Microsoft finally has update on OneDrive shared folders turning to internet shortcut links

Back in June of 2024, Neowin was alerted of a OneDrive bug by one of our readers, TReKiE, about a strange OneDrive-related problem where shared folders were found turning into internet shortcut links.

TReKiE, in their news tip, had expressed their annoyance, as well as that of some of the others who were also affected by the problem. They said:

Earlier this week I was alerted to an issue affecting a user using OneDrive where shared folders within their account in Windows turned into internet shortcuts (.url files).

When working normally, the user would be able to open the folder and be able to access the files within (as you would normally in Explorer), but for the past week, the only way to access the files within these shared folders is to use a web browser and manually download or go through hoops to open with the Office apps. This has broken entire environments where most users have never even used the web UI before, never mind downloading files manually or trying to sync them in with the desktop office applications.

I know quite a few unhappy users who are ready to jump ship from OneDrive over this and Microsoft's total silence over the issue does not help.

Following our report, the next month, we had an update on the situation that Microsoft had been aware of the issue and was working on it. It apparently had something to do with "internal error affecting data synchronization."

It has nearly been ten months with no fix in sight still for the issue. However, Microsoft finally has another update on it thanks to a response from the Microsoft OneDrive product group, and it is supposedly due to a backend migration issue that the tech giant is currently still performing.

However, it does not give any specific clue as to when this migration phase will be completed, though Microsoft is trying to "speed things up": The message reads:

This is related to a backend migration we are currently doing. Unfortunately, we do not fully support syncing shared folders when one user has migrated and the other has not . We are doing everything possible to speed things up so that the issue can be resolved as quickly as possible for users of the feature. When the accounts are migrated, there is an automatic logic that ensures that they return to a synced folder within a few days.

Please keep in mind that the above response was originally in German and has been Google-translated into English. The response was obtained by a reader on the German media outlet Dr Windows' forum.

Source: Dr Windows forum

Source

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