Errors while using Office 365 and OneDrive while offline

Question

Word, PowerPoint, and Excel do not work properly when switching between online and offline modes when working on documents stored in OneDrive. The problems have been around for a while, and since I've been paying my subscription for years, I think it's time Microsoft addressed them.

Here's one scenario: I'm working in the airport terminal connected to club room WiFi on documents stored on my hard drive but in OneDrive. I shut down normally, get on the plane, and then start working again once I'm in the air. I work on the same document on the plane for a while. We're coming in to land, so I go to close Word or Powerpoint or Excel, and have to wait a couple of minutes for the app to figure out it's offline (I'm blocked with the spinning cursor.) The files I'm working on are in autosave mode. Meanwhile, the stewardess is yelling at me to get off my computer. But if I force a shutdown, I could lose my changes.

Scenario 2: Working on a PowerPoint stored on the hard drive in OneDrive on the plane while offline. Once again, when I try to close PowerPoint, I get the spinning cursor, and when it finally comes back, PPT says it has saved the changes to sync when I'm back online. But if I try to reopen the file while still offline, all my changes are gone! I can't continue to work on the document. Then, when I'm online again, I can see my changes, but PPt says "upload pending", even though OneDrive is connected and says it's up-to-date. When I hit save in the message bar, nothing happens. So, I have to save a new copy.

I'm using all MS products here: Windows 11, Office subscription, and OneDrive, and I have updates turned on for all them. These problems have been around for years and it is pretty frustrating.

Answer 1

Hello,avagojoe

Welcome to the Microsoft community!

I have realized that your issues.

I understand that you are experiencing no change in the process of backing up your files for a specific period of time.

 I understand the inconvenience you are experiencing with the process of backing up your files for a specific period of time.

 In fact, this problem is a design-enabled problem. It's because of the fact that both OneDrive and Microsoft products need to be networked on a regular basis, as well as OneDrive synchronization.

The scenarios you provided are invariably scenarios where you have to disconnect from the network, and in this case you can only be advised to calculate the time to back up manually first.

I have searched for instructions and there is no solution to your current problem.

It is also recommended to backup locally!

This need the development team to further improve the product's functionality. Thank you for your careful observation and suggestions, your ideas and suggestions are crucial to improving Microsoft products, but this forum is mainly a technical communication platform, the Microsoft development team will not pay attention to this forum.

If you have any ideas or suggestions about Microsoft Office applications you can post them on the specialized feedback platform OneDrive · Community (microsoft.com) (English platform), where specialized developers will pay attention to and comment on your feedback. After sending your feedback, you can share the feedback link in this forum so that other users with similar issues, including me, can vote for your feedback and the more votes you get the more likely you are to get attention from the development team.

Feel free to post back if you need further assistance. 

Thank you for your understanding and patience and I look forward to hearing from you.

Ryan - MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist