Can't save files to SBS2003 network with Office 2008 on 10.6

[spacedog3k]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)
Processor: Intel

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone besides me has encountered a problem saving Office 2008 documents to a Windows server (SBS2003 SP2, not RC2 in my case) in 10.6.

After upgrading to 10.6 everything seemed to be fine with my Office installation until I tried to save a document that I had opened from a network share. When trying to save a document opened from a Windows share I receive the following error message:

Word cannot save this file. The disk may be full or write protected.
Try one or more of the following:
* Free more memory
* Make sure that the disk you want to save the file on is not full, write protected, or damaged

The error in Excel is similar, I have not tried PowerPoint but I would expect the same message.

Needless to say the disk is not write protected and the file is not read only. I can open and edit other files in the same folder in different applications, I can even open Word docs in TextEdit and overwrite the file but Office 2008 will not save the file. If I try to save the file to my local drive after the error message is displayed, Office crashes.

I am connecting to the share through the network browser in the sidebar but have also tried the Connect to Server menu and tried both smb and cifs connections. Neither works.

I have removed and reinstalled Office 2008 and run the updates to 12.2.1, I have reboot several times, repaired disk permissions and run a disk check, all to no avail.

I am trying to connect with a MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz with 4GB or RAM running 10.6

Anyone else having this problem? Anyone else having success?

- Craig

 

[spacedog3k]

Update:

I can create a new document in Word and save it to the server in .docx format (.doc will NOT save at all) When it saves however is becomes a read only file even though the permissions show that I have read/write permissions on the file (I see this both on the Mac side as well as the server side security properties). At this point I can make a change and do a Save As and it will save, but as a read only again and they have to be .docx files to be able to even do that.

 

[Justin]

Craig,

I am having the same problem. I have snow leopard installed on 9 machines
and all are experiencing this strange issue. My guess is that we will have to
wait for a patch from Microsoft.

So much for this blog post where Microsoft said "Office 2008 for Mac is Snow
Leopard tested and ready!"
http://www.officeformac.com/blog/Ready-for-Snow-Leopard

 

[kross76]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone besides me has encountered a problem saving Office 2008 documents to a Windows server (SBS2003 SP2, not RC2 in my case) in 10.6.

After upgrading to 10.6 everything seemed to be fine with my Office installation until I tried to save a document that I had opened from a network share. When trying to save a document opened from a Windows share I receive the following error message:

Word cannot save this file. The disk may be full or write protected.
Try one or more of the following:
*Free more memory
*Make sure that the disk you want to save the
file on is not full, write protected, or damaged

The error in Excel is similar, I have not tried PowerPoint but I would expect the same message.

Needless to say the disk is not write protected and the file is not read only. I can open and edit other files in the same folder in different applications, I can even open Word docs in TextEdit and overwrite the file but Office 2008 will not save the file. If I try to save the file to my local drive after the error message is displayed, Office crashes.

I am connecting to the share through the network browser in the sidebar but have also tried the Connect to Server menu and tried both smb and cifs connections. Neither works.

I have removed and reinstalled Office 2008 and run the updates to 12.2.1, I have reboot several times, repaired disk permissions and run a disk check, all to no avail.

I am trying to connect with a MacBook Pro 2.4 GHz with 4GB or RAM running 10.6

Anyone else having this problem? Anyone else having success?

- Craig

Hi Craig,

I have this exact same issue trying to save files to an XP machine on my network. I have 2 Mac's running 10.6 and they both have the same problem. I have 1 Mac running 10.5.8 and it doesn't have the problem. As someone else said, .DOCX formats seem to work OK, while .DOC exhibits this exact bug. Hopefully someone from MSFT (or Apple?) will take note. It seems to be something in 10.6.

 

[kross76]

Here's a little more information on my issue - Mac 10.6; and Office (with all updates). Operating from a Mac, files stored on XP on my network.

a) I can save a new file from Mac to XP if it's a .DOCX format. If it's .DOC format, I cannot save.

b) When I retrieve a file in .DOCX format, it gives me the "read only" notation by the file name. This seems to be the problem.

c) when trying the same process with the Mac Text Editor, I have the same problem as with a .DOC file - although the error messages are not as clearl.

 

[kross76]

Here's the solution (an anomaly???). Under 10.5, when I connected to my XP computer, I could read / write files in the folders without having to have set permissions on the folder(s). Perhaps this was a bug in 10.5?

I went into my folders on the XP computer, and changed the sharing permissions to read and write. That solved my problem for Word, Excel and Text Edit

 

[BSUK]

I'm having the exact same issue.
Even with Office updated to SP2 (12.2.0)

Strangely it works OK on a different share on the exact same server.
This would have been a show stopped if I had upgraded my users to 10.6
without noticing..

BSUK.

 

[BSUK]

Sorry, I should have mentioned also:
The file server is running Windows 2003 R2 SP2
The 10.6 macs are connecting via SMB.

BSUK.

 

[spacedog3k]

kross76,

Unfortunately, being a Windows Server, there were already implicit read/write permissions set for the share. The permissions have been double checked and Domain Users have read/write access. As a Domain admin I should be able to write the volume even if this were not true. While this sloution doesn't help me maybe will help others or provide a clue to the underlying problem.

 

[spacedog3k]

BSUK,

Did you notice any difference between the two shares? Are the permissions exactly the same? What privileges are you using when saving to the shares (admin, standard user etc.)?

