OneDrive Mac Users Unhappy With Buggy Update That Removes Ability to Keep Local Copies of Synced Files

[Abazigal]

Did anybody else find the story confusing? I can't tell if this is something MS is planning or something it has already implemented. Moreover, the story doesn't tell us if it is possible to adjust preferences to configure OneDrive to have files stored locally and synced to OneDrive online storage. Does the current setting 'Always Keep On This Device' for a parent folder adjust things so that all subfolders and files have the same setting? Perhaps I am being obtuse, but the story has a great deal of missing information.

Anyway, the one thing no company should ever do is f*** up storage of files. And frankly, with tensions in Ukraine and the threat of widespread cyber warfare, it is lunacy to rely solely on access to files via a network.

So far, what has happened on my end can best be described as "itchy fingers" on my part. I was looking over the settings page of the OneDrive app, was wondering what this "files on demand" button did, clicked it and then realised the move was irreversible. My files were moved online, though apparently a local copy resides in the library folder. I am still a bit confused by how exactly the folder is supposed to work (especially now that it no longer shows up in finder), so I have moved everything to iCloud Drive as well as made a local backup on my external drive until I have a better understanding of just what is happening.

So...your guess is as good as mine. ?

 

[valdikor]

There is a right click option for 'Always Keep on This Device' at the root level of your OneDrive folder.
At least there's that...

View attachment 1952562

If only it worked. No matter how many times I click „Always keep on this device“ for a folder, it always keeps the cloud icon next to it and the files are consistently not present locally. Reading the Microsoft forums, other people have the exact same issue.

 

[prime17569]

Microsoft should have offered the option to keep a copy of the old OneDrive sync folder as a backup. That's what Google Drive did when they switched to the new client some months back (though their new client uses something based on macFUSE and not Apple's File Provider API iirc).

 

[mikebenton]

I get 1 TB with my Microsoft365 account and 2 TB with my Apple One account and they both suck. I have about 150 GB of photos (with some videos). I regularly want to browse them. I would be ok if there were decent thumbnails available when the files are in the cloud, but this is not the case. As a result, I opted to keep all my photos local. With OneDrive the local copies would frequently disappear. Out of frustration, I copied all 150 GB to my iCloud account. Because I just added them, there were local copies. There is no option to tell it to keep them local.....and the local copies eventually disappeared. Now I have to download them again. Both of these services suck. I don't think I'm alone in managing large quantities of media. I don't want to have to download 150 GB of data to just browse my photos if they're in the cloud. This is more than just my MacBook....this is on my phone and iPad too. It would be nice if decent thumbnails were always available. The OneDrive app on my phone and iPad just crashes every time I try to browse.

 

[Danfango]

Apple's decision to make the change in 12.3 was bizarre, not communicated in advance, and caught everyone off guard.

Semantic Versioning, which everyone thought Apple was following, is not random. You change the first number when you make backwards incompatible changes. You change the second number when you add new features. You change the third number when the APIs are unchanged but you're making bug/security fixes.

Apple changed the second number but made backwards incompatible changes - features which worked fine for the past decade were suddenly broken by Apple.

Apple did communicate that they would make the change at some point - everyone assumed it would be in a major update. Historically, Apple does their major updates in the Fall, and they give a heads up on all their major Fall updates during WWDC, giving 3 months of time for companies to update their programs accordingly to stop using the old APIs.

Honestly, this is just another sign that Apple doesn't understand software and that we should switch to another OS.

Nope. Semantic versioning is entirely random. Because humans decide when to apply it, which they almost universally do badly. Every company I integrate with who uses it makes breaking API changes all the time down to minor versions. A lot of my day is scratching my head on this. It doesn't work in the real world at all unfortunately.

Regardless of that, what apple do is and has never been semantic versioning.

Format: X.Y.Z

X = major marketing release

Y = feature release

Z = major oopsy

That's it.

And no we shouldn't switch to another OS for this. It's fine. What we should be doing is evaluating what software we build our lives on first and how it is architected. Microsoft's onedrive could absolutely work properly but it doesn't and you have to ask where that responsibility lies here.

 

[gank41]

Apple's decision to make the change in 12.3 was bizarre, not communicated in advance, and caught everyone off guard.

Semantic Versioning, which everyone thought Apple was following, is not random. You change the first number when you make backwards incompatible changes. You change the second number when you add new features. You change the third number when the APIs are unchanged but you're making bug/security fixes.

Apple changed the second number but made backwards incompatible changes - features which worked fine for the past decade were suddenly broken by Apple.

