After upgrading to Monterey MS Onedrive folder got inside iCloud

I'm starting to loose my patience with MS support...

here is the latest email exchange.....

______________________________________________

Thank you for your response. Hope this email finds you well!

Upon reading your last response, it seems that your files are available online, i.e., not available locally on your device only available on OneDrive cloud. Hence, preview is not generated.

Whenever we try to access an online available file, it will be downloaded first. After the file is downloaded, we can preview it. This is an expected behavior. There is a setting in OneDrive, known as Files on Demand. When we disable the option, all files present in OneDrive cloud becomes available locally on our device.

You can try disabling Files on demand, but before you disable it, make sure you have enough local storage space available on your device. After disabling the option, OneDrive will start downloading from OneDrive cloud to your PC.

Below is the step-by-step process on how to disable files on demand. 

1. 1. 1. Right-click on OneDrive icon.
      2. Click on Preferences.
      3. Click Preferences tab.
      4. Click Turn-off files on demand.

If you don't want to disable files on demand, then select the OneDrive folder which is used by you frequently, right-click on it and select the option Always keep on this device. This option will make OneDrive to make those files available locally on your device.

When you see a green circle, with a tick mark on them, you can preview it by pressing Space bar.

Here is a helpful article: https://support.microsoft.com/office/save-disk-space-with-onedrive-files-on-demand-for-mac-529f6d53-e572-4922-a585-e7a318c135f0

Please let us know if there is any issue.

​Thanks,

Tanmoy B.

OneDrive Team.‎

___________________________________________

And my response:

Hi Tanmoy,

thanks for your response. Unfortunately your answer has nothing to do with my problem. I’d really appreciate if you could take your time and read all my email exchange with your support fellows. As the issues I’m having have all been extensively detailed in texts, screen captures and also on screen recordings.

I’m aware of how Files on Demand work. But, correct me if I’m wrong. There’s no way to disable this feature anymore. At least not with OD current version and Mac OS 12.0.1. Right? Also, this combination (Monterey and current OD), has ended the use of green circle icon as you mentioned. All the icons ar gray now (a kind of downgrade in my personal opinion). So, see, I use OneDrive for at least 5 years on Macs and the things I’m complaining are new. They’ve started right after upgrading to Monterey, as OneDrive Files and Folders changed how they used to work completely, as Microsoft implemented Apple File Provider Service.

As we’re now not closer from finding a solution than we were a week a go, I believe that maybe this problem involves some lesser known specifics about OneDrive running on Macs. Specially OD running on M1 Macs with MacOS Monterey with insider preview updates. I think that it would probably be a good idea to escalate this thread to a support manager that, maybe, has seen this kind of issues I’m having before.

Forgive me if all this is sounding obnoxious. But I’m really struggling with OneDrive now and it’s been a week and several different people on MS support trying to help, but all it seems to me is that none has grasped yet what the problem I’m facing is. By the way, there’s a thread on Apple Support community with several other MS OneDrive Users reporting the same problems. (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253301907) So, It’s not an isolated thing.

Thanks

I've Got an strange response from MS support, I'll paste it bellow. Even providing detailed information and also a link to this thread here on Apple Support Community. :-(

____________________________________

Kindly verify If the issue is related to OneDrive Personal, OneDrive for business account or Icloud 

Also Kindly Verify if the OneDrive app is updated.

For deleted files/Folders

Search for your files on OneDrive.com and restore all files the Recycle bin

Open your browser and go to https://www.onedrive.com 

If you are not already signed in, please enter your username and password, and sign in

Use the Search everything feature to look for your files

On the left side of the page, click Recycle bin

Click Restore all items at the top of the page

Check for files in your Personal Vault

Files from your Personal Vault don’t show up in your search results. To check your Personal Vault, navigate to the root of your OneDrive and click on Personal Vault and unlock it by verifying your identity. Once inside, you’ll want to look for your missing file. 

