OneDrive For Business (ODFB) Best Practices

OneDrive for Business (ODFB)Our clients have had many synch issues using OneDrive for Business (ODFB) so we have complied a list of best practices to help users avoid having problems.  

 A lot of OneDrive for Business synch issues revolve around credential conflicts. If you are using more than one browser the credentials get cached and OneDrive for Business gets confused.  If you use both OneDrive (OD) and OneDrive for Business (ODFB) on the same machine this can also cause confusion. If you use the same browser you must use a Private Browser Session to sign-in to OneDrive(OD) and another Private Session to sign-in to ODFB. Otherwise use a different browsers to sign-in to OD and ODFB. For example use Google Chrome to sign-in to OD and IE to sign-in to ODFB. Try to consistently use the same browser for each.

Consistently use just one browser to sign-in to ODFB or Office 365, preferably IE 11

If you do have issues try the following:

  1. Check Windows Credentials – Delete old credentials using Credential Manager in Control Panel
  2. Make sure your machine has the lastest updates from Microsoft installed
  3. Makes sure you are running only one anti-virus program
  4. Exclude ODFB folders on your Endpoint Anti-Virus system, SharePoint Online has Anti-Virus measures built-in
  5. View any conflicts on your machine through the Action Center in Control Panel
  6. If OneDrive has the Red Cross / Warning Triangle, and it’s just a handful of files/folders flagged as problem, it is best your End Users are trained in dealing with their own File Conflicts and manually merge their own changes. There’s an excellent URL here: http://blog.ciaops.com/2014/06/resolving-onedrive-for-business-file.html
  7. If there are a lot of File problems on ODFB, and assuming you have a fairly recent version of ODFB with the Repair option, you can kick off a Repair. Note: A repair on even a modest amount of Sync’d Document Libraries over a decent Broadband connection will take several hours – a few days. Refer MS URL: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/repair-sync-connections-with-the-onedrive-for-business-sync-app-HA104243474.aspx
  8. If your End User had files they tried to upload using ODFB, and those files did not become Synchronised, to avoid destroying data you should first:
    • Right click ODFB and Stop Syncing all your Document Libraries
    • Go to your Local ODFB Folder where ODFB Syncs to, Cut these folders and paste them to the ODFB Archive [TODAYS DATE]
    • Install latest ODFB -and then…
    • Manually delete the cache of OneDrive for Business by doing the following:
      • Close all Office 2010 Applications
      • Open Task Manager and end the following Tasks:  Groove.exe  Msosync.exe
      • Browse to the following folder within the “Windows Explorer“ and delete all files within this folder (this is cached data only)
        • C:Users%userprofile%AppDataLocalMicrosoftOffice.0OfficeFileCache
        • C:Users%username%AppDataLocalMicrosoftOfficeSpw
  9. Login with the office 365 account with ‘keep me logged in’ checked ON
  10. Sync the library from SharePoint Online site

Governance and End User Training are your friends, as it’s best to avoid conflicts from happening and allow End Users to (safely) help themselves if an ODFB issue comes up. If you really don’t get on with ODFB then research the 3rd Party alternatives such as Colligo Briefcase, SkySync and Layer2 Solutions Cloud Connector to Sync a File Share from your On-Premise Server with SharePoint Online.

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Thank you to Justin Gibbs  for his input regarding credentials & Lee Steadman for providing several additions and helpful links