Parent folder structure no longer accessible in Teams, can only access through Sharepoint?

Dear Maggie

Good day, and I appreciate the detailed description of your issue. I understand that you're having an unexpected issue where Teams suddenly drops you into a deeply nested folder and won't let you navigate back to the parent, especially when the same file structure works fine from SharePoint. As a forum moderator, I genuinely wish I could directly access your account or delve into the backend systems to diagnose and fix this for you. However, our role here is limited to providing general guidance and solutions that can be applied by users. 

I tried to replicate your issue in my own test environment, but the folder navigation works as expected on my side. I can move up and down the folder tree in Teams without issue. Based on what you've described, this doesn't sound like a permissions issue, since everything is accessible from SharePoint. It looks more like the Teams Files view is not exposing the parent library path correctly.

To help narrow this down, could you please share a few more details?

• What version of Teams are you on? (Click the three dots next to your profile picture > Settings > About Teams.)
• Do you see the folder icon to navigate back to the parent folder? If yes, what happens when you click it, does it show the parent folder, or nothing at all? Or is the icon missing entirely?
• Are other users in your organization seeing the same behavior, or is it only you?

In the meantime, please try the following steps to see if any of them help:

1.Try Teams on the web

Go to teams.cloud.microsoft and check whether the same folder-navigation issue happens there.

• If it works on web, the issue is likely with the desktop Teams client/cache.
• If it happens on web too, it may be related to the Teams service experience or your tenant configuration.

2.Clear the Teams cache

1. Type settings in the search box, and then select the Settings app from the results.
2. Select Apps > Installed apps, and then type Microsoft Teams in the search box.
3. Locate the New Microsoft Teams app from the results, select the More options button (...) on the right, and then select Advanced options.
4. In the Reset section, select Reset.
5. Restart Teams.

For reference: Clear the Teams client cache - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

3.Test with another team/channel

Try navigating files in a different Team and channel:

• If only one Team or channel is affected, it may be related to that channel's SharePoint folder/library structure.
• If all Teams are affected, it points more toward a Teams client or service-side issue.

If the issue still persists, I recommend that the Global Admin in your organization create a service request with Microsoft Support. A technical support engineer can perform a remote session to investigate the situation, verify the backend configurations, and run any necessary synchronization tools to resolve the problem. If the issue requires further attention, they can escalate it to a specialized team for deeper analysis. For detailed instructions on how to get support, please refer to Get support - Microsoft 365 admin. If you don't know who your IT administrator is, please refer to this article: How do I find my Microsoft 365 admin? - Microsoft Support 

For additional assistance, use this link to find the appropriate contact number from your region: Global Customer Service phone numbers - Microsoft Support 

I hope this information is helpful. Please follow these steps and let me know how it goes. If you have any questions or need further assistance, please feel free to share them in the comments so I can continue to support you. Thank you for your patience and understanding. I'm looking forward to your reply.

If the answer is helpful, please click "Yes" and kindly upvote it.

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I am having the same issue. It is a problem when there are folders at the same level as "General" for a Team that does not have channels defined. This works the same in Teams the Windows app as well as Teams the web app. The parent "Documents" folder is accessible by opening the General folder in SharePoint.

I found this workaround: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/263998/show-all-the-main-folder-inside-ms-teams-am-i-doin

This instructs to create a Channel with the same name as the folder at the higher level and when the channel is created, it will create a link to the desired folder.

I have found no other way to navigate up to the higher level folder at this point. I really don't like it when Microsoft makes such assumptions about how people use Teams. We use Add Shortcut to OneDrive extensively. Because of this we do not use the "General" folder as it adds an additional folder layer in the shortcut. We then share the folder structure and mount it with SAP app servers. Making it harder to get to the folders at the higher level has caused some chaos within my team.