Have you ever encountered issues where your Desktop SharePoint Library Sync is Out Date or you have a rogue files and folders?  Troubleshooting is not for everyone but education is everything!  Active Sites is where content lives on the web and has the added flexibility for allowing you to sync to your desktop.

Don’t how to access your SharePoint Active Site?

Read our Teams post.

Don’t know how to sync your SharePoint Active Site for creating a SharePoint Library?

Read the following blog post section called “Open in SharePoint” for establishing best practice sync habits.

Sharepoint OneDrive IT Support – Network Antics

SharePoint Library on your Desktop

This is located under File Explore or Finder and is called the SharePoint Library.  The tool or application that allows for these files and folders sync is OneDrive for Business.  Please watch the OneDrive video on our other blog post to see OneDrive in action and best practices.

Desktop SharePoint Library Sync is Out of date

 

Desktop Office Suite

Microsoft’s Office Suite has been around for ages but the transformation of the product has been a huge undertaking and quite amazing.  They have taken a popular but very old desktop application and made available on the web.

Office 365 Subscription

While the desktop version allows to save or view online.  The desktop version is not online compatible, meaning you don’t get the G-suit “Sheets” type collaboration unless you ditch the desktop application and purchase the  .  The majority of small and micro business have no intentions of streamlining the purchase of Office 365 desktop subscriptions.  For a good reason, w all want to keep our operating costs down to a bare minimum. The purchase of the desktop Office Suite will suffice, or does it?  Businesses complain of different files of Excel and Word documents because they don’t understand that the Desktop Office Suite does not resolve file version issues.  We suggest they right click and view online if a lot users interact with the file or upgrade their license to the Office 365 subscription.

Permission & User Authentication Issues 

The simple fix for the following error messages is to sign completely out of all user accounts as illustrated below.

Permissions Office 365 error message…  “Upload Blocked: we couldn’t verify you have the necessary permissions to upload the file”

User Authentication Office 365 error message…  “sorry, another account from your organization is already signed in”

office 365 authentication issues

Document Active Site Sync Path

Keep the sync path consistent and document the current sync and keep it the same before performing any more deep troubleshooting for getting your desktop SharePoint Library sync to work

 

Active Site Sync Path

Out of date SharePoint Library Folders on Desktop

A somewhat common issue for the OneDrive sync tool is for the sync to break on your Windows or Mac desktop and the SharePoint library denoted by a building icon is no longer displaying the latest file content on your desktop.   Setting up conditional rules for logging people out is one solution that can be implemented by the fancy IT folk.   Then the user simply re-authenticates.  Thus, fixing any sync issues.  The other solution requires more hands-on desktop support.  Some users and basic support team members may be tempted to troubleshoot by deleting the root folders under the SharePoint.  You can rename the folder prior to re-syncing if you are concerned about file version issues.

Buuuut please do not delete the root folder. If you want to rename it or re-sync it, please follow below steps

  1. Right Click on the OneDrive cloud icon, click on setting
  2. Navigate to the Account tab
  3. Find the folder sync you want to disable, and click Stop sync.  Locally available files will remain on your computer; online files will be unlisted from the folder.

Desktop SharePoint Library Sync is Out of date

Rogue SharePoint Library Folders on Desktop

 

Root folders may start looking a little off for numerous reasons.  Content may no longer be syncing because of folder renames and other troubleshooting steps. You can easily apply the steps above to “Stop Sync” and you will begin to see the SharePoint Library under File Explore thing out immediately.  I consider anything left over under the sync to me a rogue or orphaned folder.  It must be dealt with or confusion will set in.   You can potentially start saving files to a folder that you may think is syncing to a SharePoint Active Site but really isn’t.   Simply move the folder from the location and place on Windows desktop under a folder name you create called “temp”.   This solves the problem of accidentally saving to a location not being synced but also gives you the opportunity to review files at your leisure that may be useful.

 

Desktop SharePoint Library Sync is Out of date, Rogue Files… oh my! Summary

Regardless of whether you find a resolution for all your issues or not, please make sure you have a backup going for your SharePoint as well as your desktop.

 

Centralized Backup And Recovery | NetworkAntics