PowerPoint 2004 save problems

[Chris Bailey]

Just started running into this apparent save bug with 2004 on one of our
Macs in the office. After the guy opens his PowerPoint file and hits save,
he gets the warning, "There was an error accessing (filename)." He
acknowledges the error and tries to save again, whereupon it says,
"(Filename) is read-only. Do you want to save changes under a different
name?" He gives the file another name and it saves fine. But he may have to
do this *every* time he saves, so now he's got file-1.ppt, file-2.ppt,
file-3.ppt, and so on. Very annoying.

I can't say for sure if this was PowerPoint 2004 or 2004 with SP1. Assuming
that the SP1 patch might have fixed the problem, I ran the updater and it
didn't -- only to realize I forgot to check if the SP1 patch had already
been installed, which it might have -- I can't remember. In any case, I then
took the show to another Mac running OS X 10.3.5 and Office 2004 (same as
this one) and the file opened and saved just fine -- even after I applied
the SP1 patch. So it's not just 2004 or 2004 with SP1 but there's some other
factor involved here like a font that's installed on system X but not system
Y. That's hard to figure because both systems are pretty much the same, so I
don't know what the distinguishing factor is here.

Tried the usual spate of things -- repair permissions, check for new Apple
software updates, restart computer, etc. Nothing going on there. And other
people have reported this problem in this forum, so it's obviously a
conflict or bug of some sort. Has anyone had any luck developing a
workaround or narrowing the cause of the problem?

Thanks...

 

[Andy H]

Just started running into this apparent save bug with 2004 on one of our
Macs in the office. After the guy opens his PowerPoint file and hits save,
he gets the warning, "There was an error accessing (filename)." He
acknowledges the error and tries to save again, whereupon it says,
"(Filename) is read-only. Do you want to save changes under a different
name?" He gives the file another name and it saves fine. But he may have to
do this *every* time he saves, so now he's got file-1.ppt, file-2.ppt,
file-3.ppt, and so on. Very annoying.

I can't say for sure if this was PowerPoint 2004 or 2004 with SP1. Assuming
that the SP1 patch might have fixed the problem, I ran the updater and it
didn't -- only to realize I forgot to check if the SP1 patch had already
been installed, which it might have -- I can't remember. In any case, I then
took the show to another Mac running OS X 10.3.5 and Office 2004 (same as
this one) and the file opened and saved just fine -- even after I applied
the SP1 patch. So it's not just 2004 or 2004 with SP1 but there's some other
factor involved here like a font that's installed on system X but not system
Y. That's hard to figure because both systems are pretty much the same, so I
don't know what the distinguishing factor is here.

Tried the usual spate of things -- repair permissions, check for new Apple
software updates, restart computer, etc. Nothing going on there. And other
people have reported this problem in this forum, so it's obviously a
conflict or bug of some sort. Has anyone had any luck developing a
workaround or narrowing the cause of the problem?

Thanks...

Have you checked Ownership & Permissions for the offending file? To
do this: control-click the file in a Finder window, click "get info",
click the flippy triangle next to "Details" at the bottom of the "get
info" window to see all of the ownership & permissions. Set them as
needed to access the file normally.

 

[dano]

Have you checked Ownership & Permissions for the offending file? To
do this: control-click the file in a Finder window, click "get info",
click the flippy triangle next to "Details" at the bottom of the "get
info" window to see all of the ownership & permissions. Set them as
needed to access the file normally.

One of my users has just reported this problem also.
I tried all the remedies listed by the original poster - repair
permissions in Disk Utility; restart computer; fsck; update Office - and
even specifically set ownership and permissions to be owned by the
account. Even went so far as to delete the account and move all files
into a new account. (This resets file ownership and permissions to those
of the new account.) I did not copy over any of the Microsoft Office
preference files, in case the problem was embedded there. (I did try
another account on the machine and the problem was reproducible across
accounts on the same machine.)

None of these remedies worked. PowerPoint files still give the same
error.

By the way, I discovered the following reproducible sequence:

1. Open file, do work and save.
2. Error occurs with message: "There was an error accessing
<volume>:Users:<accountname>esktop:<filename.ppt>
3. Click Okay.
4. New dialog box appears with message:
<volumename>:Users:<accountname>esktop:<filename.ppt> is read-only.
Would you like to save changes under a different name?
5. Click Yes.
6. Save file under <originalname+1.ppt>.
7. Make changes to file.
8. Save (successfully!).
9. Make changes to file and save.
10. Error message in 2 appears, and cycle begins again.

I am able to save once for each new file name, but then have to change
the file name to save again.


Will test the problem file on another machine that is currently acting
properly.

(Note that this does not happen with Word or Excel files.)

 

[dano]

Will test the problem file on another machine that is currently acting
properly.

Moving the file to another machine allows the file to save correctly.
Apparently there is a problem with some machine-specific system-wide
settings file that relates to PowerPoint.

 

[dano]

Moving the file to another machine allows the file to save correctly.
Apparently there is a problem with some machine-specific system-wide
settings file that relates to PowerPoint.

Further troubleshooting notes on this problem.

Deleting all Microsoft Office 2004 files including preferences (via the
Remove Office tool) from the machine and reinstalling does not solve the
problem.

Operating as root - the account that owns all files on the machine and
thus should be able to save any and all changes to any directory - is
afflicted by the problem as well. That is, even root gets the error
message that it cannot save the file and must change the name.