Apple did communicate that they would make the change at some point - everyone assumed it would be in a major update. Historically, Apple does their major updates in the Fall, and they give a heads up on all their major Fall updates during WWDC, giving 3 months of time for companies to update their programs accordingly to stop using the old APIs.

Honestly, this is just another sign that Apple doesn't understand software and that we should switch to another OS.

Well, to be fair, all of this WAS communicated in macOS 12.3 b1. It's not live for regular Janes & Joes yet.

The Semantic Versioning, as you put it, isn't what you're laying out here, either. Yes, a new version of an app will increase the version number, and the "new features" in this case are more just being in compliance (already) with changes coming to macOS 12.3 that Apple sees as being more secure that providing access to the "Macintosh HD" drive and then subsequent folders... And again, noting is technically "broken" as you put it. Changed, and changed a LOT? Sure. But everything is still syncing for me. Nothing is actually "broken"...

Apple did communicate that they would make the change at some point. It was in the release notes of beta 1 of macOS 12.3 that will probably be in testing for at least a month. Remember when Apple switched from HFS+ to APFS and the disaster that presented? At least OneDrive is ahead of the game here with a stable release that already takes advantage of Apple's changes. Seems like both Apple & Microsoft know what they're doing...

 

[RVAgaffer]

Same issues as most. I also have an error that pops up saying I don't have permission to access the files... that I loaded... on my machine... so I can't even redownload them and force them to stay.

Additionally yesterday I had gotten errors when trying to save to the one drive folder and then Excel started acting like my license had been downgraded to an E1 license form and E3. Admin confirmed I was still E3. After a reboot that part started working correctly but still having the one drive issues (even after resetting onedrive).

Stuck using this with work so I have to find a solution or work around but looks like I just don't get to access 8 years worth of historical data... no big deal right...

 

[patimages]

Hi,
The only solution that worked was :
- delete the local files
- reinstall onedrive
- re-download all files by clicking on the cloud icon (need to click on the cloud icon on subfolders to wake the transfer up - need to close and restart onedrive) -> took forever.
- Mark the folders as always on this device.
It worked after days ... However, all new files created elsewhere come with the cloud icon and one needs to click this icon to have them stored locally too.
The cherry on the cake : if you used an external drive to save your synced files, these are now saved on the root folder of the computer and fill up the hard drive while the external drive is emptied, it only containes shortcuts to the root folder files (should be the opposite but it is not)...
Now, one could try and leave with files stored online but browsing the folder takes ages (need to download the folder structure each time : 5 seconds with a blank window that eventually fills up)

 

[ice29]

Does OneDrive not work for anyone with M1? It crashes constantly on my M1 MBA, that I can't use it at all. Also with this change, where Google Drive and OneDrive mounts a virtual drive, it also prevents time machine from backing up the folder. So I've moved everything to my iCloud drive instead, and time machine works on that drive (go figure, Apple?) I'll stick with iCloud for now, and just use the other cloud drives for sharing - which iCloud seems to be much worse at.

I had OneDrive constantly crashing on my M1 with DisplayPort cable. No issues when I set DP to 1.1 version in the monitor settings, or used HDMI cable instead.

Turned out that certain apps (OneDrive included) for some mysterious reason don't work with custom monitor ICC profile in Monterey (in my case calibrated monitor profile). When I switched to the default monitor profile it started working with DP1.2 cable as well...

 

[bergert]

We have 1TB per user. 3 years ago, a co-worker was retiring and I created aOneDrive folder on Windows10, and copied 100GB of his data inside. 12 months later the initial sync never completed - always got stuck and hung. I tried to restart the process (Process Explorer) and even restart, to no avail. The OneDrive program would always get stuck and display errors. In the end, I gave up and disabled OneDrive - at which point it erased 100GB of local data. Being real careful, had made a backup onto an external USB disk.

Frankly, I do not get it - why are people so fond of Microsoft? Today I realized why Skype4Business only Mac was not able to connect; every second day would give certificate errors: in my keychain I found two Skype4B certificates from 2014. The program created these, and never bothered to clean up.

 

[BeatCrazy]

I'm sooo confused :-/

I have OneDrive (paid), and now my files don't have the AutoSave functionality. I honestly don't care if they're available offline or not. I just want the AutoSave.

For example, my Excel docs are now saved in local OneDrive/Documents folder. If I turn on AutoSave, it literally deletes the file, and I have to go and recover/restore it from the online OneDrive recycle folder. This can't be right??

