As it turns out, the error message appears even when users have an active internet connection. Although you are still able to use the application and do whatever you want, there are still some features that do not work when you do not have an internet connection. For example, if you turned on OneDrive syncing so that your files are automatically synced to the cloud, the error message prevents that from working. Now, why is this error message displayed even when you have an internet connection? As it turns out, there are some nuisances that can cause the said issue and we will mention down below. So, let us get into it. Now that we have been through the possible causes of the issue, let us get into the methods that you can use to resolve the issue. Before we begin, it is important to note that in some cases, Office just launches in offline mode due to which you see the error message. To fix this, what you have to do is go to the File menu and then go to the Account tab. There you will see an option to connect to the internet at the bottom-left corner. Do that and see if that fixes the issue. In case it doesn’t, follow the methods down below.
Method 1: Disable Ethernet Adapter
The first thing that you should do when you face the error message is to disable your primary ethernet adapter. Once you do that, you can turn it on again and then launch MS Office. This can often solve network connectivity issues and it might solve your MS Office connection issue as well. This has been reported by several users facing the same problem. To do this, follow the instructions given down below:
Method 2: Disable Third-Party VPN
Another way that you can solve this issue is by disabling your third-party VPN. As it turns out, if you are connected to the internet through your third-party VPN, MS Office might not be able to establish a connection. Such issues are pretty common with third-party VPNs and happen pretty often. Therefore, in order to fix your issue, you will have to turn off your VPN and then try opening MS Office. Once you have turned off your VPN, make sure that you have an active connection or the issue will persist. If that fixes your issue, what you can do is whitelist MS Office applications on your VPN. Once you have done that, you can try checking if the issue is solved even with the VPN turned on.
Method 3: Restart Network Services
Finally, if the above solutions do not work out for or are not applicable to you, your issue may very likely be caused by two of the network services. Network List service is used to identify the network to which your computer is connected and then if anything changes, it notifies the applications. Network Location Awareness service almost does the same thing. The difference being it collects configuration information for the network. Now, if these services are stopped, the configuration information may not be available to the applications which can cause network connectivity issues such as this one. Therefore, you will have to make sure that the services are running and if they already are, you will have to restart them. Follow the instructions down below to do this:
Microsoft Office 2019 Will Be The Last Offline Productivity Suite, Users Will…How to Fix Error Reference Source not Found when Printing from Office 2010,…[FIX] Microsoft Office 365 Error Code 0-1012How to Fix Office 365/2016 Activation Error 0x80072EFD “We couldn’t contact the…
