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One Drive for Business synchronisation issues

We had all hoped that the One Drive for Business synchronisation issues were dead and gone with the introduction of the new sync client.

Alas No – There are still issues, and while these are not so serious as before, they still can cost your organisation hours in lost work time and IT support. The main problem seems to arise after a user changes their O365 password. If the user employs multiple devices the password change doesn’t always replicate properly. So, while the machine on which the password change was made may be okay, other devices report synchronisation problems and asks that credentials be entered in order for ODFB to work. Okay so far, but the enter credentials dialogue fails to work (see https://community.office365.com/en-us/f/154/t/425024). I suspect that this is because the credential dialogue app does not have sufficient permission to make the changes. And the permission setting may have been reduced in MS security testing.

Microsoft Support still opt for advising customers to opt for the ‘Repair’ function. This will probably fix the issue, but at the same time it will create a duplicate of every file in the library on the local machine. Additionally, it takes an absolute age to complete.

A quick and easy fix attempt is as follows –
1.       Open the Credential Manager Control Panel > User Accounts > Credential Manager
2.       Select ‘Windows Credentials’
3.       Look in the ‘Generic Credentials’ for anything related to MicrosoftOffice15. ODBF resides in
        the  ‘15’ group, anything in the ‘16’ group will tend to be MS Office App related.
4.       Expend the MicrosoftOffice15 items one by one and look for one that holds the users O365
       username (possibly like name@Domain.onmicrosoft.com)
5.       Click edit on this item
6.       Set the password to the same as the new O365 password.
7.       Stop the sync engine by right click on the blue cloud in the sys tray and selecting ‘Exit’.
8.       Wait a few moments for ODFB to start again (if it doesn’t, restart the device).
9.       Right click the blue cloud icon again and select sync now. The sync should now work.

There is no danger in this process as if the credential had been changed before the edit you will simply be resetting it back to what it was. If the process fails you can remove the MicrosoftOffice15 item from Generic Credentials. This will cause ODFB to ask for credentials on restart and it will recreate the entry.

If this still fails resort to the repair option and wait…

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