Folders Shared with me are syncing as internet shortcut in OneDrive on Windows PC

Question

Hi. I had some folders shared from different users in my OneDrive account. I had added the folders to my OneDrive with Add Shortcut to OneDrive button from Shared folders in cloud. The account is logged into a windows pc and every files including the folders shared with my were syncing fine until yesterday. Yesterday night the shared folders were completely removed from the Windows pc and folders are replaced with internet shortcut. This is such a big mess. I have tried unlinking the account and linking it back, changing the location of OneDrive on my windows pc and tried to get a new folder shared to my account and adding it to OneDrive. Nothing works so far. OneDrive has a big part in my daily activities. Please help me resolve this.

Answer 1

Here is the statement from the Microsoft OneDrive product group (Redmond USA) about the OneDrive Personal problem:

***This is related to a backend migration we are doing and unfortunately, we don’t fully support syncing shared folders in the case where one user has migrated and the other has not. We’re doing everything possible to accelerate things so that it can be resolved as soon as possible for users of the feature. When the accounts are migrated, there is automated logic that makes them go back to a syncing folder within several days.***I have heard, that shared Folder issue is gone.
The best thing is: WAIT and do nothing

Answer 2

Hello PradeepSG,

Welcome to the Microsoft Community.

From your description, sorry to hear that you have experienced some issues with OneDrive shared folders. Recently we have received a lot of reports similar to yours and have confirmed this problem is related to a bug in OneDrive sharing folder feature. For now, unfortunately, we have to say there's no workaround yet.

We completely understand your opinion and needs for this feature. Sincerely apologize for the inconvenience you have experienced, and we'll keep to the latest progress for this issue from Microsoft. Once resolved we'll get you informed.

Thanks for your patience and understanding. Should any uncertainties arise subsequently, please feel free to seek assistance once again.

Best Regards,

William.Y | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 3

Please let us know how and when this will be fixed, there are businesses out there who are working with onedrive and cannot afford to waiste time with this problem. please, this needs to be fixed as soon as possible

Answer 4

As newcomers to this thread still don't seem to be able to go back a few pages before posting their "me too" questions, I am reposting this.

Nothing has changed since. MS are still keeping their heads firmly buried in the sand and saying nothing, migrations are still happening. Of the 6 members of my family, 5 have been migrated, but we're still awaiting the 6th, which happens to be a key account as the family common documents are with this account.

For those who have joined this conversation, but are daunted by the 239 pages of comments and so don't read through everything, this needs to be repeated - this problem is on the Microsoft server side. The "work around" and "hacks" aren't going to solve your long term problems, only MS can do that.

WHAT HAPPENED:

Around May/June of 2024, MS started deploying a new version of the OneDrive servers. The old system is V1.0, and the new one is V2.0.

They began slowly migrating people.

THE ISSUE

The sharing of folders and documents with local copies is incompatible between the two systems. Did MS know this? It's hard to tell, however, they never admitted that this was the problem, instead leaving people wondering why it's taken them 1 year to solve a problem that is critical to so many people.

The number of reported cases increased as the migration to V2.0 progressed. In particular, for people, say, on a family account, there is no coordination between when family members migrate.

THE SOLUTION

There isn't one except to wait until everyone you share with or shares with you has been migrated.

When everyone is migrated, those useless links should turn back into real files. Unfortunately, that means up to 300 million people's OneDrives downloading all those files again. The time to download all of that is probably not going to be short, as the bottleneck will be MS's own servers.

Given this fiasco, you can either jump ship on Office + OneDrive and move to alternative Office and Cloud solutions, or wait this out.

As this gets lost in the swamp of new messages, I thought I'd just repeat it with an addendum, because the proposed solutions are temporary bandaids, just lipstick on the gorilla.

Some people are replying that even when everyone is one V2.0, problems still arise in synchronization. The best solution seems to be:

1. Stop sharing the folder(s).
2. Create new ones.
3. Move all the content form the previously shared folder(s) top the new ones, and delete the old ones.
4. Share the new ones.

To know if you are on V1.0 or V2.0,

1. use the web interface, click on the settings (cog wheel) in the top corner and select options.
2. If the left-hand side navigation ends with "search", the account is still on V1.0, otherwise, it is on V2.0
3. There is a more complex solution using the inspection mode of your browser to check folders shared with you. (from Petr Vyskocil) Open OneDrive on the web, open browser's dev tools (F12 key), switch to network tab.

Click on the folder belonging to user you want to investigate (yours or any of the shared folders). You'll see bunch of requests fire off. One of them will start either withhttps://api.onedrive.com/v1.0/drives/(legacy OneDrive, this URL has been used since like forever) orhttps://my.microsoftpersonalcontent.com/_api/v2.0/drives(migrated new OneDrive).

Answer 5

Yes - it is affecting our work severely - can we have an update to say when this will be fixed please???