I'm sorry to have walked away from this thread. I just remembered it,
and couldn't stand leaving your responses unaddressed. Actually, for
one reason or another ('could be more saving and reopening diligence),
I haven't had to face this error for a while. But still, here goes...
Interesting.
One way to prevent this from occurring is to close the doc every so often.
In the process of finding the bug, they also discovered (I think) that it
happens more often when editing headers/footer in page layout view, and that
using Normal View can help prevent it. You might want to read the
explanation on that to see if there are any other preventions.
http://blogs.msdn.com/rick_schaut/archive/2004/05/19/135315.aspx
Unfortunately, much of this applies to me, and I knew it. I've tried
working in normal, but am just too comfortable with page layout. When I
start to get worried about a document, I do sometimes reopen it. I read
that article once before, and loved it. I'm just annoyed that it
results in such an unfixable problem.
Except I'm not sure it's the same issue--so some questions--
What is the exact text of the error message? Why do you say it comes from
AutoRecover? (I can't remember if it did or not)
I don't have the exact text now, but it was very familiar — the same
bolded message about disk space as in Office X. Maybe I shouldn't have
mentioned AutoRecover. It's just that I often first learn that I've
reached my file limit when AutoRecover fails to save.
When you say the template is ineffective--does it not give you the message
boxes and remove the undo files, or does it work but you still can't save
the document?
It works perfectly in clearing undo, but I still can't save.
---------------
Hi Sidney,
No new news. While I've seen other reports of Disk Full errors in Office
2004, I don't remember any as severe as yours seems to be; and most folks
aren't seeing it at all. I wonder if there's something about your system or
the way you use Word that produces the error.
Thanks for checking. I doubt that there is anything unique about my
setup. It's mixed use, with a header/footer using various fields,
sometimes a few equations… My computer isn't the newest, but surely
decent: 60 GB, 768 MB RAM, 800 MHz G4.
Do you have your OS and Office fully updated? What kinds of documents are
you working on? How complex are they? How often do you usually hit Save?
I always stay updated. I have two main types of documents. The first
uses auto-updating fields and an image in the header. It's sometimes
two column, sometimes multisection sometimes using images, and often
numbered. The second is text-only. Of course, there's a lot of
variation.
I admit I've often been absent-minded about saving, but not always.
There are other causes for the Disk Full error besides too many temp files
open. When you're running Word, do you have a lot of other apps open,
especially memory-hungry apps like Photoshop? Do you have sufficient RAM?
I have enough RAM and do run hungry apps. But I tend to quit what I'm
not using, so that's probably not the issue.
I don't know if we'll be able to help but give us as much info as you can
and we'll at least try.
Thanks, Beth.
---------------
There are two common problems that cause the error. The error itself is a
generic error that literally means "Word was unable to write one of the
files it was attempting to write."
The work-around template cures only one of the causes (of which there are
many) and the cause it cures is extremely rare in Word 2004. So it's not
likely to be much help to you.
The problem usually (not always) results from exceeding the number of files
that your operating system can hold open. Often, you can clear this up by
rebooting your computer to force OS X to do its housekeeping.
Sometimes, you have run out of available "file handles" because of
corruptions in the OS temporary storage area of your disk. Taking Disk
Utility for a walk and running Repair Permissions can produce an
improvement.
My computer is shut down at night, so I'd only "need" to reboot it
while having an error session, and I honestly wouldn't want to restart
then. I have cron running maintenance when the comp's awake, so that's
not it.
Regrettably, neither we nor Microsoft has any really good idea of what is
causing this, so it's a bit difficult to fix it. For example, this iBook
never exhibits the problem, and I have no idea why...
All I could suggest is that each day when you finish work, you Shutdown your
computer, or Restart your computer. That will ensure that OS X does all of
the cleaning up that it does each time it starts, and present you with a
nice clean operating system in the morning.
It is entirely possible that one of the other applications you are running
is gobbling file handles during the day. I have no idea which one, but I
would be suspicious of anything that "also" is interested in Word files,
such as an antivirus program, a "helper" program, or a backup utility. If
you have any such programs, you might try running without them for a week
and see what happens.
Sorry to be no help at all.
Often, "no help" can end up being the best in the long run. Thanks.
---------------
...I found that by removing two vector-based graphics images, the file
would function with Word2004. These two graphics had been copy/pasted
from an older document and have unknown origins. My OS and Word are
both the latest versions.
I was fortunate in that I had to redraw only 2 figures. I hope that
this helps.
Stuart
I only reuse the graphics from my templates. Thanks for sharing,
though. Maybe this will be a fix for someone else.
---------------
it may be because you have so many equations in your file. microsoft's
work around is to NOT copy equations from one file to another. it is a
nice work around isn't it. they recommend that you open your equations
one by one, insert the object in the new one and copy them one by one.
I don't reuse equations that much. Annoying, though. Sorry for your lost time
