Onedrive browsing incredibly slow after 20H2 update after setting up iCloud for Windows

JLA 21

Been using my 1TB OneDrive with Office 365 for 5+years with iCloud for Windows. After upgrading my MS Surface Book 2 to the 20H2 Windows 10 version (or approximately at that time), browsing any folder on OneDrive has become incredibly slow (maybe 30-seconds to simply open an empty folder)! This behavior ONLY happens on my MS Surface Book 2 computer. On this and other computers (MacOS), I keep all of my files stored locally, so I am not using the "Files on Demand" feature. All folders and files are 100% sync'd on this computer (Onedrive all up-to-date). However, navigating through the files / folders only in my OneDrive folder is now incredibly slow since each click takes like 20-30-seconds or so to complete!

At the suggestion of a MS employee on the community site, he strongly recommended I reinstall OneDrive, which I did and rebuilt my local copies from scratch. Made no difference.

Then, he recommended I create a new user account, and do the same thing (disabling or deleting my old account). That actually helped (back to normal responsiveness for the Onedrive folder after downloading all my files). But then, as I rebuilt my user account to setup my 3rd party apps, email, etc. with Office 365, I found the same problem had returned.

So, I deleted that new user account, and started again with a fresh new user, installing each app I normally use, one at a time, and checking OneDrive responsiveness after each install to see if the problem existed. What I found was that after installing iCloud Desktop from the MS Store (11.6) and setting up Outlook 2016 (latest) to use my contacts, calendar and Apple email account that is when the OneDrive problem occurred! Since I share my contacts and calendar with various devices (iPhone, my wife's Mac, ...) I have to use iCloud Desktop for Windows.

I have been using iCloud for Windows for 5+ years and have never had this problem. I suspect it has something to do with the latest 20H2 Windows 10 update, but I cannot be sure. But, on my Microsoft Surface, I am hosed at this point with OneDrive and could sure use some help figuring out what to do about this since I rely on OneDrive every day for what I do on this computer!

Thanks in advance for any thoughts / insights as to what might be causing this...

Jim E 26 Reputation points

2021-05-18T23:18:46.573+00:00

I have been having this problem for over a month and have spent numerous hours on the phone with Microsoft support Level 2 staff, as well as Apple. First, the problem is not just with OneDrive files/folders. It is with any cloud based files including DropBox, iCloud, and Google drive. It would take about 40 seconds for a folder to open to simply the display the folder hierarchy below. After speaking with both Apple and Microsoft and being bounced around between the two like a ping pong ball, I solved the problem on my own. The problem is with Version 12.3 of iCloud for Windows. It doesn't behave properly with the latest Windows release of 20H2. (BTW, neither MS or Apple will confirm this until you speak to an engineer.) The solution is to find an older download version of iCloud for Windows., which itself is not easy but doable. Avoid the Microsoft Store which only provides 12.3. I found and downloaded iCloud Windows version 7.20 and it now works perfectly.
1btflboi 11 Reputation points

2021-07-04T20:29:00.42+00:00

I followed your same path (remove "iCloud for Windows" installed from the Microsoft Store [currently version 12.4 as of 2021-07-04]) and the extremely sluggish response of my OneDrive cloud-based desktop icons (20-40 seconds lag) disappeared completely (now instant response to left-click, right-click, double-click, etc.).

I haven't installed the "iCloud for Windows" available from the Apple website yet (version 7.something), because I have other means to get files between my Apple and Windows ecosystems at the moment. Once I've done some other tweaking, I'll probably re-install one of the "iCloud for Windows" versions and try troubleshooting again.
Chris Page 1 Reputation point

2022-05-16T11:19:58.707+00:00

In my experience I discovered that if I un-checked the iCloud Drive option then the normal speed returned. As I only use iCloud to sync photos and calendar then it wasn't a problem. As the slow time to open is around a minute then what is happening appears to be a system timeout. It appears that iCloud and OneDrive are competing to up date file attributes even thought the relevant folders are separate and not overlapping at all. Once the timeout occurs the file opens in the relevant app.
Chris Page 1 Reputation point

2023-01-18T11:53:06.86+00:00

Oddly this issue occurred again. I discovered that even though iCloud drive was deselected, everything was v. slow. The I realised that my iCloud shared photos location was causing a problem. So in iCloud settings I changed the Shared Photos folders to a position outside of OneDrive. Voila! Normal speed was resumed.
Joe Conner 10 Reputation points

2023-04-12T23:09:51.1733333+00:00

Thanks, everyone! I know this is an old thread, but FFwd to today and I just started encountering this exact issue. An uninstall of iCloud immediately solved the issue. I did not find this solution anywhere else. For brevity, for it was both OneDrive and DropBox taking about a minute to open anything - only in File Explorer, and only on the right pane. Any other means of accessing those same folders performed fine I.E. file SaveAs and open, via a command line, other apps's method of working with files/folders. I cannot pin down what caused the issue to begin. I did note consistent errors in the System log each time the delay occurred: "The server {85527100-19D0-45AF-9F09-DAB4E711C35E} did not register with DCOM within the required timeout." EventID: 10010. Source: DistributedCOM. Hopefully that event log item will help someone else locate this thread and solve for them too!
RandomNinja 0 Reputation points

2023-07-28T10:12:23.2966667+00:00

OMG, same problem started occurring for me today and the same solution worked - uninstalling iCloud
Tim K 21 Reputation points

2023-10-19T21:36:11.0766667+00:00

The same issue and all the accompanying symptoms just started happening for me today. Unfortunately I can't uninstall iCloud as I use it to sync my iPhone with MS Outlook/Office 365 on the laptop. FYI, I also just installed iCloud from the MS app store, so this also seems to validate that it's an iCloud issue.

