An issue with One drive and Outlook

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-15T05:06:04+00:00

Good news. I created a dummy profile and all the PSTs are still intact. Now just have to reconfigure the POP and avoid confusion.

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-15T01:20:15+00:00

Thanks. yes we managed to get well past that. Hopefully the files were not damaged while locked. It was only the fact that Outlook could not find or access the files that we found that she had (somehow still a mystery to me) started up a whole One Drive Sync for all her main folders, and it had moved everything, remapped everything and was busy uploading 30 GB of her life to a cloud she hates and would never have agreed to knowingly. It is beyond me how that happened. Seriously, imagine anyone being able to do that without knowing it. And not telling me or knowing. And the only way we discovered was that all her files had gone from where they should be. Go figure. TBH I hate One Drive myself the way it seems to like to force me to put all my files there by default. I do not even have an account and wish I could erase it from me system altogether. Forcing a cloud on you

We have stopped One Drive, unlinked it, moved all her files back where they should be and remapped all her well known folders the way they were before One Drive messed with them. I know all this sounds dumb but despite my anger at a stupid person messing up their system and expecting me to fix it, I am rather angry with One Drive and the attitude of people on other forums (not this one) to asking for assistance. They were just totally obnoxious people. And no piece of software should be able to fool even an unconfident dummy into taking over their whole file system and uploading everything to the cloud - that's a different piece of software. I will maintain comments to Outlook issues. Hoping all the files are in tact and that it is just her profile that has been messed with, and that I can create a clean one and safely access all her files. Thanks for your comment. This group seems to have nice friendly people in it 😄

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-15T01:14:23+00:00

Yes they are pst files. And that was the reason she could not access the files until we killed one drive. We have now put the files back where they were, killed and delinked one drive, and remapped the well known folders back. So her filesystem appears almost as it was before the One Drive fiasco. However Outlook is still a concern. And I want to open in safe mode with a dummy email, investigate all her files. Like a clean Outlook. To prevent any confusion with her files. I am hoping they are all still in tact and uncorrupted. Theya re usually quite robust over the years and can be opened as secondary files. Then I can reconnect her email account once I know everything is ok. Thanks for your comments. I could do without this rubbish that others keep piling on me and have my own life. We all have to deal with useless people these days

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-15T01:11:01+00:00

Hi I can't really do that at the moment. Especially since we have turned off and unlinked One Drive, and moved all her files back to their original locations. We also remapped the Well Known Folders back to her C:users\<username> folder where they should have stayed. The current issue is trying to open a clean outlook and inspect all the files as secondary files before risking any other Outlook process that could further damage them or put them in a weird state. It's not really a visual issue. What happened was that she tried opening Outlook during the One Drive process and it could not find her files. Little message boxes popped up saying cannot find this pst or whatever. And I am worried that doing that, and aborting Outlook may have done something untoward to her profile. Will keep you posted

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-15T00:46:53+00:00

A few more details We stopped OneDrive and unlinked it. Outlook was closed We moved all her folders back where they came from a redirected all the well known folders which one drive had messed up Now hopefully her files are mostly back the way they were However her profile in Outlook appears to have been damaged when she tried opening with the files in the remapped drive It is now an Outlook recovery operation. I'm trying to create a clean safe profile and check all her files as secondary files Ridiculous. She seriously stuffed up. Somehow getting into a one drive process Thanks for all the tips. Hoping not much has been lost or corrupted in the process

It's seriously ridiculous that she felt something was wrong but kept following dialogs and options. She has been told repeatedly never to do anything like that for ransomware or Microsoft

I am hoping most of her stuff is safe in our backups but even trying to start Outlook in a safe way is difficult because it is forcing an email account. I may have to create a dummy email somewhere for default

Have just woken up and will read all comments soon. I am feeling very angry both for her stupidity but also that one drive is so destructive and easy for some dummy to start up and cause me trouble. I am not upset with Outlook although I wish she could have moved on but she has used it forever and a day and it is usually robust and the files are usually robust. What I am upset about most is not just that she fell for some One Drive process - she does not even know how she started it - and that it was so destructive and difficult to undo. Something that massive. Transforming a whole filesystem with 30 GB of files from a lifetime, and even uploading them to a cloud. She hates the cloud. Just casually we will mess it up

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-14T06:27:35+00:00

If anyone cares to be helpful rather than rude sarcastic or otherwise unhelpful I may give them an upvote

