Product Version 1.2.0-preview
Invalid offload/restore URL may affect parent site/library
Offloading or restoring a URL that points to a non-existent site or library may instead offload/restore a parent site or library.
Blobs are not deleted
When offloaded files are restored, the related blob is not deleted from Azure Blob Storage to enable user restores of moved or copied files.
A regularly clean-up process to remove orphaned blobs will be added soon to resolve this issue.
After installation, user onload will not be available instantly
After product installation, the user onload functionality may take up to 48 hours to become available.
This delay is due to the deployment and activation of a required Azure ressource (file handler), which is initiated during installation but can take up to two days for SharePoint to pick it up.
The ShArc server information page indicates whether the file handler is active.
Until activation is complete:
- Admins will see a message in the Offload screen explaining the delay.
- If a user clicks on a .sharc stub file, an information is displayed about this temporary limitation.
One-Click Restore not available in OneDrive and teams
Currently, one-click restore is not supported in OneDrive and Microsoft Teams.
To improve the user experience, future updates will introduce tailored solutions, such as:
- A MS Teams App
- A local application for OneDrive for Business
- A SharePoint Add-in
Folders / Teams Channels cannot be offloaded separately
At the moment it is not possible to scope an offload only on specific folders (which includes Microsoft Teams channels). SharePoint libraries (which includes whole Teams in MS Teams) are the smallest unit that can be offloaded.
File overwritten when recreating an offloaded file
In a specific scenario, restoring an offloaded file may result in unexpected content:
- A file (file1.txt) is offloaded, and a .sharc file (file1.txt.sharc) is created.
- The .sharc file is moved to another site.
- A new file with the same name (file1.txt), but different content, is created in SharePoint.
- The second file is also offloaded, again resulting in a .sharc file named file1.txt.sharc.
- If the moved file.txt.sharc in the other site is restored, it will be overwritten with the content of the second file1.txt.
This is a rare edge case and will be addressed in an upcoming update.
Unexpected content & invalid extension when recreating an offloaded file
In a specific scenario, restoring an offloaded file may result in incorrect content and an invalid file extension:
- A file (file1.txt) is offloaded, and its corresponding .sharc file (file1.txt.sharc) is created.
- A new file with the same name (file1.txt), but different content, is created in SharePoint.
- This second file is also offloaded, generating a new .sharc file named file1.txt1.sharc.
- If the original file1.txt.sharc is restored, it will be overwritten with the content of the second file1.txt.
- If file1.txt1.sharc is restored, its content will be correct, but its name will include an invalid "1" postfix (file1.txt1 instead of file1.txt).
This is a rare edge case and will be addressed in an upcoming update.
Offloading media files that are created shortly before
When media files (video and audio) are uploaded, SharePoint will analyze their metadata and extract it. This process is performed with a considerable delay, up to 30 minutes, after the file was uploaded. If a media file is offloaded before the metadata extraction was performed by SharePoint, the media metadata will be attached to the stub (.sharc) file. This will lead to SharePoint treating the file as a media file which it is not anymore. When this happens, trying to onload the file will show the SharePoint dialog which informs that a preview is not available. In this case clicking on "open" will download the stub file. Opening the downloaded stub file will still onload the original media file to its original location. When using Microsoft Edge as a browser .sharc files might be blocked and explicitly permitted to be downloaded.
Cryptic error message on offload or restore
When running an offload or a restore, sometimes a cryptic error message like AggregateException_ctor_Defaultmessage or similar is shown. This is not a critical error: The offload or restore is still running and refreshing the browser will get rid of the error.
Preview and progress
The preview section on the offload page is leveraging SharePoint Search to quickly gather the count and size of files according to the configuration. Since the search engine is working on data it collects in regularly intervals and not on the data as it currently exists, these numbers can be wrong, especially for changes that have been made recently. So the preview is an estimate based on the current search index of SharePoint. The same mechanism is used in the progress view. When an offload starts, the application shows the estimate of what will be offloaded, which might be corrected once the real number is known.
Full text search
Files that have been offloaded can no longer be searched by their contents as the content is no longer available on SharePoint. They may, however, be searched for by name.
External users / users without license
Offloaded files cannot be restored by external users or users that do not have an Office 365 license assigned. In this case, an internal, licensed user must onload the file first, before external users are able to access the file.
SharePoint 'My Site'
Offloading files from the SharePoint 'My Site' (company-my.sharepoint.com) is currently not supported.
Multi-Geo Tenant
For Multi-Geo SharePoint tenants, only the PDL (Preferred Data Location) is supported.
Retention Policies are currently not supported
At the moment, ShArc does not support Retention Policies (Microsoft Purview) in any way.
SharePoint metadata does not show sensitivity labels after restore
After restoring files with Sensitivity Labels (Microsoft Purview), the metadata in SharePoint will no longer show those labels, but the files and labels will still work as intended.