We had some trouble starting your presentation. Please try again.

Hi M,

We had some trouble starting your presentation. Please try again. 

I've struck this error a couple of times myself lately and after some experimentation, identified two possible causes.

One is that there was an interruption to the server where the PowerPoint is hosted if trying to open directly from a hosted online drive. Security settings would need to be eased in Microsoft Office or Windows which I do not recommend doing. Rather, download the file to your local drive.

The more likely situation is where the user is trying to open the file from their machine, but Windows is blocking that. Very easy to correct though.

In File Explorer, Right-Click the downloaded PowerPoint file and select Properties.

There will be a Security setting on the file. Tick Unblock and then OK. See below for an example.



The file should now open without error.

This has to be a result of some recent Windows/Office updates because I'd not seen the error until recently after Microsoft updates had been downloaded and applied.

Hope that's helpful.

Regards, Andrew

Andrew,

Sorry, I did not provide all the details: The message appears whenever the user tries to share their screen. So in other words, if the desktop is shared, the message appears.

Thank you for your answer.