Search for your files on another Microsoft account 

It might be that you are not logged in to the correct Microsoft account, and your files are safely on another OneDrive. Are there any other accounts you might have used to log into OneDrive? For example, you might have used the account you use to log in to Xbox Live, Outlook.com or even Gmail.com . Please try to remember if you have logged in with a different account in the past. More suggestions here:https://support.office.com/article/0d929e0d-8682-4295-982b-4bd75a3daa01  

Files not found via search or in the OneDrive Recycle bin usually cannot be retrieved. To have someone from support investigate, please provide the following information. 

• The names of the files or folders you are trying to find. If the files are photos/videos, tell us the date you took them. 

• Approximately when you last accessed the files, and on which device (e.g. PC, Android, iPhone) 

• Consent that we can search your file history for you 

Thank you for your patience while we look into this for you.

___________________________________

I just replied her this (hopefully she get's it):

Hi Lavina,

thanks for your response. I’m using OneDrive personal, this is the version I have installed. As it’s on Insider preview updates, I believe it’s more than up to date, no?

Regarding the rest of your message, I believe we’re not talking about the same issue. Your email seems to describe a solution for missing, or lost files. That’s not my problem here.

The problem is that, after upgrading my Mac to Monterey, OD started to behave differently from what I was used to: 

1. 1. 1. My OD folder content is now displaying OD status icons, as well as iCloud icons too (see image bellow).
      2. Whenever I try to open a file that was supposed to be stored locally, it has to be downloaded from the web first (not sure if it’s downloading from MS, ou iCloud servers).
      3. Content inside folders set to be “always kept on this device” became only available online soon after I create them. Before Mac OS Monterey, if I created a new file inside a folder that was supposed to be kept locally, the file would remain local. 

So, my questions are:

1. 1. 1. Is this the new expected behavior of OneDrive inside Monterey?
      2. If not, no to get back to the ways things were before?

Thanks

________________________________________

I'll keep you guys posted.

Thanks

I've just had some email exchanges with MS support. I'll post them bellow. There are some screen recordings support asked me to do. They show how things are working for me (please pardon my English, as it's not my native tongue ;-) )

_______________________________________

Hello Leonardo,

I hope you are doing well. Apologies for delayed response.

Kindly share us a screen recording of the issue that is happening at your end for us to better understand your issue and investigate further with the same.

Thanks & Regards,

Lavina | Microsoft 365 OneDrive Support Ambassador  

_________________________________________

Hi,

I’ve recorded a screen recording as requested. Hope this helps.

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoELO5PxjTuxl5szxJXjwo4I1BR5zA?e=7Dib97

Other thing I’ve noticed is that uploading files are taking forever. OneDrive took more than 5 minutes to start to upload this video file (it’s a 17MB file on a 600MBps fiber connection). It just said “OD os processing changes, And there was nothing on queue. When it finally started to upload the file, it took a minute to upload only 17MB…

After recording the first video, I just realised something new. take a look on this new screen recording:

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AoELO5PxjTuxl5s09dc54gLBwVTLng?e=QTcQGK

As you can see, OD files are physically available somewhere else on my HD. But, the alias it’s displayed to me when I click on OneDrive folder, shows that some files are only online, even if they’re local.

Thanks

_______________________________

Hello Leonardo,

Thank you for contacting OneDrive Support. Hope you are safe and doing well. 

Please accept our apology for the inconvenience caused. Assuring you of our best assistance. Hope you are doing fine and thanks for your response as well, can you please share the screenshot of the 'Activity center' by clicking on the cloud icon. In addition to that please go-to OneDrive.live.com and create a 'test-file' and check if the same file syncsdown to your device or not.

Awaiting your response.

Thanks & regards, 

Kumar S. 

OneDrive Team. 

_____________________________________

I’ve done that and noticed some strange things too:

1. File downloads to OD physical folder almost immediately.
2. File only appears on OD alias folder more than 3 minutes later.
3. the file on OD physical location is the real one.
4. The one in the alias is just a link pointing to the cloud (not sure which cloud though…)

The images should make it clear.

