How to Troubleshoot OneDrive for Business When You Encounter Cloud Storage Sync & Upload Errors

This article is a comprehensive guide on troubleshooting some of the most basic OneDrive for Business sync errors or how to tackle when the file sync stops working overall. I will walk you through common scenarios I have seen based on my experience on a walk-up TechBar and the most common situations that I have helped fellow members in our EE Community resolve thus far. It applies primarily to Windows OS workstations; however, some tips can address Mac OS X workstations errors.

OneDrive for Business Icon Showing Sync Issues Exist (Fig 1.)

                         

Toat Notification Error From OneDrive (Fig 2.)

SECTION 1.  Sync Errors & Message Fundamental Root Causes

The following are primary causes that may disrupt OneDrive from synchronizing changes or uploading files successfully. BEFORE proceeding any further in this article, please take some time to examine what OneDrive sync status icons mean as there are a wide array of them; see (What do the OneDrive icons mean? | Microsoft KB). It can be confusing if you do NOT know what they're indicating, and if you DO NOT see these icons, then it's possible your OneDrive for Business files are no longer synchronizing, or the icons may be disabled.  

Note: Aside from the Windows File Explorer location, OneDrive can usually be found in the Windows task tray when you choose the up arrow and click on the BLUE cloud icon, or along the bottom of the main taskbar, see (OneDrive Backup | Video | Experts Exchange) by fellow Expert Edward van Biljon. On a Mac OS X, this may be on the uppermost navigation menu at the top or right-hand corner of your screen, but if you cannot locate it in Finder already open nor elsewhere popping up at the time of the sync issues, perform a search for OneDrive and select it that way. Your OneDrive for Business shortcut will typically populate the company name after signing into the shortcut, whereas OneDrive personal (non-work accounts) will often have your name. Sometimes I have seen others mix up their personal and work account credentials, causing login failures.

• Tip: OneDrive can be logged into via the web version if you cannot access your files through Windows File Explorer or the desktop version. The web version can come in handy, especially if you've deleted files from OneDrive and need to see if they are present for recovery or are concerned about whether recent files were saved or uploaded successfully. Visit: https://onedrive.live.com/about/en-us/signin/. There is also a OneDrive mobile app.

Note: Also, remember there are feature limitations of the web versions of Word, OneNote, PowerPoint, etc., when opening those types of files from OneDrive that way as well, but you can "Choose to Open the Desktop App" as long as those are not encountering any issues. If your desktop applications aren't working, continue to use the web versions of the applications as a workaround.

• Password Changes:  Often, when you are required to change a system password for your work account, OneDrive for Business is impacted by this immediately or may be delayed in ultimately having the most current credentials that impair file syncing and uploads. An EE Community member I assisted had an unusual issue, see (Upload to OneDrive for Business failed, this was noticed after a password change | OneDrive for Business | EE ) for more details. Essentially, when working from home or offsite, sometimes errors may have occurred for OneDrive or over VPN. Even when one is onsite and changing their password at their workplace, I have seen OneDrive can be quite finicky with password changes, sadly.

• Basic Step:  Try clearing out the Windows Credential Manager entries for Microsoft OneDrive or locate the entry from your keychain, which would be the equivalent on a Mac OS X if it's there. You can perform a search for, i.e., Credential Manager from the Windows Start Menu, then search for a keyword; the same applies to a Mac OS X for the keychain, but you may need to use CMD Key + Spacebar then in the search field type, i.e., keychain. Once you remove your Microsoft entries or OneDrive for Business credentials under the Windows section of Credential Manager, for example, you may need to pull up the OneDrive for Business application via a quick search then sign back into all of your Microsoft-related accounts with your most current password. Sometimes the entries in Credential Manager get buggy, so clearing and re-adding them often is a good first step to test out, especially even if you haven't changed your password recently.

• Tip: If reapplying your credentials fails to resolve this, then try removing and re-adding your OneDrive for Business account back to the app connected to Windows File Explorer; see (How to remove an account in OneDrive | Microsoft KB) for more details. 

• Network Hiccups: If your laptop or workstation disconnected from the network at some point or had issues over Wi-Fi suddenly and disruption over a hardwired Ethernet connection, then it's possible that OneDrive hit a roadblock with your file synchronization. Test other Wi-Fi networks you trust and change your work location if remote on VPN or onsite to see if there's unusual interference. 

• Double-check that you're connected to the network in the bottom right-hand corner. It is possible your internet settings changed, or intermittent disruptions were encountered when accessing OneDrive on your network. Double-check and compare the settings against a working station on the same OS or try resetting Windows socket-related settings via the "cmd" window when ran as an admin. Sometimes it takes multiple attempts to iron out internet errors or flushing your network bugs. 

