File stored in an unsupported service location

Hi Brodie,

Based on our test, if you modified the document in Offline mode, when you quit Word app, the app will let you save the document or delete the draft. And since you are in offline mode, the document can only be saved on the iPad.

According to your description, you said you attempted to save to OneDrive via the "More" option, since you've made some changes when you took a flight, we'd like to confirm whether you have saved the document to the local location in iPad or saved the document to OneDrive until you got the Internet connection.

Regards,

Tisky

Hi Brodie,

Would you please confirm the information mentioned in my last reply?

Regards,

Tisky

Hi Tisky,

When i quit the document i attempted to save into OneDrive via the files app.

At this time the device was offline.

I attempted to reopen sometime later once i was online and could not open the document. Thats when i received the unsupported server location error.

Hi Brodie,

Thanks for letting us know the specific information of your situation, we may need some time to test on our side to check whether we can retrieve the lost document based on the latest information you provided. We will post back once we have any update.

Regards,

Tisky

Hi Brodie,

Thanks for your patience.

After consulting the related team, we are sorry to inform you that the document is possibly lost. The route you provided seems like a temp file in iOS system, we cannot convert it into a workable .docx file. Though we still would like to share our testing result with you, in case the problem happens again.

Here are the steps of the test:

1. Sign into a website mail box, open a Word attachment, click Copy in Word application.

2. After opening the file on local, the document is default as the Read Only mode, we cannot edit the document unless we save it to a place first, the place can be a local or an Online location.

3.1 If you choose save the document to OneDrive, there will be a copy on OneDrive. In this case, the file changes will automatically upload to OneDrive if the device is connected to network and the auto-save is on.

If you are Offline. We can still edit the document, only the changes won't be uploaded. You can go to Property > Location to check file's path, it will displayed as a OneDrive path. The changes you make will automatically upload to OneDrive once the device is connected to network.

See: When you're online, AutoSave is always on and saves your changes as you work. If at any time you lose your Internet connection or turn it off, any pending changes will sync as soon as you're back online.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/can-i-work-offline-3cdc0690-7332-4d4b-8884-ba2a353a42d8   

3.2 In the scenario which without network connection, we suggest you save the file to your iPad first, and click File > Save after the modification to save the changes. If you save the file on iPad, in Property > Location will display iPad.

If you make further changes while offline, you'll need to save your changes by tapping File > Save.

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/can-i-work-offline-3cdc0690-7332-4d4b-8884-ba2a353a42d8  

Meanwhile, there is some information we still cannot confirm:

1. Are you using Outlook as your mail app?

2. Based on our test, when you first open the file, it is in Read-Only mode, you need to save the file to a place before editing, we would like to know where did you save the file.

3. After you editing the file and due to offline you cannot save it to OneDrive, did the Word app still running in the background before you have access to network?

Regards,

Tisky

Hi Brodie,

Have you checked the information above?

Regards,

Tisky

Hi Tisky

The email client used was the native ios mail app connected to an exchange account. 

I dont recall having to save due to the file opening as read only. i have seen that some files do often open as read only first however this must not of been the case in this instance. 

When i saved to onedrive i attempted to do this through the ios files app. The word app remained active in the background. 

Hi Brodie,

Thanks for sharing the information with us.

First, we need to inform you that it is very likely that the file has been lost. But to prevent the same situation from happening again, we suggest you follow the steps below to open and save the attachment when you receive the email.

1. In iOS mail app, open the document.

2. In the list, click Copy to Word to open the document in Word.

3. When the document is opened in Word, it will prompt you to Save a copy first, then you can save the document to the local or OneDrive.

According to your description, you haven't seen the prompt when you open the document, I suppose that you firstly saved the file to OneDrive through File app, when you open the document in Files app via Word, the prompt disappears. We would like to confirm in which way did you save to open the document when you received the email. Any screenshots would be appreciated for us to understand your steps.

Furthermore, we’d like to know how you save the changes to OneDrive through Files app, generally, you can press Back button on the top left corner to submit the changes then if the file is located in OneDrive, the status of the document will display as Pending, once the you are back to online, the file will automatically upload to OneDrive and the status will become Downloaded.

Regards,

Tisky

Hi Brodie,

Do you need further assistance?

Regards,

Tisky