OneDrive, Office, Teams Free users greeted with phantom 'no internet' errors, restart may help if you're lucky
Microsoft has broken account sign-ins in Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2 with a recent update, causing error messages in apps like OneDrive and Office.
The glitch affects sign-in operations for Microsoft accounts. Businesses using Entra ID (previously known as Azure Active Directory) for application authentication are not affected.
However, users of Microsoft Teams Free, or anyone signing into Word, Excel, OneDrive, or Microsoft 365 Copilot with a Microsoft account, may see a message along the lines of "You'll need the Internet for this. It doesn't look like you're connected to the Internet" - regardless of whether the device actually is.
According to Microsoft: "This issue occurs when the device enters a specific network connectivity state, and may resolve on its own." A restart should also fix it, provided the device is online at the time.
"If the device is restarted without an active internet connection," Microsoft cautioned, "it might return to a connectivity state where the issue can occur again."
As for a fix that doesn't involve a weary reach for the big red button – virtual or otherwise – Microsoft wrote: "We are working to release a resolution for this issue in the next few days." This sounds a lot like yet another out-of-band update to deal with whatever the company broke in the March 10 update for Windows 11 25H2 and 24H2.
It hasn't been a good year for Windows updates. January brought a string of out-of-band fixes after Patch Tuesday caused woes for some users, including remote desktop sign-in problems and difficulties when saving or opening cloud storage files, which, in some instances, resulted in Outlook hanging if the PST file was stored on OneDrive.
February was relatively quiet in comparison, however, it looks like Microsoft might return to form in March. As well Bluetooth problems for enterprise users with hotpatching enabled, a fix for the latest Windows update malady could end up classified as an out-of-band update.
What a time to be a Windows user. ®