_____________________________

Let's see how things work out

Leonardo

Hi Rodger,

Really sad about your story. Scary thing to loose your files, or at least to not be able to trust an be sure you have them safe. I'm a bit of a "backup freak" and these are the kind of stories that keep me awake at night! Because a thing is to have one, or several copies of your data. Other completely different thing is to not be sure which set of this data is integral and ready to use!

Hope you can get all your files under control again an be able to trust your file system once more!

I'll just leave you with another exchange from MS. And things ar not looking good here neither.....

________________________________________

Thank you for your response. Hope this email finds you well!

Upon reading your response, it seems that you are looking for the link to download the latest version of OneDrive application. Please do correct us if we are incorrect.

If that is the case, then please refer to: https://support.microsoft.com/office/onedrive-release-notes-845dcf18-f921-435e-bf28-4e24b95e5fc0#OSVersion=Mac

Please download the standalone version under Production Ring. Click here to download it directly.

Let us know if there is any issue.

​Thanks,

Tanmoy B.

OneDrive Team.‎

_________________________________________________________________

And the response I've just sent:

Hi,

I did a clean new install. 

1. 1. 1. Made a backup of everything
      2. Uninstalled Onedrive
      3. Manually deleted the folder: Macintosh HD>users>[user name]>Library>Group Containers>XXXXXXXXXX.OneDriveStandaloneSuite>OneDrive - [account name].noindex>OneDrive - [account name]
      4. Strangely even without OneDrive physical folder available locally, nor the app installed anymore, the “OneDrive” folder was kept on my sidebar, but without OD icon. Just a regular folder instead.
      5. This OneDrive folder still had all the content from my OneDrive account. Copies of my Onedrive physical files and they still had iCloud iCons besides them.
      6. So, the only difference was that I did not see OD status icons and there was an alert above the folder windows telling me that OneDrive app was installed and asking if I wanted to delete the folder. Which I did.
      7. I then run a Backup on Time Machine, and run a command to delete all purgeable files on my Mac. That gave me back several hundred GBs.
      8. I restarted my machine and then re-installed version 21.225.1031.0005 (Standalone).
      9. Logged in and OD started to download all my 400GB from the cloud again.

But, as you can see on the screen captures attached to this email, Everything is still running as they were before:

1. 1. 1. The IMG_01.PNG shows that iCloud icons are still sowing up on OD folder. Which is not a physical folder, just an alias, located under my user folder.
      2. As shown on IMG_02, There’s still a physical folder here: Macintosh HD>users>[user name]>Library>Group Containers>XXXXXXXXXX.OneDriveStandaloneSuite>OneDrive - [account name].noindex>OneDrive - [account name]
      3. All files are being download here as well as they were before the re-install.

So, again, not sure if this is the NEW expected behaviour (having my OD files available thru an iCloud folder with slow and inconsistent behaviour (as files that should be always ne kept locally, are being download from every time they are opened).

And, hopefully, if this is not the new way things are suppose to work, what’s the solution?

Thanks

Hi guys, I had one more message from support:

_________________________________________

Thank you for contacting OneDrive Support. Hope you are safe and doing well. 

Please accept our apology for the inconvenience caused. Assuring you of our best assistance. We understand your concern and we would request you to please reset your OneDrive sync client application and check if it helps. 

You will not lose any data by resetting or uninstalling OneDrive.

To reset OneDrive on a Mac

1. 1. 1. Quit OneDrive. (Select the cloud icon in the top tray, then select Settings > Quit OneDrive.)
      2. Find OneDrive in your Applications folder.
      3. Right-click OneDrive and select Show Package Contents.
      4. Browse to the Contents > Resources folder.
      5. Double-click ResetOneDriveApp.command (or ResetOneDriveAppStandalone.command, if you're using the standalone app).
      6. Start OneDrive and finish the setup process.
      7. 
         
