Sharepoint file link opens a deleted file

Question

Sharepoint file link opens a deleted file

Tim Farrelly 1

Working in a SharePoint within an o365 environment.

I have a file which I directly access from Word on my Win 10 PC via the following link
https://infocouncil.sharepoint.com/sites/TestCouncil9/Clients/Templates/PMH_Report.docx.
It exists in a document library with versioning turned off.

Via Sharepoint online I delete this file. It is now in the recycle bin.

I have a copy of this file on my Win 10 PC which I modify and then upload to the same Sharepoint folder.

Now when I directly open the file via the same link above, the old file opens.

Can anyone help me to understand what is going on here? And how I might prevent the old file opening on that link?

(The reason we use that link form is because we have a Word Add-in which knows the folder containing many template files and it dynamically chooses the template file to use.)

Thanks
Tim

Chelsea Wu 6,346 Reputation points Moderator

2020-09-14T02:19:00.9+00:00

Hi @Tim Farrelly , do you have any progress on this thread? Please feel free to let us know if you need further assistance.

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Chelsea Wu 6,346 Reputation points Moderator

2020-09-14T02:19:00.9+00:00

Hi @Tim Farrelly , do you have any progress on this thread? Please feel free to let us know if you need further assistance.

Answer 1

Chelsea Wu 6,346 Moderator

Hi Tim, thank you for posting in the Q&A forum.

I can reproduce this behavior in my SharePoint Online environment.
When I open the newly uploaded document via the URL (https://<tenant>.sharepoint.com/sites/Site/Shared%20Documents/Folder/doc.docx), it opens the old document with a warning message in the client: “A newer version of this file is available on the server”.
Then I click on “Discard Changes”, it displays the new document instead. After that, if I open the document via the URL again, this issue no longer exists.

This scenario is possibly caused by a conflict of version in the Word client. When you open the copy from local drive to make changes, the client saves an earlier version to the local cache, which is loading the original document since you are using the same name for the newly uploaded document.

I have not been able to find a solution to prevent this issue from happening. I would suggest you modify the document directly from SharePoint instead of reuploading a copy from local drive with the same file name.

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Tim Farrelly 1 Reputation point

2020-09-08T06:59:36.66+00:00

I hear what you are saying but it is not the answer I wanted. Training users at 250 organisations using this software to only edit the templates a certain way is undesireable.

I spent considerable time trying to work out how the file might be cached on the local PC without learning anything. MS Office Upload Center revealed nothing.

Anyway, thanks for your response Chelsea.
Tim
Chelsea Wu 6,346 Reputation points Moderator

2020-09-08T09:16:02.67+00:00

Hi Tim, please use Comment instead of Write an Answer section to post the reply unless when you provide a valid solution to the question. We will be converting this reply for you.
Chelsea Wu 6,346 Reputation points Moderator

2020-09-08T09:16:40.747+00:00

There is something needs to be corrected in my previous reply. Sorry for the confusion.
I have done further test to repeat this procedure on separate devices. I can still reproduce this issue even if I later open the file via the original URL on this device. Also, this issue does not happen on SharePoint on-premises.

We may confirm that the document cache is not located in local Word client, but on server (SharePoint). There might be timer jobs related which clear the document cache or resolve the URL every few hours.
Since we have no control of the SharePoint Online backstage, I would suggest you open a service request to get further investigation on this behavior.

The simplest workaround would be uploading the local copy with the original file remaining in the library, overwriting it directly. In this scenario, the copy is uploaded as the latest version of the file so that it does not cause version conflict.

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Sharepoint file link opens a deleted file

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