• For example, an end-user in our EE Community installed software that wreaked havoc over their internet and caused network adapters to go missing. I had advised to also look at services.msc, e.g., where their Automatic properties changed to Manual for WLAN AutoConfig about their network in addition to running a series of reset and IP flush commands, see (Restore my Network Adapters, Network Connections folder is empty | Experts Exchange). So you see, there are bizarre issues like that where other applications can mess with your connectivity and cause extensive damage that takes a while to resolve or revert changes.

Note: You may be able to leverage Windows Event Viewer as well to trace back what occurred at the time of your OneDrive error.

• General Sync Glitches: Often, whenever I see a file stuck synchronizing for quite a while or quite a few files and cannot resolve the sync errors, I will just reset OneDrive. Resetting OneDrive means you're initiating a task to resync down through every single file you have; see (How to Reset OneDrive | Microsoft KB ) for more details on how to perform it. For this article, I am concentrating on Windows workstations, but refer to the tabbed sections on KB article regarding resetting OneDrive on a Mac OS X system, Android, or iOS mobile device.

Note: There are a few different ways to execute the reset of OneDrive; one is just loading the below path, which you can retrieve from their KB section or manually type in then hit the Enter key in the Start Menu search field after inputting it, which will usually kickstart the reset too. However, you can always follow Microsoft's Windows Key + R suggestion to launch a Run window.

Resetting OneDrive via Start Menu (Fig 3.) 

           
         


Note: Please check how much storage or disk space you have BEFORE running the reset, as it may fail if you have insufficient or low space. To check how much space is FREE, first navigate to Windows File Explorer > This PC or My PC. and look to the right-hand side typically.

Disk Space Check (Fig 4.)
You do not need 475GB free; as pictured below, this is from another of my workstations, but ideally, your disk space should be over 10GB+.

                         

 Note: If you have a ton of files, then it can take some time for OneDrive to sync through each file you have. You may wish to do this during your lunch break or leave your computer overnight so that it finishes. The overall completion time varies; sometimes it's speedy, and other times it's not, is what I've seen.

• Low Disk Space:  As mentioned earlier, if OneDrive for Business is ever consuming too much storage space or you run low and are nearly out of disk space on your workstation, that can also cause many sync errors to accumulate. Ultimately, you can reduce the number of files being synced constantly via the Files on Demand feature or switch over to the web version of OneDrive. Another way is to choose View Online via a right-mouse click on the pinned shortcut icon in, i.e., File Explorer until you can address freeing up disk space or receive help to clean disk space further see (How to Use OneDrive Files On-Demand) for more details.

Note: Always make sure you empty your trash can or recycle bin regularly and take time to perform regular file housekeeping. Just because you delete a file doesn't mean it will automatically delete. Both TreeSize and WinDirStat are excellent tools that I have used in the past to identify storage consumption problems a bit further or which folders take up the most space on a Windows OS workstation.  It is important always to check what a file is or means before deletion, especially when working with third-party tools. Please reach out to members of our EE Community if you're unsure on how to proceed or what a large file type does on your OS, and whether or not removing it would cripple any systems or software.

• Tip: If you type %temp% in the address bar of File Explorer, then hit the Enter key, you can see a list of all of your temp files in Windows File Explorer. Most of these are unnecessary, but if you receive a message stating a file is in use or cannot be removed, leave those alone and skip them.

Temp File Location Lookup Shortcut (Fig 5.)

• Depending on your role and security policies, you may not have permission at work to install these applications on your own work computer. On Mac OS X, there is a Disk Cleanup or Manage storage utility function. Clean out your downloads folders, temp files, etc., on Mac OS X or Windows OS typically first.  See How to free up storage space on your Mac - Apple KB. Ensure you look at OneDrive for Business, not the iCloud Drive from Apple at work, but on your home, non-company provided stations may have a OneDrive - Personal folder or iCloud Drive, etc. instead. It can be easy to mix up all of the different "cloud" names and applications nowadays.

• Name Change Process Errors:  At times, you may have had your name or last name change where your IT Support Department may have had to help; however, from my experience with Microsoft Office, i.e., Outlook profiles and other applications, they can be quite tricky to handle overall. It takes a while also for changes to be recognized depending on how many systems are in play for an end-user and the overall environment, OS, and in simplest terms, your profile. You may need to contact your IT Support Department to ensure no steps were missed in their name change standard work process or have team members assist with examining the errors further overall and may need to dive into the system registry as described further below.