UPDATE: I found an older version of iCloud linked on the iCloud reddit page. The first link/version did not work (7.18) but the second link a little further down the page (7.21, I think), seems to be working! Calendar and Contacts synced, and no issue with opening folders... so far.

13 answers

Peter Clarke 31 Reputation points

2021-02-18T11:48:59.853+00:00

So i noticed very frustrating slowness on accessing OneDrive post updating to 20H2. its taken nearly 2 weeks to find the above advise. I simply removed iCloud, I wasn't using it anyway, so for me it was easy.

Instantly, no-reboot required, access speed returned.
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sm 0 Reputation points

2023-09-17T01:04:47.69+00:00

Yes, Many thank for your suggesstion it does work for me too. evevy thing back in normal now
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JLA 21 Reputation points

2021-01-29T17:00:23.367+00:00

I just tried unchecking "Use Office applications to sync", rebooted to be sure it took effect, and unfortunately this made no difference (good suggestion though)!

One thing I did notice when watching the file explorer icons in my Onedrive folder (all folders there show the familiar green 'in sync' icon); when I click on an empty folder, I get the familiar spinning blue icon indicating file explorer is taking a while to get there. Then, after 30+ seconds, the empty folder finally opens. Simply returning back to the parent folder, I then see all of the Onedrive folder icons are MISSING their icons. It is like Onedrive thinks none of the folders are sync'd despite the tray Onedrive icon (which remains very responsive) saying "Onedrive is up-to-date".

Something is REALLY wrong here with OneDrive that was triggered I believe by the install of iCloud Desktop after the latest Windows updates. I looked in task manager while File Explorer / Onedrive was stuck with the blue spinning icon but didn't see anything I'd consider abnormal.

Any other ideas folks?
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JLA 21 Reputation points

2021-01-29T19:01:35.813+00:00

Another really weird thing; File Explorer behavior when accessing my OneDrive folder.

When I navigate using the left side of File Explorer (down below the Quick Pin stuff), access to OneDrive folders is PERFECT (no delays). However, when I try and open ANYTHING in my OneDrive folder on the right side of the File Explorer I get the 30+ second delays (sometimes it never responds). This is a definite BUG I believe but still unsure what to do about it. Similar searches have suggested that this may happen as early as the 1909 Windows update (8-9 months ago) but I only started seeing this after the large 20H2 updates...

Anyone? Or should I try Windows Insider, or ????
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Erin Ding-MSFT 4,456 Reputation points

2021-02-09T08:24:24.78+00:00

@JLA

Since your issue is complicated and I do not have the same environment to test this issue, I would suggest you to open a ticket with Microsoft Support to help review your problem and test remotely.
If you have any solutions or updates later, you could also share in this thread.

Alex Solovyev 11 Reputation points

2021-03-03T19:19:22.277+00:00

Were you able to resolve this issue? I have the same problem and nothing I have does so far (install/reinstall (OneDrive, .Net, VC++ libarraies ...) different sync options etc.) nothing helped.

Peter Clarke 31 Reputation points

2021-03-04T08:08:07.317+00:00

Alex, see my note below, it worked for me

Alex Solovyev 11 Reputation points

2021-03-07T00:00:06.323+00:00

Thanks Peter, I think the iCloud was it. I am going to add to this, the iCloud app was in the Settings -> Apps and it was not in the Control Panel -> Programs...
I removed it along whit a couple of other things I tried, but it started to work properly right after that.

John Pinegar 21 Reputation points

2022-06-28T20:17:18.233+00:00

I was seeing the same.

Browsing OneDrive folders was really slow

Right-click context menu was really slow to appear

Putting a folder in Quick Access allowed it to open fast

Right-clicking the iCloud App and uninstalling resolved the issue.
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JLA 21 Reputation points

2021-03-06T22:09:00.963+00:00

So damn frustrating; for one last attempt, I too deleted iCloud and reinstalled it from the MS Store. After that, I could no longer login to iCloud for Windows... says username / password is invalid, but that is BS (my password is fine). I then removed my Apple accounts from Outlook, thinking that might be the issue, but no, now my PC has no Apple product interfaces. I put this all aside for now so I didn't throw my laptop against the wall in frustration (not really, but I am disgusted with how screwed up iCloud for Windows has become)!
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ss cello 6 Reputation points

2021-03-28T00:17:48.53+00:00

Similar issues with iCloud for Windows, except that not only OneDrive but also my Dropbox and iCloud folders were being glacial; other folders opened fine Un-installing iCloud fixed it. I had first suspected Dropbox as the problem as this started right after I had enabled SmartSync in Dropbox, but disabling SmartSync did nothing, nor did reinstalling Dropbox even after a complete wipe of all the app and pref folders. Like with others, reinstalling iCloud (when I could finally get it to sign in) just restarted the problems. A shame, because I like to use iCloud to sync with my Outlook calendar.

Got another computer linked to Dropbox, and I am no longer able to open iTunes on that. None of the fixes I've found work.
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