Word Save Problem Since Snow Leopard Upgrade

[John McGhie]

It's important for you to understand that you are NOT having the same
problem You may be getting similar symptoms, but it's not the same
problem: Word 2008 has quite a different engine from Word 2004.

Given that, we need the same kind of detail about your problem as we have on
the 2008 one.

Have you checked your OS settings? It sounds as though some of the OS
settings Word relies on have not been set correctly.

Sorry: No enough detail to begin to help.

I am having the same problem with Word 2004. One chapter in my PhD has
embedded xl files and crashes on manual or auto save and no recovered
document. File dates revert to US format in folders and keep changing. Changed
the file to RTF then renamed on a different computer changed back to .doc made
no difference. Please can someone help?

--
Don't wait for your answer, click here: http://www.word.mvps.org/

Please reply in the group. Please do NOT email me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP, Word and Word:Mac
Sydney, Australia. mailto:[email protected]

 

[libstr]

I saved the docx and xlsx as doc and xls and I was finally able to save on our server at work.

 

[John McGhie]

I suspect the file format may have had nothing to do with the result

The server is not actually aware of the format of the file: all it knows is
that "My document.doc" and "My document.docx" are two DIFFERENT files.

The file server reads the entire string, including the path name, the
period, and the extension, as a single string.

So if the server is holding "My document.docx" locked for some reason, and
you save it as "My document.doc" it's two different files, and they will
indeed save independently.

Or do you mean that you opened "my document.docx", made a change and tried
to save and it wouldn't save. So then you saved it as "my document.doc",
reopened it, made a change, and saved, and this time it saved OK?

If that's what's happening, that's very strange.

Cheers

I saved the docx and xlsx as doc and xls and I was finally able to save on our
server at work.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[libstr]

I noticed that my Word documents were being saved on the server and I realized that I was saving them as .doc and not .docx files. I opened my Excel file (which would not save on the same server) and noted they were being saved as .xlsx files - so I changed them to .xls in the pull-down in the "save as" menu and voila!

I will try it on the pptx files that were not saving on the server when I get to work.

 

[libstr]

Tried a brand new .pptx and it didn't work. Saved as .ppt and it saved on the server.

 

[HMF]

I downloaded and ran snow leopard cache cleaner (selected "all" under
"Maintain"), which fixed the issue for me.

 

[John McGhie]

Thanks:

OK, that's worth asking a hard question of your Network Administrator.

What are they doing differently for .docx and .xlsx files ?

You won't want to run in downgraded mode for too long: you lose quite a bit
of functionality downgrading a .docx to a .doc. Same with downgrading a
..xlsx to a .xls.

Cheers

I noticed that my Word documents were being saved on the server and I realized
that I was saving them as .doc and not .docx files. I opened my Excel file
(which would not save on the same server) and noted they were being saved as
.xlsx files - so I changed them to .xls in the pull-down in the "save as" menu
and voila!

I will try it on the pptx files that were not saving on the server when I get
to work.

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

--

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[gbs]

John to answer part of your question... this happens on two of my networks in
different cities. With or without admin access to the server. On both
Windows 2003 and 2007 server. All running Office 2007 Mac.

 

[John McGhie]

Sorry, I am not a network engineer...

How are you authenticating those users? Macs run on the Unix ID. The
default is "503". If they are not authenticating to the Active Directory,
they could have the same Unix ID on each user, which means the file server
thinks the same user is trying to open the file multiple times.

Sorry: You need a Network Engineer...

John to answer part of your question... this happens on two of my networks in
different cities. With or without admin access to the server. On both
Windows 2003 and 2007 server. All running Office 2007 Mac.

--

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[SeanPT]

I'm running into this same problem office wide after our upgrade to Snow
Leopard. My experiences match this thread. It isn't a permissions error on
the server (SMB share in SBS2003) as files can be deleted and added in Finder
just fine.

 

[John McGhie]

It may still be a permissions error.

Word also needs "Execute" permissions to the folders involved (for the
document, the backup, and the Temp files).

A Word "Save" is actually a sequence of Write, Rename, Rename, Delete (which
is also a rename).

First it writes the file to a Temp file, then Renames the Current as the
Backup, then renames the Temp to the Current, then Deletes (re-names) the
Backup.

To test this, log the user on as a network administrator and try the
operation. I bet it succeeds...

Cheers

I'm running into this same problem office wide after our upgrade to Snow
Leopard. My experiences match this thread. It isn't a permissions error on
the server (SMB share in SBS2003) as files can be deleted and added in Finder
just fine.

