Workaround for OneDrive login error 0x8004de40

[German]Users of Microsoft's cloud storage OneDrive occasionally run into login issues. The login is rejected with the error 0x8004de40 when logging in. Microsoft addressed the issue the other day and suggests a workaround for these cases.

Long-standing OneDrive error

If you search the Microsoft Answers forum for error code 0x8004de40 and the keyword OneDrive, you will get a number of hits. Here is a recent entry:

OneDrive error code 0x8004de40

Hi,

I cant log into onedrive business. I get this error code 0x8004de40.

Internet connection seems to be fine. I can access through browser, but program does not sign in.

I have windows 7. I uninstalled onedrive and reinstalled build 21.073.0411.0002. Tried to reset onedrive and etc, but nothing helps.

Also at reddit.com, a search for the terms returns quite a few hits that users have left there over the years. In this post, someone still gives hints about the error messages that are displayed. 

OneDrive Error Code 0x8004de40 "There was a problem connecting to OneDrive" "Check your internet connection, and then try again"

The error code/message indicates a missing internet connection. However, if other applications such as a browser can access web pages, the problem is probably not due to the Internet connection.

Microsoft provides tips for troubleshooting

As long as it is clear that the internet connection is working and there are no errors, various measures have to be checked. In the MS Answers forum post there is a reference to the Microsoft article Error Code: 0x8004deb4 when signing in to OneDrive. This describes a very special case, namely that an update to Office 2016 Build 16.0.7967 was installed.

The second bug area under Windows 8.x and Windows 7 SP1 concerns the TLS encryption used. Microsoft is gradually switching to TLS 1.1/1.2, so the relevant support must be in place. Details can be found in this Microsoft post.

However, the error can also be caused by problems in Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). In such cases, it helps to log the client off the domain and resume it. To do this, execute the following commands in an administrative command prompt under Windows 10:

dsregcmd /leave
dsregcmd /join

Afterwards, Windows 10 has to be restarted. The colleagues from Bleeping Computer have taken up the topic here and have collected a number of wokrarounds (including the above). Maybe it will help with problems.