Saving to Mac OS X Server error (path length problem)

[John Lockwood]

I suspect this is an old bug that is still present but I could not find it
mentioned.


We have an Xserve running Mac OS X 10.3.9 (it will eventually be upgraded to
10.4.x but that is what it is running right now). The server is acting as an
AFP server (that is the protocol the clients use to connect).

We have various Mac clients (PowerBooks and PowerMacs) running either 10.3.8
or 10.4.3. All the client machines are running Office 2004 11.2.1 (the
latest).

One particular department has setup a folder with lots of sub folders nested
many levels deep. This results in a very long file path

E.g.
/Shared/Folder1/Folder1.1/Folder1.1.1/Folder1.1.1.1/Folder1.1.1.1.1/Filename
..xls

Note: in reality the path is MUCH longer than shown above.

If a spreadsheet in the sub-sub-sub folder is opened and the user tries to
do a SaveAs in to the same folder (with a different name) then the user gets
an error message saying

"Document not saved." [OK]

By the way, programmers who write such useless and uninformative error
messages should be sacked (i.e. the error messages should say WHY was it not
saved).

If the same document is saved in a folder not as deeply nested then Excel
does successfully save it. Furthermore TextEdit (as an example) is able to
do a SaveAs in to the same deeply nested folder. Therefore it is NOT an
operating system or fileserver issue but is limited to Excel (and probably
the rest of Office 2004).

A work around is to save to the users Desktop and then drag the file in to
the desired folder.

On a slightly related topic, I see that in Office 2004 11.2.1 the "Send
Feedback on Excel" option still ends up on a webpage THAT DOES NOT LET YOU
SEND FEEDBACK. As has been discussed here before, Microsoft no longer let
you send feedback (unless you count this newsgroup). Continuing to list this
menu command is basically a falsehood and Microsoft should remove it rather
than looking like idiots, of course even better would be for them to RESTORE
the feedback webpage.

While the error reporting wizard that runs after an Office crash is useful
and good (and an idea that Apple have copied in Mac OS X), it would also be
useful to directly report bugs (many of which would not be covered by the
crash reporting wizard) and request features (both of which Apple DO let you
do using their website unlike Microsoft).

 

[PhilD]

"Document not saved." [OK]

By the way, programmers who write such useless and uninformative error
messages should be sacked (i.e. the error messages should say WHY was it not
saved).

.... and saying "OK" should be outlawed, too, because it's NOT OK. Even
if the button said something like [close message] it would be better.
It's worst when the message is something along the lines of "I'm going
to shut your computer down" [OK]. I mean, if I thought it was OK, I'd
do it myself.

Grrrrrr!

PhilD