Microsoft fixes OneDrive sync issues with Windows Phone 8.1 devices

Kareem Anderson

While Windows phone appears to be on death’s door once again, the OneDrive team maintains its support for older devices by fixing a week-long sync issue that has been plaguing users of Windows Phone 8.l devices.

The new issue appeared close in time to Microsoft’s bigger roll out of Windows 10 Creators Update and may have some bearing on syncing with older Windows Phone devices as the note below alludes to:

“When using OneNote on Windows Phone, specifically Windows Phone 8.1, you may experience a sync interruption of your notebooks with OneDrive. The service side interruption started impacting customers sometime week of April 10, 2017 and may impact other Office Mobile apps as well. The most common issue reported by customers is that OneNote has stopped syncing to OneDrive, and shows error code 80070005 with a variation of these messages: “We can’t complete this task. Try again” or “You don’t have permission to edit the file and the sync has stopped. Contact the owner.”

After “actively investigating the issue” over the weekend, the OneDrive team found a solution for the issue and have pushed out a fix to Windows Phone 8.1 devices.

“A root cause has been identified for the sync interruption for OneNote, the teams are working on a fix. We’ll update this page with a workaround or fix as we know more. Note that your personal Office documents that you access with your Microsoft account, will not sync at this time. Work and school documents, created with a school or work account, are syncing correctly and not impacted by this issue.”

The fix which seems to be rolling out in waves to devices began showing up for users some time last night and has some forums bustling with news of its arrival.

Owners of much older Windows Phone devices seem to be getting the fix first, as users of Lumia 535’s and HTC Windows Phone 8X have been among the first to confirm the sync fix is in place.

If you are or were experiencing the sync issue on an older Windows Phone device, let us know in the comments below.