Roaming Office Errors for Network Users

[javaman]

We have had ongoing issues with Word and Excel, both v.X and 2004. In
Word, the problem is usually a Disk Full error, with Excel it is usually
a Document not Saved error when the user saves.

Our users are network accounts on Xserves running 10.4.9 and clients are
both PPC and X86 Macs, running 10.4.7 - 10.4.9. All user IDs are unique
and managed via Open Directory.

The problems arise typically after the user has been working with the
file for some time. In the Word situation, the error pops up
unexpectedly, while the Excel error only pops up on a save.

In both cases, Word and Excel fail to Save or to Save As under a
different name. We have found that quitting the program brings up the
"Do you want to save your document" dialog, and if you say save, it does
save the document.

Users can then re-open the document and things are usually OK. I say
usually because this problem crops up periodically throughout our
network. It may pester a few users for a day or so and then go away for
a month. It can be focused on a single user account. Other users have no
issues doing similar things while the victim is plagued with multiple
occurances.

Needless to say, this is a tech support headache.

I've found similar sounding problems dealing with long path names and
with non-unique user IDs, but the intermittancy of these issues is
baffling.

Are there any other network sites with similar problems? Any workarounds
that can avoid this?

We have 7 sites, about 150 computers per site. All Macs on Xserves.

 

[Mickey Stevens]

Check this page for help with the "Disk Full" error in Word:
http://www.word.mvps.org/Mac/DiskFullError.html

 

[John McGhie]

Just to add a datapoint to your investigation, I would suggest that the
issue is with the Temporary Files", not with the document file itself.

Word users require Rename and Remove permissions to the temporary directory
to be able to save their files. Word creates as many as 20 temporary files
per document, depending on how long they have it open and what they are
doing to it.

I have never done any Apple server network stuff, so I am way out of my
depth here: but I seem to remember that the system creates a temporary
folder in the root of the share. I can't remember whether there is one for
each user. But there's something in the mists of my memory about how the
users need to be in a group with RWX privileges to that folder, or you get
these problems.

Hope this helps

We have had ongoing issues with Word and Excel, both v.X and 2004. In
Word, the problem is usually a Disk Full error, with Excel it is usually
a Document not Saved error when the user saves.

Our users are network accounts on Xserves running 10.4.9 and clients are
both PPC and X86 Macs, running 10.4.7 - 10.4.9. All user IDs are unique
and managed via Open Directory.

The problems arise typically after the user has been working with the
file for some time. In the Word situation, the error pops up
unexpectedly, while the Excel error only pops up on a save.

In both cases, Word and Excel fail to Save or to Save As under a
different name. We have found that quitting the program brings up the
"Do you want to save your document" dialog, and if you say save, it does
save the document.

Users can then re-open the document and things are usually OK. I say
usually because this problem crops up periodically throughout our
network. It may pester a few users for a day or so and then go away for
a month. It can be focused on a single user account. Other users have no
issues doing similar things while the victim is plagued with multiple
occurances.

Needless to say, this is a tech support headache.

I've found similar sounding problems dealing with long path names and
with non-unique user IDs, but the intermittancy of these issues is
baffling.

Are there any other network sites with similar problems? Any workarounds
that can avoid this?

We have 7 sites, about 150 computers per site. All Macs on Xserves.

--
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John McGhie, Consultant Technical Writer
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
http://jgmcghie.fastmail.com.au/
Auckland, New Zealand
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]