4 ms·

OneDrive shared folder syncing has been broken for months, with no fix in sight

56 points by Jasondells 2y ago

anigbrowl 2y ago
If you want a picture of the future, picture a stalled progress meter hanging in front of a human face, forever.
- breakingcups 2y ago
  What progress meter? Infinite spinner is where it's at.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
jiggawatts 2y ago
You thought the aim of the product was to manage your files in a way convenient to you. The actual goal was to lock your enterprise into Microsoft cloud services. Now that this goal has been achieved, support for the product has been wound down to the bare minimum required.
- delfinom 2y ago
  It's not even that. Every megacorp fails at product engineering once things are "stable". The incentive goes away from teams investigating and fixing bugs and instead those teams shift to whatever new thing can get them promotions. Google is very known that problem, but it exists at all big corps.
magicalhippo 2y ago
Sharing a folder with my SO, and experienced this issue. Only workaround I found was to create an entirely new folder with a different name, and share that. That has been fine for a few months now. But like come on, I'm actually paying for this. Yes it's just a part of the Office 365 plan, but it _is_ a part of it. Actually was considering moving to self-hosting just last week. Any recommendations for a self-hosted Dropbox/OneDrive alternative besides NextCloud?
- Gibbon1 2y ago
  I have a product idea that I troll my IT friends with. A set of four thumb drives that sync to each other over their own WiFi network. The ratio of works super duper to terrifies the IT staff is off the charts.
  - Neywiny 2y ago
    Well that wouldn't work because Wi-Fi is the wrong choice. Buuuuuuuut if you gave them cellular data plans? Now you're onto something. The Boron by particle comes to mind as a low cost dev option. The USB should let you talk to a computer as a flash drive, you can throw an SD card on/external to it for storage, and use the modem to sync to the others. As long as they're all on battery, should be fine.
    - Spooky23 2y ago
      Why? Generate some sort of peer to peer wlan, join up and sync away.
      - Neywiny 2y ago
        Because if you're within Wi-Fi range of each other, just use Wi-Fi to sync. The product would fail to sell
- genewitch 2y ago
  That depends, why "besides NextCloud"? Syncthing always gets a lot of traction here. But what do you actually need to share? Folders? Or links to content? PDF? Archives? Matrix homeservers and clients support most mime types in chat, including zip, so you can send anything and have it searchable in the chat as long as you maintain the matrix server. Misskey has a "drive" feature, where all media you share goes, but you can also upload directly to it and link directly to media in the misskey drive. Pastebins work, too. My github^ has the instructions on how to set up the same thing I run, an Up1 pastebin. I'm sure there's better. But nextcloud has first class mobile clients, understands folders and mime types, can be synced over WebDAV, cifs, http, etc. So... Up to you? ^ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/genewitch/opensource/refs/heads/master/howto-pastebin.txt https://raw.githubusercontent.com/genewitch/opensource/refs/...
stuaxo 2y ago
I always find it amazing, ypy get core functionality that remains broken for months.
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
Well, it’s not just them. Apple has had broke iCloud syncing on Windows for years. It almost seems purposely designed to make the Windows experience worse by frustrating users with missing files, permanently high CPU usage, etc.
DLA 2y ago
I use Box and am very happy with it. No Microsoft O365 issues. I use it across 2 Macs, an iPhone and an iPad.
october8140 2y ago
Microsoft needs to stop trying to make everything work with everything. It’s ends up meaning their stuff is always broken.
breakingcups 2y ago
OneDrive is sooo broken underneath. It should be a no-brainer to pick it, a sensible default, like Edge, but Microsoft always manages to fuck it up worse somehow. It either just manages to work for you (count your blessings) or you'll have some cursed bit set in some forgotten Microsoft table somewhere that means you'll be doomed to a horrible experience forever without a clear cause. Infinitely (not) syncing folders, disappearing files, cryptic or vague error messages. Even on brand-new machines.

56 points by Jasondells 2y ago

anigbrowl 2y ago

If you want a picture of the future, picture a stalled progress meter hanging in front of a human face, forever.

breakingcups 2y ago
What progress meter? Infinite spinner is where it's at.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jiggawatts 2y ago

You thought the aim of the product was to manage your files in a way convenient to you. The actual goal was to lock your enterprise into Microsoft cloud services. Now that this goal has been achieved, support for the product has been wound down to the bare minimum required.

delfinom 2y ago
It's not even that. Every megacorp fails at product engineering once things are "stable". The incentive goes away from teams investigating and fixing bugs and instead those teams shift to whatever new thing can get them promotions. Google is very known that problem, but it exists at all big corps.

magicalhippo 2y ago

Sharing a folder with my SO, and experienced this issue. Only workaround I found was to create an entirely new folder with a different name, and share that. That has been fine for a few months now. But like come on, I'm actually paying for this. Yes it's just a part of the Office 365 plan, but it _is_ a part of it. Actually was considering moving to self-hosting just last week. Any recommendations for a self-hosted Dropbox/OneDrive alternative besides NextCloud?

Gibbon1 2y ago
I have a product idea that I troll my IT friends with. A set of four thumb drives that sync to each other over their own WiFi network. The ratio of works super duper to terrifies the IT staff is off the charts.
- Neywiny 2y ago
  Well that wouldn't work because Wi-Fi is the wrong choice. Buuuuuuuut if you gave them cellular data plans? Now you're onto something. The Boron by particle comes to mind as a low cost dev option. The USB should let you talk to a computer as a flash drive, you can throw an SD card on/external to it for storage, and use the modem to sync to the others. As long as they're all on battery, should be fine.
  - Spooky23 2y ago
    Why? Generate some sort of peer to peer wlan, join up and sync away.
    - Neywiny 2y ago
      Because if you're within Wi-Fi range of each other, just use Wi-Fi to sync. The product would fail to sell
genewitch 2y ago
That depends, why "besides NextCloud"? Syncthing always gets a lot of traction here. But what do you actually need to share? Folders? Or links to content? PDF? Archives? Matrix homeservers and clients support most mime types in chat, including zip, so you can send anything and have it searchable in the chat as long as you maintain the matrix server. Misskey has a "drive" feature, where all media you share goes, but you can also upload directly to it and link directly to media in the misskey drive. Pastebins work, too. My github^ has the instructions on how to set up the same thing I run, an Up1 pastebin. I'm sure there's better. But nextcloud has first class mobile clients, understands folders and mime types, can be synced over WebDAV, cifs, http, etc. So... Up to you? ^ https://raw.githubusercontent.com/genewitch/opensource/refs/heads/master/howto-pastebin.txt https://raw.githubusercontent.com/genewitch/opensource/refs/...

stuaxo 2y ago

I always find it amazing, ypy get core functionality that remains broken for months.

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

Well, it’s not just them. Apple has had broke iCloud syncing on Windows for years. It almost seems purposely designed to make the Windows experience worse by frustrating users with missing files, permanently high CPU usage, etc.

DLA 2y ago

I use Box and am very happy with it. No Microsoft O365 issues. I use it across 2 Macs, an iPhone and an iPad.

october8140 2y ago

Microsoft needs to stop trying to make everything work with everything. It’s ends up meaning their stuff is always broken.

breakingcups 2y ago

OneDrive is sooo broken underneath. It should be a no-brainer to pick it, a sensible default, like Edge, but Microsoft always manages to fuck it up worse somehow. It either just manages to work for you (count your blessings) or you'll have some cursed bit set in some forgotten Microsoft table somewhere that means you'll be doomed to a horrible experience forever without a clear cause. Infinitely (not) syncing folders, disappearing files, cryptic or vague error messages. Even on brand-new machines.