I agree about it being a show stopper, I was getting ready to upgrade a couple of network clients and luckily I discovered this issue just in time!

 

[horqua]

BSUK,

Did you notice any difference between the two shares? Are the permissions exactly the same? What privileges are you using when saving to the shares (admin, standard user etc.)?

I agree about it being a show stopper, I was getting ready to upgrade a couple of network clients and luckily I discovered this issue just in time!

 

[horqua]

Sorry about the previous empty post. I hit the button too soon.

My experience today is my inability to save to my Ubuntu fileserver from my
Macbook Pro using Word for Mac. I've had the same problem using other
software such as the Adobe suite. I have experienced the same difficulties as
all the other posts including the file permissions error, read/write,
Save/Save As. This is an obvious Mac programming problem. My OS version is
10.5.8. I've made changes in the smb.conf file in Ubuntu with no success.
I've read some posts today regarding modifying the smb.conf file in the Mac
but I'm unable to locate that file, let alone make changes to it. This is a
royal inconvenience! I am anxious to find a solution and I hope, if one of
you does, you will share it with the rest of us, as will I. Best of luck!

 

[spacedog3k]

horqua,

While these 'may' be related there are several differences between the problems you describe and what I am talking about. At this point I think it is more of a MS issue but it is possible it is an Apple error.

First off The issue I am having started in 10.6. 10.5.x have zero problems on all the Mac in our networks. Second, I am NOT seeing this problem in any other application. only Office and the factthat .doc and .docx respond differently would lead me to believe that at least part of the problem may lay in the formatting of MS files.

I have heard of a permissions issue in 10.5 that effected Adobe products where saving to a server created read-only files but I think this is a bit different. Since .doc files will not save at all (even new ones) and the fact that I can save other file types to the server fine leads me to believe that is is a MS issue or a MS/Apple issue combination.

I am going to start posting this info to some other sites to see what I can find out. I am also going to try and contact tech support for Apple and MS to see if they will listen. I will post back if I hear anything from either company.

 

[BSUK]

I can't see any difference between the two shares. They are on the same
server, sharing the same array, just a different partition - sharing
permissions set to everyone full control, NTFS permissions = I'm a domain
admin.
In fact.....

Maybe this has something to do with the size of the share.
The ones that it works on are less than 1tb.
The problematic share is over 2tb in size... I'm going to investigate
this further.

BSUK

 

[davidms]

I have had the exact same problem in my offices.

The server settings are fine (as they were prior to upgrading to Snow Leopard). Only Microsoft Office applications exhibit the problem.

What has worked is to open a .xls or .doc file and save it as an .xls or docx file. The problem is that many of my Windows users have older versions of Office. They can convert the files, but it is slow process.

I do find it ironic that non-Microsoft applications access Windows disks just fine under Snow Leopard, but Microsoft applications do not . . .

Now onto the next problems: the Word Custom Dictionary stopped working and the Entourage database is corrupting every 2-3 days.

 

[spacedog3k]

davidns,

Once you save the files as .docx can you save again? I can open a .doc file and save as a .docx but that .docx file then becomes read only. Mind you I can't save in .doc at all.

 

[spacedog3k]

I have contacted MS Support about this issue. They have taken some information and are going to get back to me late Monday with their preliminary findings. I will update when I hear back from them.

 

[spacedog3k]

Ok so this is weird, I am now able to save .doc and .xls files to the server. I am not sure what changed as I haven't done any thing unusual to my computer or the server between when it didn't work and when it did. I am keeping my support ticket open with MS in case the problem comes back and my support rep promised he would forward on to me any resolutions he discovered from the other case(s) that have been opened regarding this issue.

My next step is to upgrade another Mac in the Office to 10.6.1 and see it is exhibits the same issue or not.

Has anybody else had the problem "solve itself"?

 

[Mopo]

I am having the same issue but only after I joined my machine to AD and
logged in as an AD user.

Before, I was just connecting to the network shares via SMB://... and
logging in. No Problems.

Now after joining the machine to AD and connecting to my shares, every time
I save a file to a network location, it gets marked as read-only,

 

[Mopo]

I am having the same problem but only after I joined my Mac to AD.

Before: Connected to network drives via "Connect to Server" function and
typed smb://... and logged in. No problems saving documents.

Now: Now that I am joined to AD and logged in as an AD user I get many
problems saving documents from Word.

It seems that every time I save a document to a network drive, the file
changes to read only. I can open the file once, but once I edit it and save
it, it changes to read only and I cannot make further edits. I can see this
from the title bar of the document I have open.

I also get a message that I do not have permission to open the document when
I try to attach it to an email and try to open it from the email by double
clicking it.

Even if I create the document and save it to my desktop, then drag it to a
network location, once I open it and save it, it changes to read only again.
If I close Word completely and re-open the document, I can edit it. But once
I save again, it goes back to read-only until I exit Word completely.

In addition to this problem, there is also a problem saving .doc file to a
network drive. The above problem happens when I save the document in .docx
format, but if I created a new document and save it as a .doc file, it will
not allow me to save the file at all giving an error that the disk may be
full or write protected.

I do not have this problem when using TextEdit to create and save documents.
I can even use TextEdit to open one of the docx files that I am having
trouble with and I can edit and save it from TextEdit without issue.