Locked out of OneDrive

Hi Robin,

Thank you for your message in this forum.

According to your description, it seems that you still want to use D drive as default location as same as before, however, it didn’t work and the dialog encourages you to add files to you OneDrive folder, and tells me that it is located in C:\Users\{My name}\OneDrive.

May I know if the scenario above is consistent with yours? If so, generally, if we want to change the location of OneDrive folder, we will select the OneDrive cloud icon in the taskbar or menu bar > select ... More and then select Settings > In the Account tab, select Unlink this PC or Unlink this Mac. The OneDrive setup screen will appear, but ignore it for now > Next, move your OneDrive or OneDrive for Business folder. Using File Explorer or Mac Finder, drag the OneDrive folder to your preferred location > Go back to the OneDrive setup screen, select Get started, and then follow the instructions until you get to the screen where you can change your OneDrive folder's location. Select Change, choose the new folder location, and then select OK > You'll see a message letting you know that the OneDrive folder in the new location already has files in it. Select Use this location, and then finish setting up OneDrive. For more details, you can refer to this article: Change the location of your OneDrive folder.

Given the situation you encountered, I want to confirm the information below with you to help you better:

1. You mentioned “I set the PC up in August 2016”, could you provide detailed steps about how you set up OneDrive folder before?
2. Could you provide the screenshot of OneDrive folder in D driver before?
3. Could you provide the version of your OneDrive? You can click More > Settings > About and provide the screenshot of it.

And if the scenario above is not consistent with yours, could you provide more details about “I've had a OneDrive a/c set up on my Windows 10 PC” and “When I try to change the location and point it at the existing OneDrive folder, it tells me I can't.”?

Best Regards,

Sukie

Hi Sukie,

Thanks for your reply.

Your initial scenario is correct. I have an existing OneDrive folder, D:\OneDrive - xxxxxxx, which worked until 2 days ago. The contents are around 22 GB, and 26,000 files. After the Windows update on the evening of Wednesday 13/11/19 (which I must assume also included an update to the OneDrive program itself):

(1), I am signed out of OneDrive,

(2), D:\OneDrive - xxxxxxx is no longer represented by the blue cloud icon, it just has a normal folder icon:

and

(3), When I try to sign in, it is as if I am setting up a new installation. The dialog tells me my OneDrive folder is C:\Users\xxxxxx\OneDrive:

When I try to Change Location, I am not allowed to create a folder in D:\ - perhaps because one already exists?

Now, I don't really want to *change* the location. I do not want to have to download all the files again, which are already stored on my PC. I want to tell OneDrive that its folder already exists, point it at that folder, and have it start working.

To answer your subsequent questions:

1. You mentioned “I set the PC up in August 2016”, could you provide detailed steps about how you set up OneDrive folder before?

I bought a new PC in August 2016, and installed Office 365 ProPlus (which comes with a 1TB OneDrive allowance). I set up OneDrive using my Office 365 subscription. I *assume* that the installation first created a folder C:\Users\xxxxxxxxxx\OneDrive - xxxxxxxxxx, which I later moved to my D: drive, since the C: drive is only a 128GB SSD.

I moved all of my files out of my personal OneDrive a/c into the new a/c, and shut down the personal a/c.

2. Could you provide the screenshot of OneDrive folder in D driver before?

See the screenshot above, from today. I do not have any screenshots of how it used to be, but the only difference is it's now represented by the plain folder icon, not the blue OneDrive cloud icon.

3. Could you provide the version of your OneDrive? You can click More > Settings > About and provide the screenshot of it.

The date on this suggests that OneDrive itself was updated on 14/11/2019. I was out of the office that day, and left the PC to finish its updating without me, so I have no idea exactly what was updated.

So, to repeat, I don't want to configure OneDrive, download everything to C:\Users\xxxxxx\OneDrive...  and then move that folder to D:. To do this would be excessively complex and unnecessary - and there is not sufficient free space on my C: drive to download everything. I simply want to tell the program that it already has a folder on my D: drive.

Is that possible?

UPDATE: I have tried the standard procedure for moving the folder now; I installed OneDrive to the default C: drive folder, unlinked the PC, dragged  C:\Users\xxxxx\OneDrive - xxxxxxxxxx to my D: drive. It copied it, rather than moving it. I then opened OneDrive again, tried to change the location of the file, and it still refuses to let me use the folder.