--

This email is my business email -- Please do not email me about forum
matters unless you intend to pay!

John McGhie, Microsoft MVP (Word, Mac Word), Consultant Technical Writer,
McGhie Information Engineering Pty Ltd
Sydney, Australia. | Ph: +61 (0)4 1209 1410
+61 4 1209 1410, mailto:[email protected]

 

[Jay2k1]

Hi,

I have the same issues. Let me tell you all some details.

I am a sysadmin. Our file server is a CentOS 5 (RedHat-like) Linux with
Samba on ext3 FS. The relevant smb.conf settings:
create mask = 0775
directory mask = 0775
force create mode = 0775
force directory mode = 0775

Most of the Mac users here still use Office X or 2004 and OS X 10.4 or 10.5.
Now we have a new Macbook w/ 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and Office 2008. I don't
know about Word or PPT, but when trying to save an Excel file on a Samba
share on the server, we get that error message that Excel cannot access the
file "sharenameaththerpath:041A0200" or some other 8-letter random string.
Seems Excel creates a temp file, tries to write to that file and presumably
renames it afterwards. The file actually is created but has 0 byte.
Interestingly, when I try to save as 97-2004 file (.xls) it works
flawlessly. Just the default setting (.xlsx) keeps failing with the mentioned
error.

Also, as others said before, I can save new/existing/other files, rename
them, edit them, delete them etc. without any problem from within any other
application on that macbook. it's just the Office apps that show these issue.

Perhaps this helps the MS engineers track down the issue (different methods
used when saving another format?)

 

[CTICompServ]

Yes, I have the same problem. I am not able to save Office 2008 doc or xls
files to our Windows server volumes. It worked with Leopard but not with
Snow Leopard. I can, however, save docx and xlsx files to the same volumes.

Kent

 

[CTICompServ]

Just wanted to add that this problem also applies to Adobe products.
I can Save As but not Save a file in Illustrator, Photoshop, Word,
Excel, etc. Sounds like a permissions issue involving the
aforementioned temp files. I've got my Network Admin guys looking
into it. If anybody has a fix, I'm all ears.

What Adobe version are you having trouble with? I'm using Adobe CS3 and
don't have that problem.

Kent

 

[CTICompServ]

I should also add that I am a domain admin and still can't save doc and xls
files to my home folder on a Windows volume.

 

[CTICompServ]

This didn't work for me.

Kent

 

[CTICompServ]

This didn't work for me.

Kent

 

[Dan MTR]

We have had this issue since "upgrading" to Snow Leopard.

Connecting with SMB, AD Accounts Have "Full Permissions" to File Shares
Running on Server 2003 R2.

No Issues Previously on Leopard.

Effects Word and Excel files of doc, docx, xls, and xlsx

I've heard that NFS shares may work, but have yet to implement...

....Does this help anything. -Dan

 

[Joshua]

We have had this issue since "upgrading" to Snow Leopard.

Connecting with SMB, AD Accounts Have "Full Permissions" to File Shares
Running on Server 2003 R2.

No Issues Previously on Leopard.

Effects Word and Excel files of doc, docx, xls, and xlsx

I've heard that NFS shares may work, but have yet to implement...

...Does this help anything. -Dan

For those who are still troubled by this problem....


I had the same problem of not being able to edit and save files on a
samba shared folder using links/aliases in the side bar etc that
existed before upgrading to Snow Leopard.

I am now able to save these files after disconnecting and reconnecting
to the samba shares and recreating the links/aliases. To be exact, I
ejected the mounted network folders and connected again using Connect
As in the finder window after navigating to the folder on the server.

My guess is that the Snow Leopard upgrade missed some updating on
previously saved links to network folders such that applications are
not able to save directly into the shared folders but users can move
the files manually into these shared folders.

 

[jbassett]

THIS RESOLVED MY SIMILAR ISSUE:

Had the issue with saving Microsoft Office 2008 files back to the shared
drive of a Microsoft Windows XP Home machine. Had not performed an update of
the Mac but had rebuilt the Microsoft Windows machine, only this time I had
placed the shared folder inside the users My Documents directory.

The work failed to save from the Mac but was saving fine when mounted on
another Microsoft Windows machine.

Turns out that prior to the Microsoft Windows rebuild, the share was at the
root of C:\. Whereas after the rebuild I placed the share in the users My
Documents directory. By moving the share back to the root of C:\ all is now
well.

My guess is that for some reason the Microsoft Windows share is superimposing
restrictions upon the shared folder if it is inside the home directory of
some particular user.