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Where are those happy users who recently reported how happy they were with OneDrive and they went out from Dropbox as it didn’t support Apple Silicon?

Still happy. This is a temporary issue until macOS 12.3 arrives with new "features" and hopefully MS and OneDrive will be ready to support on-demand and local-only files.

In the meantime, Dropbox users are receiving this email from Dropbox:

We’re reaching out with an update about Dropbox on the upcoming macOS 12.3 release. For this release, Dropbox doesn’t have full support for online-only files just yet. We’re actively working on full support, and the beta version will begin rolling out in March 2022.

What you might notice after updating to macOS 12.3

Some apps on your Mac might have trouble opening Dropbox files while they’re online-only. You’ll still be able to open Dropbox files by double-clicking them in Finder.

We’re hard at work on full support for online-only files on macOS 12.3 and beyond.

The beta version will begin rolling out to customers in March 2022. To make sure you can access it, turn on early releases.

Seems like Dropbox is even further behind in coming out with a 12.3-compatible version than MS.

 

[Wando64]

These same changes are coming to DropBox too

I've heard that Dropbox has/will have the same issue on Mac OS 12.3. Is there any reason why Dropbox and Microsoft couldn't have updated their apps to accommodate the new API earlier?

Dropbox is rushing out a new version for the same reason.

Neither DropBox nor iCloud Drive have any plan to remove the one-button-option to keep all data stored locally on the device.
DropBox have reported some minor problems with MacOS 12.3, nothing like the issues faced by OneDrive customers (like me).
Yes they will all need to use the new API, but there is no requirement to screw it up royally like MS did.

In the meantime I have reverted to iCloud Drive.
It it not perfect, but it is nicely integrated with MacOS, it doesn’t require an additional App to function, it allows me to keep a local version, it works well with Time Machine and Spotlight, it can be switched on or off with the flick of a button and, as I don’t need the full 2TB, I can share it with my family and it works out quite cheap too.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

We have 1TB per user. 3 years ago, a co-worker was retiring and I created aOneDrive folder on Windows10, and copied 100GB of his data inside. 12 months later the initial sync never completed - always got stuck and hung. I tried to restart the process (Process Explorer) and even restart, to no avail. The OneDrive program would always get stuck and display errors. In the end, I gave up and disabled OneDrive - at which point it erased 100GB of local data. Being real careful, had made a backup onto an external USB disk.

Frankly, I do not get it - why are people so fond of Microsoft? Today I realized why Skype4Business only Mac was not able to connect; every second day would give certificate errors: in my keychain I found two Skype4B certificates from 2014. The program created these, and never bothered to clean up.

I guess you just skip over, cover your eyes and don't read any articles about how Apple's services fail, how their software has major bugs that makes one wonder if they do ANY testing, and the volumes of people that have issues with macOS and iOS in all the Apple forums? News flash -- Apple (or any software company) isn't perfect. And to be honest, this isn't even a problem of Microsoft's doing...it's because Apple is changing macOS!

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Neither DropBox nor iCloud Drive have any plan to remove the one-button-option to keep all data stored locally on the device.
DropBox have reported some minor problems with MacOS 12.3, nothing like the issues faced by OneDrive customers (like me).
Yes they will all need to use the new API, but there is no requirement to screw it up royally like MS did.

In the meantime I have reverted to iCloud Drive.
It it not perfect, but it is nicely integrated with MacOS, it doesn’t require an additional App to function, it allows me to keep a local version, it works well with Time Machine and Spotlight, it can be switched on or off with the flick of a button and, as I don’t need the full 2TB, I can share it with my family and it works out quite cheap too.

if you read the announcement by Dropbox (above in my post), it does sound like Dropbox is removing support for online-only. So, say you are part of a Dropbox team with 100's of GB's of data...now your only choice is to have all that downloaded to your Mac? What if you have 256GB MacBook or not enough free storage for your Dropbox?

 

[gank41]

Neither DropBox nor iCloud Drive have any plan to remove the one-button-option to keep all data stored locally on the device.
DropBox have reported some minor problems with MacOS 12.3, nothing like the issues faced by OneDrive customers (like me).
Yes they will all need to use the new API, but there is no requirement to screw it up royally like MS did.

In the meantime I have reverted to iCloud Drive.
It it not perfect, but it is nicely integrated with MacOS, it doesn’t require an additional App to function, it allows me to keep a local version, it works well with Time Machine and Spotlight, it can be switched on or off with the flick of a button and, as I don’t need the full 2TB, I can share it with my family and it works out quite cheap too.

