoms may have a different cause (especially with regards to your second symptom) but hopefully this gives you something else to try.