OneDrive sync failure where local files are being removed from the sync folder [with workaround]

Hello @Ismael_Almandos ,

Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback here! We truly appreciate you for that.

You absolutely make a strong point regarding this issue and how we need to address it. I have raised this to our team to ensure that we are carrying out the steps needed to release the fix as soon as possible.

Thank you once again!

All:

As one of the first to flag this issue, my advice has been to drop onedrive cloud and insync for the time being. As insync still works with other cloud services (google, dropbox), Microsoft did something to break the connection with insync.

Unfortunately, the folks at insync probably cannot get Satya Nadella on the phone to fix this issue. In other words, the folks at insync are at the mercy of the much bigger Microsoft, and we cannot blame insync for what Microsoft is doing.

Yes, insync should probably have stopped claiming onedrive compatibility at some point. But, I also understand that they want to fix this problem. Alas, I fear that this problem is something they cannot really control or solve.

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We truly appreciate your utmost understanding regarding the complexity of this issue, @Vincent_Farberg.

Rest assured that our team has been working on this tirelessly and that we will announce as soon as the fix has been released. :slight_smile:

I think it’s over for Insync and OneDrive now - unless it’s your own Microsoft OneDrive profile which still works well. But as far as I can see, the ‘shared with me’ facility is broken beyond repair. The files shared with me remain on my computer, but Insync reports “This location is empty” after a couple of days of having seemingly normal connectivity.

Insync is still useful for connecting multiple OneDrive accounts which is useful for me because the Microsoft native integration allows only one account. But going forward, I’ll have to start testing Mountain Duck. Such a shame Microsoft has ruined this one.

Quasi Workaround For Disappearing Shared Folders

Definitely a Microsoft oddity!

Conditions - Insync interface on ‘shared with you’ reports, “this location is empty” but the files and folders shared with you remain on your machine with the green tickboxes.

Step 1 - go to your OneDrive storage via a web browser.

Step 2 - Navigate to the ‘My Files’ menu item and check to see if the shared links shared to your account from another OneDrive account are still there. (I’ll bet they are all there!)

Step 3 - Navigate to the ‘Shared’ menu item then click on the ‘With you’ option. I’ll bet my life that all of the ‘shared with you’ links which used to be in this location have disappered and you are looking at an empty space! This corresponds with the “This location is empty” message in Insync. Microsoft make the shared links disappear some time after you have accepted the links into your ‘My files’ location.

Step 4 - Navigate back to the ‘My Files’ location in the OneDrive web interface.

Step 5 - Locate one of the links shared with you (any folder with a little white box and a blue arrow).

Step 6 - You’re going to reshare the folder shared with you by someone else, to yourself! Crazy!

Step 7 - Click the ‘share’ icon for the folder shared with you and reshare it to yourself - yes, your own OneDrive account! It will send a link to your email address but more crucially, the shared link will then appear in your OneDrive ‘Shared/With you’ location!

Step 8 - Wait a couple of minutes and see the reshared folder reappear in the Shared section in the Insync app.

This is not a fix! It just gets the ‘shared with you’ folders back into Insync. It also seems impossible to merge the existing files and folders back again as Insync knows it’s already syncing the files at this location! It just doesn’t realise Microsoft have cut off the shared links at their end so as far as it’s concerned, it never received an instruction to unsync from that location. It’s an almighty mess.

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Hi Team. After just submitting a post last night, I discovered this thread, for exactly the same problem. In summary:
OneDrive
Linux Mint 22
Cloud Selective Sync on some of my OneDrive folders.
If I create, rename or significantly change a file or folder locally on Linux, the folders get deleted, eventually they will be downloaded from OneDrive and resynced, that is, EVERY file and folder, which takes ages. This is the reason I moved to selected folders rather than the entire OneDrive, because that literally took all weekend to re-sync! So now I’m just syncing the folders that I’m actively working on from the Linux system, to minimise the re-sync time.

If I create or rename a file or folder on the OneDrive location, it syncs normally with no issues on the Linux side.

Hi @Pilgrimpez! Thank you for posting here and my deepest apologies for the huge trouble. I’ve sent instructions on your original post on what to send us for our investigation.

Thank you!

@thedrumdoctor We truly appreciate the time you took to share this. I’ve also sent this to our engineers as additional information as we work on putting things back in order.

Thank you as always.

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It’s a shame Microsoft have screwed this one up. I don’t actually buy an Office 365 family plan for their Office suite, but for the fact I can share 3 licences with family members and keep 3 for myself giving me 3Tb of cloud data storage at a bargain price!

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