In recent days, Microsoft acknowledged an issue that has been affecting its OneDrive cloud storage service on Windows phones for over a week, and said that it had identified the cause of the problem. It now appears that the issue has been resolved.
Earlier this week, MSPoweruser reported on the issue, following numerous complaints from Windows Phone 8.1 users who said that they were unable to sync files to or from their handsets. Microsoft said on Sunday, and again on Monday, that it was "actively investigating this issue". In a further post on one of the discussion threads on its support forums, Microsoft directed users to monitor this page for further information as it became available, where the issue was described in greater detail:
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 this file and the sync has stopped. Contact the owner."
Oddly, an earlier version of the same page, published in an update yesterday by MSPU, described the issue in different terms, including a reference to the OneNote app on Windows 10 Mobile devices:
After installing a recent OneDrive update released during week of April 10, 2017 for Windows phones, you may find that OneNote for Windows 10 has stopped syncing to OneDrive, and shows the following error code 80070005 and messages: “We can’t complete this task. Try again” or “You don’t have permission to edit this file and the sync has stopped. Contact the owner.”
The references to "OneNote for Windows 10" no longer appear on that Microsoft support page, but the company did say that a fix for the Windows Phone 8.1 issue was being developed:
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 a 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.
Today, several OneDrive users, with a range of devices - including the Lumia 535 and HTC Windows Phone 8X, among others - have replied in the forums to say that the issue has been fixed and they"re now able to sync their files without any problems. Microsoft hasn"t yet updated its support notes to reflect that, but it"s likely that it will do so once it"s verified that the issue is no longer affecting any of its customers.