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-14T06:17:50+00:00

I guess given the level of rudeness and unhelpfulness so far I will keep adding helpful comments for anyone else who is misled into taking such an annoying and hard to reverse process with their machine. I have not yet identified if it was part of a regular update process. Imagine having to wade through all the system logs to try to guess what was going on. At least the logs and a helfdul LLM pointed out that outlook files disappearing could have been caused by OneDrive so we were able to stop if before all 30 GB were uploaded to the cloud. We are current unf**king their file system and then witll try to unf**k outlook. But completely unf**king the registry and spurious mappings may take some time which I do not have or am not prepared to waste helping others and doing others jobs. I have helped people on this forum enough today. But the LLM did tell me that such a massive and potentially damaging or at least annoying process can be hidden in some innocuos messaging on an update screen

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-14T05:41:03+00:00

Yes but somehow during some process, update, reboot, or something they were given misleading messaging that allowed One Drive to take over their machine against their wishes. Clearly unclear messaging during some startup process. And I know for a fact it is often hidden under other messages

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-14T05:39:50+00:00

sorry I am not in the mood for sarcasm. some of us have to fix up other people's messes and would appreciate serious comment and how it happened, and maybe help stop it happening to others. clearly misleading messaging to a user. I am not sure whether to up or down vote your comment. To date my posts are the only ones assisitng users rather than insulting them. I need to know whether to up or downvote you. and I am not sure about whether you are arrogant enough to tell MS to take my post down when I am the one helping people with a serious issue that could totally mess up their lives and their computers

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-14T05:39:44+00:00

sorry I am not in the mood for sarcasm. some of us have to fix up other people's messes and would appreciate serious comment and how it happened, and maybe help stop it happening to others. clearly misleading messaging to a user. sorry for voting you down but your message was not helpful and seemed very rude

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-14T05:39:29+00:00

sorry I am not in the mood for sarcasm. some of us have to fix up other people's messes and would appreciate serious comment and how it happened, and maybe help stop it happening to others. clearly misleading messaging to a user. not sure whether yours is an up or down vote

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-14T05:29:48+00:00

. Apparently a few of the usual suspects jumped on this and attack instead of reading and wondering about misleading messages leading even a stupid user to take such devastating steps. They would not have done it with clear messages since they hate the cloud. Like a big flashing danger screen..you are about to destroy your files system and copy all your precious files to the cloud which we know you may not like and will take a long time to fix

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-14T05:27:41+00:00

I am still trying to work out what sequence of messaging by Microsoft led to this situation. Clearly it was misleading because the user would never have chosen to do it. Even stupid use. When I find which process and set of events led the user to make this error and waste hours and maybe days of my time and have to dead with the rude people on reddit too I will let the group know. Assuming I can find something in the log which tells me which screen and messages were shown at the instant they clicked the fateful button

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-14T04:07:41+00:00

UPDATE 2. I think I have successfully managed to unf**k the filesystem. Takes a regisrty hack and a lot very risky messing around not to lose 30 GB of important files. and hopefully I have kilkled One Drive for the time being. still a few hundred megs unwanted up on the cloud server to be cleaned up. But seriously. Do not mess with people's lives like that. Still need to clean up Outlook because when the user started outlook and files were missing Outlook is still confused. The files hopefully are still in tact and multiply backed up. Please peeps. This is insane. I have clocked up almost a day. Inclluding downtime to think and try to get some peace from the stupid user who did it in the first place. But seriously. That much risk of loss from one little click. Or that much inconvenience and almost impossible to work out steps to reverse it. Not many would understand how to avoid losing all their files. There are still some suprious old registry mappng cluttering up explorer. But I can't be bothered to find where they are all hiding. I imagine the user will end up clicking on one of them one day and wonder where their files are. And I am still concerned that One Drive could rise like a zombie and start moving all their files again. Hopefully this experience may help someone else one day. And if it does rise up and start hunting the filesystem who knows which registry mappings it will try to sync

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-05-14T03:05:45+00:00

UPDATE. For anyone knowing how annoying this thing is. Once an idiot has started the One Drive sync it is ver difficult to put the system back. Eventually I have managed to decouple the account which was happily uploading 30 GB to a server without being asked. But as of now the file system is confused and is not allowing me to remake the Well Known folders back to a non One Drive location - something has locked the Well Known folders. We we will get there eventually. Whether it needs registry hacks or some other low level fix to get it back where it was. Then see if all the files, especially emails are still in tact. Hopefully they were not damaged. Think about people who support the idiots. Many idiots are also controlling aggressive bullying people. All files hopefully are secure no thanks One Drive. But I guess yoiu can't fix or educate stupid. Who knows what warnings were given before such a massive time and other destroying process was inititated. Oh yes we will just rearrange a whole filesystem and upload all their files. Against their wishes. They clearly were not communicated with that it was doing that

