" cannot be accessed. The file may be read-only...

J

Jason

We are experiencing a locking problem, but don't get any
pointers to where or how the xls file got locked.
the files are shared on win2k pro sp3 and the clients are
also win2k pro sp3 both have excel 2000 (9.0.2720).

i'm worried that the problem may be compounded by a laptop
using Offline files. but even after making the laptop
synchronize, the problem persists.

the message we get is:
" cannot be accessed. The file may be read-only, or you
may be trying to access a read-only location. Or, the
server the document is stored on may not be responding.
retry or cancel

then you hit cancel and get:
File is locked. In order to save changes to the file, you
can either close the file before making any changes and
then re-open it, use Save As (File Menu) to save the file
using another file name, or turn off Shared Workbooks and
then save the file.

the document will then open as read-only. closing and
then opening does the same thing over and over. save
as... results in a "file not saved" message and we've
never used shared workbooks. we've also tried clearing
out temp on client and server as well as rebooting.

copying the file locally or to another name doesn't unlock
it either. so the lock seems to be within the xls file.
the only way out so far has been to copy/paste the
contents to a new file.

this happens a couple times a week and is a thorn in our
side. i'd love it if there was a cleaning routine to
either unlock or uncorrupt whatever is going wrong.

i found a knowledgebase doc on opportunistic file locking,
but i'd rather not risk opening the share to access issues
if for once a file did really need to be locked.

looking forward to a solution,
-jason
 

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