OneDrive for Business and Office 365 Sign In Bug

By Zubair Alexander

- On April 24, 2016

There is a known bug in Office 365 sign in related to the OneDrive for Business that you should be aware of. Whether you start OneDrive for Business, are somehow disconnected and need to enter your credentials to reconnect, or try to sync the folder with your Office 365 OneDrive, you may be prompted to sign in to Office 365. There is an interesting bug on the second screen that you may have encountered. The workaround for the bug is simple and is explained below.

PROBLEM

OneDrive for Business and Office 365 don't always play well. For example, when you are prompted to provide your login credentials you follow the directions on the screen but are unable to sign in. Here's exactly what happens. Let's say your OneDrive for Business folder is somehow out of sync and you see the following message that requires you to provide your credentials. Not a big deal. You click Enter credentials.

The first screen prompts you to Type your email address or phone number, as shown below. If you enter an incorrect email, it won't like it so you have to enter a legitimate email address for your Office 365 account. Let's say you enter your email address and click Next. Everything looks good and you are taken to the next screen.

At the second screen you need to enter your password. The box for the email is automatically filled with the email address you entered on the previous screen. That's good news. You then click the Sign in button but nothing happens, as if you are not taking any action and it's waiting for you to either click the Sign in button or the Back button. Okay, so you click the Back button but nothing happens, as if you are not taking any action and it's waiting for you to either click the Sign in button or the Back button.

WORKAROUND For some reason both the Sign in and the Back button don't work. The simple workaround for this bug is to use the Enter key instead. For people who try to avoid the mouse as much as possible, this may not be a big deal because it only takes a fraction of a second to hit the Enter key. However, for those people (like some of my friends) who use the mouse not only for navigating on the screen but also to fill out every single box on a form, it's not very intuitive. Microsoft is aware of this bug. There is no known solution at this time.