I would assume Dropbox (and Box) will also require changes that move the Dropbox synced folders to an APFS Container, just like OneDrive & Google Drive. Of course iCloud will still continue to work as we've become used to because it's first party, not third party like the others.

 

[ikramerica]

That’s nothing.

I added 2 JPGs to my iCloud Drive yesterday. Still not showing up a day later.

To get them on my iPad yesterday I had to add them to my photostream instead. Worked instantly.

 

[ikramerica]

Apple: We're changing stuff.
Microsoft: Ok, we will adjust our app to your new API's
Users: Microsoft, WTF!?!

Typical.

Apple hardware team: we sell computers with limited storage because everything is on the cloud now.

Apple software team: people aren’t storing things on the cloud like you want

Apple hardware team: can you force them to?

Apple customer: your laptops don’t have built in 5G!

 

[nt5672]

An operating system competitor making it less user friendly for their competitors? I don’t believe it. ?

Yep, Apple has become the evil that Microsoft once was.

 

[iJon]

Apple's new framework is just dumbing everything down. First it was Box, then it was OneDrive, now Dropbox is next and it's going to be awful. I don't see any of these solutions getting better with these changes, I hate it.

 

[eduardodfj]

I think they actually made the right move here. It looks like, due to changes coming in macOS 12.3, that Microsoft was forced to stop being able to just sync folders and to migrate/move the entire contents to an APFS Container. And considering some folks have 1TB or more of items in OneDrive, that would mean moving ALL of that stuff from a folder to a Container after OneDrive was launched once updated. That would probably be more of a disaster, IMO. Also, once the new Container is setup with the respective folder contents, NOT having it automatically start to re-download everything again was also probably the smart move. Who wants to have to re-download everything again? Seems like Apple's forcing their hand in this.

That might have been Microsoft's logic here, but there are still two things they could have done MUCH better:

1. Give users the option to redownload. With today's internet speeds, there is a lot of people who wouldn't have minded (myself included).
2. Give users the option to have Files on Demand or not. I want my files locally. Period. Don't push me to use the cloud as a "Location".

 

[eduardodfj]

There is a right click option for 'Always Keep on This Device' at the root level of your OneDrive folder.
At least there's that...

View attachment 1952562

It would be great if it worked properly. It would also be good if autosave worked inside Office files as it used to.

Because one aspect not very much considered is that this implementation (or whatever this is) is crappy as hell.

 

[Wando64]

if you read the announcement by Dropbox (above in my post), it does sound like Dropbox is removing support for online-only. So, say you are part of a Dropbox team with 100's of GB's of data...now your only choice is to have all that downloaded to your Mac? What if you have 256GB MacBook or not enough free storage for your Dropbox?

DropBox are having a problem and they are in the process of fixing it.
Their announcement states that “Some apps on your Mac might have trouble opening Dropbox files while they’re online-only. You’ll still be able to open Dropbox files by double-clicking them in Finder.”
That is not the same thing as “Dropbox is removing support for online-only“ like you are stating.

In any case, their problem is not the same problem experienced by OneDrive users and to say that DrobBox will do the same thing as Microsoft did is not only a guess, but one that will very likely prove wrong.

At it stands now, Dropbox still allows users (even on MacOS 12.3) to select whether they wish to have Selective synchronisation (i.e. manually select which folders to sync) or Smart synchronisation (i.e. Files-on-Demand).
Likewise, iCloud Drive allows users to have Storage Optimisation ON (i.e. Files on Demand) or OFF (i.e. local copies always maintained).
There is nothing technical preventing other third parties to do the same.

 

[Devnul0]

Neither DropBox nor iCloud Drive have any plan to remove the one-button-option to keep all data stored locally on the device.

Where is the iCloud Drive option to keep data stored locally? As far as I can tell, iCloud Drive has always been the same (just like Music): if the system thinks it needs space, your local files get deleted, so it's always a gamble taking the device on a plane or to someplace without 'net access as to whether all the files you need will actually be on the device.

 

[Danfango]

Apple hardware team: we sell computers with limited storage because everything is on the cloud now.

Apple software team: people aren’t storing things on the cloud like you want

Apple hardware team: can you force them to?

Apple customer: your laptops don’t have built in 5G!

Realistically I haven’t actually seen many normal end users who manage to fill up a 256Gb mac So I’m not sure what your point is. Even me as a power user with 90 years of photo archives is sitting here with 120Gb free.