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Question
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Issue when saving Excel files from Mac OS X Server network share.

FolsomFan asked on

I am having a major issue saving Excel files that I open from my companies server.  Here is the scenario.

I am running Office 2011 (v. 14.4.47) on an iMac running Mac OS X 10.2.2 Yosemite.

Our office has a Mac Mini server running OS X Yosemite 10.2.2 and Apple Server.  We are a law office of 4 people.

When I navigate to a client's folder and double click on the Excel file it opens just fine.  I then go about my business and edit fields.

When I go to save the file I click on the Disk icon in the tool bar.  When I do this I receive the following message:

"Document saved successfully.

Cannot reopen the saved document due to low memory.  Please close the document."

I click the OK button and the message goes away.

I then proceed to go up to the close button (red) and click it.  When clicked I received the following message.

"The file shared foldername:C_Clients:Smith, John:Medical Bills:15-01-13 Medical Bills Spreadsheet.xlxs is locked in the Finder.

To save your changes, locate the file in the Finder, click Get Info, and then clear the Locked check box."

I then click OK.  The message goes away but there is NO way to close this Excel file.  I end up force quitting Excel to close of the file.

More Info to consider:

To my knowledge, no one else in the office is having this issue.  The others are running 10.10.2 or 10.9.5 on iMacs.  I am the only one having this issue.

Please let me know what else I can do to help fix this issue.  

Thanks,

Brent

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FolsomFan replied on

Thanks again for your reply Bob.  I ended up erasing the iMac that was having the issues and reinstalling Mac OS X Mavericks.  Under Mavericks the issues with saving, corruption, the extra file showing up goes away.  Can't say why Mavericks solves the issue but it seems that we are working again with no issues.  Just to be clear, I did not change the server.  The server is still running Yosemite.  The permissions for the user are the same as there were before.

Thanks, for your advice and help.

- Brent

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BobGreenblatt replied on
Does the same thing happen when you use Close from the File menu instead of the red button? have you checked to make sure you have read/write permissions for the file and its enclosing folder.
Bob
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FolsomFan replied on

Thanks Bob for your reply.  Let me answer your question and then add some additional information.

Yes, the same error appears if I click close from the File Menu.  Not only did I check to make sure I had Read/Write permissions on this document (check on the server app via Yosemite server) but even changed the permissions for the folder to be "Full Access."  I also propagated permissions on the server.  No difference.

Here are some things that I tested and noticed.

I took the Excel file that was stating that it was a locked file and I recreated it from scratch and saved to the server.  That seems to allow me to open it without error.

Because I am using the Finder to navigate to the file I am opening I can see the file in the Finder window (off to the side) while I have the document open.  I noticed that every time I open a file there is a new document that appears next to the .xls file in the finder window.  This file will be named something like 70457000.  

I will edit the Excel File and go to Save it the following alert will appear:

"Document saved successfully.

Cannot reopen the saved document due to low memory.  Please close the document."

The recreated document I am working on will now allow me to close it without error.  However, that file named 70457000 will still be present in the Finder window along side the .xls file.

Now, if I try to reopen the file either on this same computer or if I go to another computer in the office and try to open the file I will receive the following error message:

"Excel could not open "name of file" because some content is unreadable.  Do you want to open and repair this workbook?

If Excel Cannot repair the file, some data may be lost.

[Cancel]  [Open and Repair]"

If you click on Open and Repair it will state that it can't repair the file.

Ok, so here is something I tried.  I thought this error might be appearing because that 70457000 file is still present in the finder (even though the document was closed).

If I quit Excel on that original computer, the 70457000 file would not disappear.  However, if I would disconnect from the server and then reconnect to the server the 704... file would be gone.  It seems that the server disconnect would trigger the 704 to disappear.

Now, without that 704 file present I would be able to open the file on that computer or any other computer in the office.  That said, if I was opening that file on a Yosemite machine it could create a new numbered file and the whole thing would start over again with the save successful - low memory, etc.

The only difference that I saw was when I opened the file (without the number file present) on a machine running Mavericks.  The Mavericks machine would not give me any errors.  

So, unless you guys can help me find a fix for my issue, I am going to plan to downgrade as many machines to Mavericks and call it good.  Unfortunately there is one machine in the office that shipped with Yosemite so I won't be able to downgrade that machine.