• Examine System Registry, GPO, Conflicts & Rules & Profile Damage:  There may be lingering OneDrive for Business entries tied to an old name after a name change is performed in your workplace; those may need to be pinpointed and removed. Additionally, one EE member I assisted ran into a problem where sync duplication errors were happening; see ( OneDrive Syncing Duplicate File | EE Community). Some programs were establishing some rules interfering with OneDrive overall on the backend, especially security, antivirus, and firewall-based ones can create hiccups where you at times must make exclusions or blocking modifications. It's quite possible if you're experiencing other login errors with multiple applications or system-related that the user profile is corrupted or damaged. It may be necessary to test signing into Office applications under a new user profile to test if it follows. 

Note:  It can be dangerous performing registry changes to fix Office and OneDrive for Business issues on your own or if you're not familiar with system policies. Due to the wide array of values and keys that exist, it is often best to collaborate with an IT Support Professional, your work Help Desk contacts, or the EE Community. Always ensure that you back up the registry before testing or modifying things under regedit.exe as admin or performing any new policy changes, plus corrections identified should be carefully applied with the assistance of your organization's System Administrator(s). It's also possible to have a System Restore point created to revert changes on your personal workstation.

• Bugs & Updates:  Ensure that OneDrive for Business is the most current version installed see (Update the OneDrive for work or school sync app | Microsoft KB). When upgrading computer workstations or performing replacement requests, I have often seen replacement requests that conflicting versions or older ones will hiccup, causing a series of sync errors to emerge on the older workstation. Additionally, you could try removing and re-installing OneDrive with the assistance of an IT Support Professional present see (Turn off, disable, or uninstall OneDrive | Microsoft KB ) for more details. Lastly, ensure that you have completed all Windows updates as falling behind can cause unusual problems to arise with Microsoft Office applications in general.

• File Naming Errors & Duplication: Look for special characters or try renaming the file by opening the file's location too or just re-saving it again. Name, length, and file restrictions or limitations OneDrive has overall; please examine the Restrictions and limitations in OneDrive | Microsoft KB on the invalid characters, filename lengths, duplicate file name conflicts, and upload size, etc. If you recently migrated a bunch of files or quickly dragged a lot of them into OneDrive, then this could take some time to sort through duplicates manually that have errors. At the walk-up TechBar, I saw character conflict problems heavily hit Mac OS X stations.

OneDrive Connection Error (Fig 6.)

SECTION 2. Other Resources & Tools Summary:  

 
OneDrive for Business sync errors may often require involving IT Support Professionals in your workplace to help fix them. Feel free to always reach out in the EE Community or post. Additionally, you can try to raise a ticket with Microsoft support if it's an error you've never encountered before: https://support.microsoft.com/contactus.

• Microsoft also offers OneDrive for Business training video resources and has further documentation on common error codes, see (Error Code 0x8004de40 when signing in to OneDrive ) plus (OneDrive for Business troubleshooting) additional tip pages for IT Administrators surrounding, e.g., SharePoint & OneDrive configurations or how syncing works on the backend. Outside of the EE Community, there is also the Microsoft Support Community, where others report bugs with OneDrive for Business and other products or apps.

Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant (SaRa) Tool (Fig. 7)

• Tools: The Microsoft Support & Recovery Assistant Diagnostics tool is not just for Outlook error examination. There is an option available on the diagnostics tool for troubleshooting OneDrive for Business sync errors. Visit: About the Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant | Microsoft  Secondly, ProcessMonitor "ProcMon" is a great advanced tool for capturing backend events or access denied errors, etc. that may be taking place or causing the conflicts being faced, see ( Process Monitor | Microsoft Documentation) for more details. 

Lastly, remember that other applications such as antivirus scanners or security software can cause odd issues for OneDrive at times, such as automatic deletions or missing files that you wanted to sync or upload. You should always check the recycle bin in the web version of OneDrive. Also, ensure that your OneDrive version and OS is not behind on updates if you're trying to use it on more than one station. Other third-party or sync-related apps running can also create hiccups for OneDrive. When you're using OneDrive across more than one device as well, it can cause confusion or errors to occur, so you may need to test unlinking one to see which device or station is the root cause of sync failures.

Event viewer logs in Windows or ProcMon, as mentioned earlier, can help with tracking or even ProcessExplorer. If you're on a Mac OS X, there are alternatives out there to capture processes on your station running alongside OneDrive for Business. Examine whether those deleted files were shared with any other team members who may have interacted with it and see if it's just one particular file type facing deletion over and over again or in one folder. Each organization also can set data retention policies as well over OneDrive for Business. A System Administrator or IT Support Professional in your workplace may be able to trace or initiate an audit of the activity happening to OneDrive or may need to comb through apps and often must perform a process of elimination to identify the source of any unusual behavior.  

When you see any sync errors spinning up from OneDrive for Busines, it can be quite alarming overall, but there are many methods to approach the error you're encountering.  If this article helped you resolve your sync issues on a workstation or found it useful, remember to select the  "Thumbs Up" button below, or feel free to comment and provide feedback. Thanks again!