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    Working with SharePoint Online in Windows

    IT Discussion
    sharepoint webdav cache
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    • C
      Carnival Boy
      last edited by scottalanmiller

      Can anyone explain to me the mechanics of what happens when I open a file stored in SharePoint Online using Windows Explorer?

      So, for example, I open a folder in Windows Explorer by browsing the path https://contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/mysite/etc and from there I open an Excel spreadsheet.

      I believe it first downloads the file to a cache on my local machine, but I'm not sure where or how. When I make changes to the spreadsheet, it saves those to my local machine and a background process uploads the changed file back to SharePoint. Is that how it works?

      I really don't know.

      But I occasionally get issues where the file I open is a previous version and not the latest version, so I am assuming there is syncing going on and I'm suffering from sync timing errors. I suspect this issue only happens when I open the file from Windows Explorer, as I don't appear to have any issues when opening from within Teams using the "Open in App" Teams action, but I could be wrong.

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      • scottalanmillerS
        scottalanmiller
        last edited by

        I believe in that case that it is using WebDAV, or at least it used to. If so, it's a standard file server and working just like SMB or NFS would work. And yes, in those cases, it has the option to locally cache for speed, but it saves to the network filesystem. It does not save local and then transfer separately.

        Sync issues shouldn't be possible if you are mounting the WebDAV drive. That's a mounted drive like any other. Sync issues would happen if someone has made changes but not saved them at all (same thing would impact SMB mounts) or if there is a Sync system somewhere instead of the WebDAV option.

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        • C
          Carnival Boy
          last edited by

          Thanks. Sounds like the issue may be reading then, with local caching, rather than writing. Is it possible to turn local caching off?

          scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • scottalanmillerS
            scottalanmiller @Carnival Boy
            last edited by

            @Carnival-Boy it's ugly...

            https://secretweaponsdigital.wordpress.com/2017/07/04/windows-webdav-client-cache-settings/

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            • C
              Carnival Boy
              last edited by

              Thanks, I will give it a go and see if it fixes the issue.

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              • DashrenderD
                Dashrender
                last edited by

                Would someone please add some tags to this? Great thing to be able to find in the future.

                scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • scottalanmillerS
                  scottalanmiller @Dashrender
                  last edited by

                  @Dashrender said in Working with SharePoint Online in Windows:

                  Would someone please add some tags to this? Great thing to be able to find in the future.

                  Done

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