Hope this helps and thanks for the help/advice.

- Brent


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BobGreenblatt replied on

It certainly seems like a server issue. That numbered file is created by Excel when the file is opened and is supposed to be deleted when the file is closed. You will need full read/write permissions on the server folder containing the file you want to use, as Excel need to create and delete these temp files.

I'm not the best person the help here, but what is the type and version of the server? If you Google "Max Excel Server files" or some variation thereof you'll probably find several million hits and suggestions.

Bob
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FolsomFan replied on

Thanks again for your reply Bob.  I ended up erasing the iMac that was having the issues and reinstalling Mac OS X Mavericks.  Under Mavericks the issues with saving, corruption, the extra file showing up goes away.  Can't say why Mavericks solves the issue but it seems that we are working again with no issues.  Just to be clear, I did not change the server.  The server is still running Yosemite.  The permissions for the user are the same as there were before.

Thanks, for your advice and help.

- Brent

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jozefdresselaers replied on

I'm having exact the same issues (at a customer site) on 2 computers with OS X 10.2.x connecting to an updated OS X 10.2.x Server with Server-app version 4.

All other computers are working with OS X 10.8.x and 10.9.x and have no issues…

Maybe the (new) update to 10.3 on computer and/or 10.3 with Server-app version 4.1 on Server will solve this? Have to test this on the customers site.

Regards,

Jozef Dresselaers

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FolsomFan replied on

Jozef,

I am hoping for the same thing.  I am also hoping that Microsoft changes some of the way it save the files in the upcoming Office 2016 version.

Please report back your finding once you upgrade to the newest version of Server.app.

- Brent

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jozefdresselaers replied on

Status Update:

- Client computer upgrade from 10.10.2 to 10.10.3 > same problem with Excel

- OS X Server upgrade from 10.10.2 to 10.10.3 with Server.app v4.1 > the 'saving' problems seems to be fixed!

- Side effect on client computer: Working in MS Word on 10.10.3 becomes more and more unstable, Word regularly 'freezes' or 'unexpectedly quit'. > I've installed the latest Office updater 14.4.9 hopefully this will fix this… but the read me only tells about security fixes

- Jozef…

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FolsomFan replied on

Jozef,

Thanks so much for providing an update.  I hope to update my client's server OS and Server.app this week.  I agree that MS Office is becoming more unstable as the Mac OS versions increase.  I have been beta testing the Office 2016 version but won't be installing it on client machines until it is released.  Hoping for the best.

If you are interested in getting a copy of the MS Office beta go here:  

http://products.office.com/en-US/mac/mac-preview

Thanks again!

- Brent

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JoeneMAC replied on

Having similar issue(s), only have the 'saving' problem with excel.

SMB is off, only running AFP on the server.

Regularly get: 'File saved, but can not re-open/re-save file, please close file and re-open.'

File states it is corrupt on re-opening; but duplicating the file removes all temporary items (hidden 6 character hexadecimal filename - which is the 'safe save' file? -which can't be removed manually) and allows it to re-open.

Word and Excel are both stable on the client side.

Just curious:

Anything else change on the server side, beside the server.app and 10.10.3 update, that could have resolved the symptoms?

-Joene

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Mr. SPN replied on

Having a similar issues.

Running Mac Server 10.10

Client Mac  - All running Yosemite and office 2011 - About 25

SMB Turned off

All Connections via AFP.

We constantly get Low Memory Issues on  what I thought was random excel files...   I tried the following with no success.

1. Installing all updates on Client Mac

2. Install all patches and updates on office.

3. Repairing Disk Permisions, Even in safe mode

4. Enabled Font Book to automatically remove dupliactes.

In the end what worked was the following.

  1. Reboot the Mac

  2. Open up the problematic Spread Sheet

  3. Save it as the old version of excel  .Xls  ( Excel 97 -2004)  vs Xlsx

  4. Then Delete the original File.

The new Xls File works fine without any issues. - I might also add that the problematic spreads sheets also seem to have been created a long time ago ( Before  we took over the account).

I still have more to figure out on the issue - I'm wondering if Excel 365 will prevent this.

Best,

-Ivan

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