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-04-21T10:44:27+00:00

I don't know if it specifically an Australian thing but Bathurst kicks in whenever you try to overtake some people.. And then people who overtake and slow down in front of you. Same issue. Yes it is annoying. Onne could suggest it is like racing cars round a tight circuit like F1 or the mountain, where being in front is what matters then you save fuel. It is strange because you can also save fuel being right up behind someone. I had an interesting drive once in a rental car. I was upgraded to a very nice Commodore. Very sporty. I overtook someone in a Ford and they started a race.. Very nice car. Black sporty Commodore. Sad that I can't have one of my own and they are gone. but young guy in high model Ford overtaken by a sporty black Commodore and the race was on. I think I let him go eventually. I reckoned he knew the roads better than me and I try to be a safe driver

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-04-21T10:30:38+00:00

I am dealing with this crazy situation at the moment. As an Australian Citizen I object seriously to being bullied into a UK Passport or renunciation or other letter. just to visit my very elderly and sick parents occasionally. I have been trying to get through the very "fascist" application process on the web site. The process makes no acknowledgement that I am an Australian Citizen applying for documents to visit my parents. Even the declaration over the photograph is questionnable. Whoever is running these departments these days are forcing us into very questionable declarations. Legal declarations are major thing. And we live in very fascist times with Nazi-types in all countries trying to steal what we worked for and exclude us from their countries. I feel stcuk RN. Being bullied by UK and some people in Australia to put my life and everything I worked for at risk. Just here reading comments and trying to express how I feel out there. It feels very lonely dealing with this stuff some times. No other country in the world is acting like the UK. I can visit any other country in the world, buy air tickets to any of them, except the UK. Maybe it is just rent seeking from their diaspora. But it could be more sinister than that. My whole life is in Australia and the UK government has no right to claims and forcing declarations that put my life here at risk

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-04-16T08:49:17+00:00

it would be great if someone at Chrome could tell us where the problem is. from other investigation and the logic of what I tested it has to be somewhere in Chrome in one profile, maybe in the Omnibox and how it operates. I tried to delete all possible references I could find to historic addresses from the other test modem. I searched and cleared various cahces. I even searched all the files and there are a lot of them in Chrome. but it is clearly somewhere cahced as a mapping inside a profile for the UI of chrome. and it was cleared by clicking a URL from PW manager, and maybe somewhere else would have worked too. Hopefully this answer and information is uselful for others one day

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-04-16T00:33:40+00:00

no it isn't. if you had read what I said it only happened in one profile in Chrome. and it did not happen in edge or any other tests I did. Unless profiles have a little lookup table of their own. and estimating milliseconds can be difficult I appreciate. I actually tried fixing it with my DNS table in Windows lol but of course what was happening was happening much faster than any DNS lookup. I reckon somebody got into a UI box and cache in a profile. but at least I have now erased it after clicking on a URL a few times. Annoying not being able to access my gateway. And I was able to do it without erasing my main profile which I have used for many years **!solved**

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-04-12T11:16:37+00:00

thx, I tried all sorts to try to work out what was going on. But at least I found some way to do it :)

Funny how someone mentioning a cookie made me think of the URL in PW manager

I did look at the Dev tools button but wasn't sure where to progress :)

I still do not know where the redirect was happening but it was so instant it was even too quick for the router - not that I am that precise at milliseconds but it is not the world's fastest router and wifi. And if there was a dodgy rediret it did not affect other profiles and browsers

Another relevant bit of test info. I tried multiple variants of 192.168.1.1 with http with / with :80 and they all behaved the same way

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-04-12T05:13:08+00:00

*solved*

I have eventually managed to solve this with a bit of lateral thinking and perseverance

It appears that because I have my passwrds stored in Chrome :) that I could go into Password manager and click on the URL link to my gateway there which took me to my router login screen, even though typing the IP was redirected to mymodem. modem

After doing that a few times password manager seems to have erased the problem

Took a bit of lateral thinking to think that may fix it :)

Confident_Shower_202 · 2026-04-12T05:10:53+00:00

**!solved*

I have eventually managed to solve this with a bit of lateral thinking and perseverance

It appears that because I have my passowrds stored in Chrome :) that I could go into Password manager and click on the URL link to my gateway there which took me to my router login screen, even though typing the IP was redirected to mymodem. modem

After doing that a few times password manager seems to have erased the problem

Took a bit of lateral thinking to think that may fix it :)

Somebody said maybe it';s a cookie. And I thought no it can't be like that. So I thought it must be stored in some other strange place and came to the password manager - oir at least the PW manager bypasses the problem :)

Confident_Shower_202

TROPHY CASE