After upgrading to Monterey MS Onedrive folder got inside iCloud

Hi Rodger1970,

Thanks for your time to write your experience down and share with us. I deeply feel your pain. I have +400Gb on my OneDrive folder. Some of them are on the cloud only, but almost 300GB are/should be locally/instantly available. And now they behave as they're online only (even if I've created them 10 minutes a go).

The solution of disabling iCloud, or OneDrive would not work for me, as I use OneDrive mainly for work files and try to keep personal data on iCloud, as it synchronises more seamlessly with my iPhone/iPad...

So, I'm thinking about making a backup copy of all my OD files and then uninstalling it completely. And reinstalling and moving the files back. Not sure if the duo MacOS / OneDrive would behave as they used before Monterey, or if, by any chance, this is the expected behaviour MS intends for its Mac users. Because if it is, it sucks to the point I'm starting to think about an alternative.

Other things I'd like to add to this are:

1) OD is constantly crashing. My mac is always on with it running in the background and I've noticed its icon has been missing from the menu bar at least 3 times last week. Which forced me then to start it up manually. As I depend on it to keep some work folders updates and synchronised with team mates from around the world (different time zones). It's been hugely disappointing as people would only be able to reach me the following day just to tell me the shared folder they're looking for was empty on they side. :-(

2) I've found my Macintosh HD>users>[user name]>Library>Group Containers>XXXXXXXXXX.OneDriveStandaloneSuite>OneDrive - [account name].noindex>OneDrive - [account name] to not display Onedrive status icons on folders and files. which would make me less then trusting in order to start using this as my day to day file location. As it gets hard to know if a file has already uploaded. or if it's locally available as it should. And even the files that were supposed to be ONLY online, show up normally i this folder location. You only notice that they're not locally stored when double clicking them...

(I've tryed to relaunch Finder in order to make the icons show up (what usualy worked before) and it did not help in this "dark corner of the user tree"...

Any way, hope this helps any one and sincerely expect Apple and MS to do something about it. Because it seams that Apple is screwing MS in this case...

Thank you all

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. :-(

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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'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

Hi Sorka,

What version of OD are you using? I'm using 21.225.1031.0005 (Standalone) (insider preview program). And I've tried the uninstall, reinstall procedure (as I posted before here). And it did not work...

Thinking about giving up the insider preview version, in order to use the main one. But I'm not sure it supports M1 chips natively (that was the reason I started using it in the first place).

I got this reply from MS support today. Hopefully I'll receive some good news tomorrow...

_________________________

Hello Leonardo, 

Thank you for your response. 

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this is causing you. Kindly be patient while I escalated this issue to the next team and we will reach out to you as soon as possible. 

Thank you for your patience and cooperation. 

Best regards, 

Kumar S. 

OneDrive Team.

Wow... Installing a fresh new Mac OS, without recurring to Time Machine backup in order to get all the apps installed seems a little intense ;-)

I have so many things installed, so many digital certificates, profiles, and apps that it gives me some goosebumps thinking about doing it. I'll have to sleep over it and decide if I'm ready to do this.

But I'm glad the problem is solved for you and that it's a Monterey upgrading issue for OD and that the app itself is not bugged when installed on a new system.

Very happy to see that we're moving toward a solution for everybody here.

Happy weekend to you all.