This has now cost me an entire day's work. It's hard to believe that such a simple operation as pointing OneDrive in the direction of its existing folder is not possible!

[Private information has been masked by Sukie Qi MSFT]

Hi Robbins,

We appreciate that you posted back and spent time providing so detailed information. I’m sorry for the late reply.

We have read your description carefully. It seems that the OneDrive sync folder in D driver has changed to a normal folder after you signed out the OneDrive.

If so, given this situation, generally, if we just sign out OneDrive, the icon of OneDrive will not change, one possibility is that another user profile account is logged in on the computer, in which case the OneDrive sync folder will become a normal folder.

So to narrow down this issue, please check if you have signed in with a different user profile.

We appreciate your understanding!

Best Regards,

Sukie

Hi Sukie,

Thanks for your reply. There is only one user profile a/c on the computer. Other than my PC at home and my mobile phone, there are no other users of the OneDrive a/c.

I've tried, several times, the prescribed method of moving the OneDrive folder:

1. Unlink the PC

2. Drag / drop the OneDrive folder to the new location

3. Sign in again to OneDrive and select the new location.

Each time, the setup has been unable to create the new OneDrive folder in the chosen location. I have checked that the D: drive is NTFS-formatted. 

Best regards,

Robin

Hi Robin,

We appreciate that you spent your previous time doing those tests. I do understand the inconvenience it has made and apologize for it.

We have also tested it on our side, we found that if we sign out(Unlink the PC), the blue icon of OneDrive for Business folder will disappear and this folder will be changed to a normal folder. However, if we signed in again, we can click Change location, there are two selections, as shown below:

According to your description, it seems that you cannot select any folder in D driver as OneDrive sync folder.

You mentioned “Drag / drop the OneDrive folder to the new location”, may I know if you just dragged and dropped the OneDrive sync folder in D driver? If so, it seems that you cannot select any folder in D driver.

To help you narrow down this issue, could you provide the information below?

1. You can select the folder you selected before as OneDrive sync folder, then you can right click this folder > Properties > Security to check if you have full control permission. If it is convenient for you, could you provide the screenshot of it?
2. You mentioned “Drag / drop the OneDrive folder to the new location”, does it mean that you cannot select any folder in D driver as OneDrive sync folder? If so, you can click D driver and right-click > Properties > General to check if you have enough Free space.

Best Regards,

Sukie

Hi Robin,

May I know if you have tried the suggestions above? May I know if you still need help? If so, you can post back and we will try our best to help you.

Best Regards,

Sukie

Hi Sukie,

I'm sorry for the delay; I wasn't in my office for a few days. To answer your questions:

(1) Here are screenshots of the permissions set on the old OneDrive folder - the one on my D drive which I can no longer set the program to find.

(2). Yes, that is correct; I cannot select any folder on the 'D' drive; if I create a new folder, point the program at the old OneDrive folder, select 'My Documents' or the root of the D drive, the result is the same:

I have checked the permissions for the entire D drive itself, rather than any folders on it, and they are all set to Full Control as well. Nothing appears to make any difference.

Kind regards,

Robin

Hi Robin,

We appreciate that you posted back and provided so detailed information.

I find some similar threads in the forum and have involved more resource on the issue. The issue seems to occurs centrally over a period of time and may related to specific update. However, our team have limited resource to fix it directly, I would suggest you open a support ticket (in Office 365 Admin center>Support>new service Request). I will help you summarize the thread and send it to you via private message. Hope these can speed up the investigation.

At the same time, here are the workarounds OneDrive engineering team provided you can try for now: 
1 - Save space with Files on demand *until we resolve this 
2 - Choose which OneDrive folders to Sync to your computer *until we resolve this  
3 - Turn off / Quit OneDrive temporarily and use Office apps & OneDrive web to work with files

Hi Sukie,

Many thanks for your assistance. I will open a support ticket as you suggest, later today.

Kind regards,

Robin

I have exactly the same issue down to the last comma. I have had my OneDrive folder (131GB) on a D: drive (a partition on a 1TB drive) for ages until a few days ago when the connection to OneDrive was lost and it now won't let me create/reconnect to any folder on the D: drive.

The drive is NTFS and I, like Robin, have all permissions to the drive. This is clearly an issue after a recent update. I will try to restore to an earlier instance and see if that resolves the issue at least temporarily.