      8. Notes: 
      9. 
         

• • • When choosing location, remember to select the previous OneDrive syncing location. This means your files won’t be downloaded again if they haven’t changed.
    • If you had chosen to sync only some folders before the reset, you will need to do that again once sync has completed. Read Choose which OneDrive folders to sync to your computer for more information.
    • You will need to complete this for your personal OneDrive and OneDrive for work or school.
    • Make sure you are using an updated version of the OneDrive app. Some older versions of the app don't have the reset commands. In that case, drag your old app to the Trash and then install the latest OneDrive app.

Helpful link: https://support.microsoft.com/office/reset-onedrive-34701e00-bf7b-42db-b960-84905399050c#ID0EDF=Mac

If resetting OneDrive sync client application does not help we would request you to Uninstall OneDrive application and reinstall it back and check if it helps. To uninstall, Just drag the OneDrive app to the Trash.

Looking forward to your response.

Thanks & regards, 

Kumar S. 

OneDrive Team. 

______________________________________________

And I'll paste bellow my response this morning:

Hi,

as explained before, the physical location of my OneDrive folder is located here:

Macintosh HD>users>[user name]>Library>Group Containers>XXXXXXXXXX.OneDriveStandaloneSuite>OneDrive - [account name].noindex>OneDrive - [account name]

This location, inside the user hidden library folder behaves very differently from other folders. Take a look on “noindex” part of the folder name. It means this folder is not indexed, nor it shows the OneDrive icons.

So, if I reset Onedrive and point to this folder during setup, it would be fair to expect the same behaviour again.

So, I’d like to move directly to your second suggestion: re-installing. I’m doing a +400Gb local backup of all my files on OneDrive now. Just to be on the safe side ;-) But I must tell you that several people on the Apple Support forum thread I’ve created for this issue, has already reinstalled OD, with the issue persisting.

Any way, before I move on, could you please provide a download link for an update version of OneDrive? I get the “One Drive Insider Preview updates” and so, my current version is 21.225.1031.0005 (Standalone). And so it’s newer than the version available for download on general MS site.

I got into the Insider preview sooner this year, in order to get a version natively compatible with the new Mac M1 chips. But I don’t recall the url from the support page where I got it.

So, if you could be kind enough to point me to a download url where I could get a native M1 version, I’d appreciate a lot.

Also, as i have a pretty fast connection (600Mbps) I intend to install and star from scratch, downloading everything back from OneDrive cloud. So, I will no point to any specific folder on my Machine. Hopefully it will work as it was supposed to.

Thanks

________________________________

Let's see, If MS did something right, I guess a clean slate install would solve this. It'll bit of a pain, to download 400Gb again, but if it works, it'd be worth it.

I'll keep you guys posted.

Good to know.

I guess I'll wait for the Apple Silicon version to be available for the general public, not only insider preview.

people are mentioning that files are duplicated and that they're taking double space. I'm actually not sure about this. During my several trials to sort and solve things out, I've deleted both folder more than a few time and I did not noticed that I got twice the space OneDrive should be taking.

I have 2 hypothesis for this:

1. The CloudStorage is not really a "physical" folder, but more of a "logical" one. I mean it's an alias, just a link, pointing to the GroupContainer location, where the actual files are.
2. APFS (Apple File System) the not so new File System Apple user on Monterey, Catalina, iPad OS, iPhone OS etc, does not require additional disk space in order to store a copy of a file. When you create a copy you mac does not copy the whole file into other location. Instead, it just creates an instance, a link, or "logical"copy if you will. So duplicating a folder and keeping always the copies in sync would not require twice the space.

So, for me, the annoyance is not the existence of two folders, per se. But the looooooong minutes it takes for syncing, the strange icon behaviours, the inability to control what's on my machine and what's only on the cloud, the need to download every time I open a file. And more recently, the CPU processing time OneDrive is demanding for the last couple days... (And, If I use Office files saved in OD, the permanent and automatic saving of files get's my M1 Macbook pro to its knees...).

It's about time MS get's this right!

(Sorry for my faulty poor English, it's not my native tongue and I loose the capacity to express my self well when I'm ****** off ;-) )