Can't sign in Office Apps?

For some reason, my Office apps keeps showing a "Sign in" button at the top even though I have tried signing off and in again several times.

At the same time, the Office Account settings already shows that I am signed in, but it's not showing my profile picture.

Restarting Office apps and rebooting Windows does not fix this. I am using Office 2019 version 1808 (build 10356.20006)

What is the cause of this?

No one who can help me with this?

Caledon Ken said:

If you go to your Office account using a browser can you log in.

You should see what machines are logged in.

Might I suggest you force the log off at this level and then go back to an Office app like Word and then sign in.

You mean Office.com? I went there and I can log normally and it shows all my previously opened Word documents.
After that, I have to go to my MS account to see which machines are logged in, and it shows the correct one (no other machines) although it says that Windows is not updated on that machine.

I have it updated with all the updates except 1 driver through WU that I've hidden.

Logging off from from office.com and signing in an Office app doesn't fix it either.

I'm at a loss...

Caledon Ken said:

There is always the repair option within Office

or a repair install of Windows (keeps your data and your apps)

Repair Install Windows 10 with an In-place Upgrade

Interesting that it does not know state of Office in terms of patches, wonder if Windows Update Reset would correct matter.

Reset Windows Update in Windows 10

Since Office does not seem to be able to communicate with servers might point to network corruption. These resets could help.

Run the following six bolded commands. Use a Command Prompt(admin) or Powershell(admin)

Do not key in info in brackets, there for your information.

ipconfig /flushdns (Clear the dns cache)
nbtstat -RR (release and refesh NetBIOS names)
netsh int ip reset (reset ip settings)
netsh winsock reset (Reset Winsock Catalog)
netsh interface ip delete arpcache (Reset Address Resolution Protocol cache)

netsh advfirewall reset (reset firewall)


As always it is a good idea to have a system Image available that you can restore from when diagnosing problems.

Thanks, will try those out.

In WU Settings, do you have to enable to the option to let WU also download updates for other MS products?

Caledon Ken said:

You don't have to but if you don't then you have to set up Office to get updates they way you want.... Automatic or manual.

So I just tried everything you said but no avail. Perhaps future Office updates would be able to correctly reset the profile settings.

AndreTen said:

Just a guess... Do you have multiple accounts? And office is connected with one, and Windows uses the other one?

Nope, I'm only using 1 account. I'm starting to think that it's supposed to show a Sign in button at the top even if you've already signed in? Or does it show your MS username instead?